Best Wii Fitness Game: Walk It Out Review

If you are looking for a fun way to work out without breaking the bank, you should definitely check out the Wii game, Walk It Out, by Konami.  Don't be fooled: while Walk It Out definitely looks like a kid's game, it's definitely more well-suited for teens and adults. I suspect that most kids would get bored easily with this game. Some adults, too, I suppose. Still, at $20, it's a steal! You don't need any special controllers either, just a Wii console, controller, and nun-chuck. The game is compatible with both the Wii Balance Board and DDR Dance Mat, but neither is required. In fact, I don't recommend using the balance board with this game.

The premise of the game is that you are on an island (Rhythm Island, to be precise). The island needs your help in its development. In order to help, you need to earn points to unlock event capsules around the island. For every step that you make on the beat with the music, you earn a point. But, be careful, because if you don't have rhythm, you'll lose points for missing the steps.* Events include such things as "building" a palm tree for 100 steps, a potted plant for 10 steps, or a streetlight for 70 steps. You can build a car for 200 steps, an apartment complex for 600 steps, or a suspension bridge for 1000 steps. You also unlock routes around the island with your stepping. 300 points get you a trip to Fountain Park, 400 takes you to the beach, and 20 points unlocks a residential street. (*I recommend changing the settings so that you don't get a miss penalty!)

In addition to the event capsules scattered around the island, you'll find special event capsules, like song capsules, which look like CDs with green borders, magic clock pieces, zodiac capsules, and rainbow spheres. Unlike the event capsules which always stay in the same place on the island, no matter what time of the day you are playing, the special events appear at different times of the day and in different locations, too. The constellations only show up at night, and I suspect you can only get all the rainbow spheres during the day, but I'm not positive. The magic clock pieces, once you've collected them all, allow you to change the time of the day on the island, so that, for example, you don't have to walk at 3 AM in order to unlock the special events available at that time. That's the other thing I like about the island: the time that you play influences what's going on at the island. If it's daylight for you, it'll be daylight on the island. If it's dark, it will be dark there, too. 

I've played this game every day since I got in the the mail about two weeks ago. I play anywhere from 20 minutes to 50 minutes, depending on how I'm feeling, how into it I get, and my mood. The best part is that by "playing" I mean "exercising." It might not be the most strenuous exercise out there, but it gets my heart racing and I'm always super sweaty when I'm done, which is a good thing! Sweating equals weightloss, and if the Wii Balance Board is to be believed, I've lost 10 pounds in the last 25 days. (I'll write more about that in a few days when I detail my 30 day Wii Fit challenge.) 

Sometimes I focus on just collecting and unlocking song capsules, other days, I focus on getting a suspension bridge. Sometimes I don't think about anything at all and just walk wherever the game takes me. I'll use my points later, when I've amassed a bunch. I've probably unlocked about 25 songs of the 105 songs available, which means I still have a lot to go! I've unlocked probably 90% of the routes available on the island and completed maybe 20% of the town building. Which means I still have lots of walking to go before I've finished everything on the island. And when I finish the island? Word is that I can either create a new profile and start over or just keep walking the completed island and not spend those points. I'll probably start the island over and come up with a strategy for unlocking it, just to add a new challenge. Or maybe I'll put that miss penalty back on?

I'd write more about how much I love this game, but I just found this Walk It Out Guide and I'm busy reading it. Also, if I haven't convinced you to cough up $20 for this game, check out the Walk It Out Facebook page to connect with over 2000 fans.

Can Wii Fit help you lose weight?

Can Wii Fit help you lose weight? That's what I aim to find out! I've been using mine for 30 minutes day for a week now. Sure, I've gained a pound instead of losing, but whatever. I'm giving it at least a month before I make any judgments!

I've wanted a Nintendo Wii game console and Wii fit for ages now, but haven't really been able to justify the expense. We were lucky enough to get a free Wii console recently, and by combining a couple of gift cards, we ended up paying just $21 for a Wii Fit to go with our console. That, my friends, is a hell of a good deal.

I've been saying for months that if I had a Wii Fit, I'd use it every day. It's very easy to say that when you don't actually own one... haha! Still, we've had our Wii Fit set up for a week now, and I've done 30 minutes (at least) every single day for the last week. And I'm not being a twerp about it either, by playing that stupid lotus game for 30 minutes straight. (Apparently, I am literally unable to sit still!). Even though I recently found out that my Wii Fit is spying on me by asking my boyfriend about my posture, I still love it.

And the thing is, I still don't want to exercise. It's not like that I wake up and think, "Yay! Exercise!" Instead, I have to force myself to get started... but, the coolest thing about the Wii Fit is that once I get started, it's not that hard to keep going. Sometimes I do yoga, sometimes aerobics, and sometimes just a bunch of games. (I'm pretty good at that penguin slide game!) I haven't even tried any of the strength training yet, so I still have a lot to explore.

I set a goal of doing 20 minutes a day, minimum, but almost every day, I've done at least 10 minutes extra. One day, I did 50-some minutes. My favorite activity so far is the biking. I've unlocked the Advanced, Island View, and Expert courses. I haven't tried Expert yet, since I just unlocked it last night, but the Island View course took me 21 minutes and I think I ended with just over 5 miles. I don't know if this counts as "real" exercise, but it definitely gets me sweating!

This morning I woke up at 7:30 am and did 20 minutes of yoga before 8 am. Did I do this because I love yoga and was raring to go? Hell no! I decided to get exercise out of the way early so I didn't have to put it off all day. Haha!

I'm not bored with the Wii Fit yet, but I imagine I'll get bored with it eventually. So I ordered another Wii fitness game called Walk It Out. It should be arriving today or tomorrow, so I'll post about it once I've tried it. It got positive reviews on Amazon though and sounds like something I'll like. Eventually, I'm going to get EA Sports Active. Nick and I are saving our change; we have $16 towards the game so far.