Review: Move Fitness (PlayStation 3)

By Wayne Wbb

Move Fitness is a personal trainer/fitness regime designed to utilise the more physical aspects of video gaming using the PlayStation Move system with Move Controllers and PS Eye Camera. It’s all the things you don’t generally think of when playing in the normal domain of the couch potato.

You don’t really play Move Fitness to play the game aspects of the package, though they are there to enhance and/or encourage you along. Also along for the motivational side is a personal (virtual) trainer to shout encouragement and direction as you go. You get a few options there, but unless you seriously need a drawn version of the pinnacle of human fitness to accompany you, there’s not much point to it. Same with the high scores and personal bests – these are common enough elements within games, and probably have their place in the world of performance athleticism, but they seem well out of place here.

Does it get you up and moving? Yes, absolutely, not being the fittest person myself it certainly was not long before I felt the “burn”, and all of a sudden the game took on more meaning. While it does have the desired effect quite quickly though, I didn’t feel massively engaged with the game, unlike a similar fitness game using the rival Kinect system.

This is a key difference in the two systems – the Move is much more accurate and precise by comparison and suffers no low/natural light issues, but requires you to strap in and hold on to a controller. When you are trying to mimic real life movements, the button pressing and trigger pulling feels counter intuitive to the action you are taking. You are not just really playing at the exercise, you are also using a combination of traditional video game hand/finger actions and that feels weirdly disconnected from an experience that is rooted in actual familiar movement.

Putting aside the philosophical differences I had, the options, mini games and extensive sets of statistics and measurements make a well-rounded fitness package. Good if you’re a big fan of either the PlayStation or you simply want to get the gamer in your life moving about sensibly and aerobically.

Unlike some games that require physical activity, the camera and accuracy of the control method makes cheating close to impossible, and so even though shortcutting a physical fitness game might be the height of stupidity, the benefits of the PS Move make that a moot point. If you are motivated by points, records and high scores then you’ll have to work for them in Move Fitness.

Pros: Loads of physical activity, hard to cheat, varied exercises and routines.
Cons: Feels clumsy and not natural at times, occasional glitch in movement detection.

3 Shacks Out Of 5