EA Sports Active: More Workouts Reviews

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1. Nutwiisystem.Com says:

   May 13, 2011 at 10:38 pm

   643 of 647 people found the following review helpful:

   
   Still the best balance of fitness and fun out there., November 17, 2009

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   Nutwiisystem.Com (New York, NY USA) –
   
     

   Fun: 

   This review is from: EA Sports Active: More Workouts (Video Game)

   I admit, I was a little skeptical when I heard EA Sports was putting out a sequel to their original EA Sports Active so quickly. I’ve seen far too many companies enjoy success with a product and then rush out one substandard title after another in order to cash in.

   I’m happy to say that EA Sports Active: More Workouts doesn’t rest on the laurels of its predecessor, but adds an impressive amount of new and original exercises and fitness activities. They’ve also added new tools for managing your weight loss and fitness goals. Finally, they’ve added a well-thought-out 6-week workout program which rivals any program you’d pay much more money for at the gym.

   You technically don’t need the original EA Sports Active disc to play this game, although you do need the special accessories that came with it: the Leg Strap for the nunchuk and the Resistance Band. Neither are included in this game, so you’ll either need to purchase the original or buy the accessories separately with the EA Sports Active Multiplayer Pack.

   Unlike what Nintendo did with Wii Fit Plus, where they included both old and new features in the new version, EA Sports Active: More Workouts contains a new set of 30 exercises and 6 fitness activities which weren’t in the original. I did like how they came up with a set of totally new and original exercises, but I’m not crazy about the fact that I can’t integrate any of the old exercises in the new game. Luckily, for the most part the new exercises are an improvement, so I don’t miss the old ones too much.

   When you start up the disc for the first time, the system detects your old EA Sports Active profile data (if you have one) and instantly converts it. It’ll also ask you to validate your vital statistics. One huge improvement is that now you can use the Wii Balance Board to check your weight. The Balance Board is still optional, but the new exercises make such good use of it I highly recommend it.

   You can choose a male or female trainer (they’re slightly less creepy than in the first version), and customize your on-screen character. I would have liked a little more control over what you look like: you’re still limited to only a handful of body types, skin colors, and hair styles (but for some reason you now have 25 caps to choose from and 24 pairs of shoes)!

   Once you get to the main menu it looks about the same as the original version, with the same catchy music which you can’t get out of your head (do-do-dododo-do-do-do). The most obvious difference is that instead of a 30-day challenge, you now have the option to take a 6 week challenge.

   The new 6 week challenge is a vast improvement over the 30-day challenge. The length is a much more realistic one for weight loss, the workouts are much better designed to focus on different muscle groups more intensively throughout the workout, and you can choose from easy, medium, and hard levels (where hard really does mean hard). One other major improvement over the 30-day challenge is the ability to choose the days of the week to work out, rather than being forced into every other day. For me, I chose Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, mainly because I’m too busy during the week to take more than two weekdays.

   Another improvement is the Journal. This is where you can keep a virtual diary of your overall diet and exercise progress. You’ll also be able to take daily surveys which ask you questions such as “how many glasses of water did you consume yesterday” and “how many restaurant/fast food meals did you eat”. Like a personal trainer, the Wii will give you advice based on your answers (although I would have preferred to see the trainer change your actual workout based on what you say). There’s also a place in the journal where you can enter other physical activity you did outside of EA Sports Active More Workouts, letting you choose from a wide range of activities from walking to dancing to yoga.

   The reporting tools are also more impressive than in its predecessor. You can look up a weekly fitness tracker that shows calories burned, a chart of your weight, and the number of workouts, total exercise time, and number of miles covered in your EA Sports Active workout.

   EA Sports Active More Workouts has lots of new exercises. The 30 new exercises are improved over the original version and work out every part of you, from lower body to upper body. One other nice addition is a warm-up and cool-down period, just like a real training program. While I was never a huge fan of the “resistance band” (I thought it was a bit too flimsy for a Wii accessory), they did think of new and creative ways to use it. For example, to do “one-arm rows”, you’re instructed to fold the band in half and…

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2. Rajendra S. Gondhalekar says:

   May 13, 2011 at 11:01 pm

   106 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

   
   The best just got better, November 24, 2009

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   Rajendra S. Gondhalekar –
   
     

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   This review is from: EA Sports Active: More Workouts (Video Game)

   I have accumulated several Wii Exercise games over the past couple of years. Out of the ones I had tried (i.e., Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus, The Biggest Loser and EA Sports Active Personal Trainer), the EA game seemed to have the best motion recognition to give a good on-screen feedback, and the best regimen of exercises that actually raised my Fitness level visibly within a couple of weeks. It was the only game among the group I have that felt motivated to keep coming back to. The only problem with it was the heavy emphasis on the lower body exercises. It was very disappointing to hear the trainer say, we will focus on upper body today, only to be hit with a ton of crunches, squats, and jumps during the workout. There was also no specifically core muscle focused exercises in that game at all. After a few weeks, I did get a bit tired and slacked off of it, and tried those other games. But the lack of proper motion feedback made the workouts in the others very boring to me (like watching a DVD and trying to keep up). Well EA is back with their new game, and after two short days, I am glad to be back under the fold of their regimen. This game has seemingly addressed all the main gripes I had with their routine. We now get a six week challenge which actually lets you pick the days of the week you will always work on by default (four out of seven days are for workout and three are for resting). The workouts I’ve done so far also seem more varied, with my legs, arms, and middle section all getting worked on, but not abused. There also seem to be less of the long drawn out track runs, and more of the sporting activities. The graphics are about the same, and controls are good, not perfect, but good enough. The only thing I wish they had added was a random workout generator, where you placed a general set of goals (like say a 30 minute, 200 cal., whole body workout), and not get the same canned routine each time. The custom workout creator is fine, but it only generates your own fixed routines with no randomness. They also added real warm up stretches and cool downs, and not some hilarious interpretations of them like last time (run around the track three times and walk ten steps was their idea of a cool down before). The workouts also have gone down just a notch in intensity (which may be a result of their moving away from stressing your legs so much). I uses to struggle to complete some of the older routines on hard, but now seem to be doing OK through most of the ones I’ve seen. Overall, this seems to be a more sustainable pace, and in the long run that is a better approach. If you can only buy one workout game for the Wii, make it this one.

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