Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2009

Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2009

I've been looking forward to this game for awhile - even though I enjoy the concept of the Wii Fit, it frustrates me that I don't get to link their mini-games together. After every one, you go back out to the menu and have to choose another one. Fooey.

So I went out and bought this game the day it came out. I've played it awhile tonight and I'm pretty darned disappointed.

First, you set up your character - choosing a male or female, and then you can choose between two items for your shirts, pants and shoes - ooh. A few different colors, too. Very, very minimal customization here.

If you've got the Wii Balance Board, you can use it to enter your weight, and then use it for all the games too. Onto the games...

There are 11 games total, and you can link them together to do one right after the other (two minutes minimum on each) and also choose light, medium or hard intensity. The games are:

• Paint Grenade Toss: pick up paint grenades and throw them - basically, squat and then throw. Easy and very repetitive and dull.
• Cannon Attack: load cannon balls and aim and shoot the cannon. More squats and then lean to aim. Boring.
• Handcar pump: squat repeatedly and pump your arms up and down to move the handcar down the track. Yet more squats and you need to flick your wrists sharply to get it to register.
• Tire trail: run through a set of tires. Lean on the balance board and then flick your wrists to one side or the other. Not much of a workout, just flicking.
• Rowing: row a kayak by sitting on your balance board and moving the controllers to each side. Again, flicking is the key here. Painful because you keep hitting yourself with the cord between the controllers...
  
• Monkey bars: climb the monkey bars by leaning to the sides and putting your arms above your head and move them back and forth. Not too hard, but CONSTANTLY hitting your head with the cord between the controllers. Glargh.
• Log jump: jump from log to log by doing yet more squats
• Log walk: hold your arms out to the side (as much as the controller cord lets you) and balance while walking on a log. Dull.
• Boxing: need to jog essentially to "work up" to throwing a punch or kick as instructed. Really annoying because it did not register many of my kicks. Grrr.
• Punching bag dodge: run and then dodge as instructed. Again, didn't register most of my jogging or dodges, so this was a pain.
• Running: run, duh. But the character doesn't respond to the pace I was keeping, and sometimes it just plain didn't register.
  

Overall, I'm really disappointed - this had potential but the game just plain doesn't register everything you do and that's deeply annoying. I don't see myself playing this a lot, and that's extra disappointing because it was $40!