Added on December 27, 2011    jillian michaels , jillian michaels fitness adventure , Kinect , Majesco , Microsoft

Jillian Michaels Fitness Adventure – Review

Jillian Michaels dons her Tomb Raider costume and you get sweaty…

The menu system is still something all Kinect games need to work on. I still have yet to find one as smooth as Dance Central’s. This one is quite possibly the worst yet.

The major issue with all the menus in the Kinect are due to no method of actually selecting the button after you have it highlighted. So far only a few games have any method besides just holding your hand over it for a few seconds. This game attempted to copy Dance Central’s method where it has no cursor per se, but instead has an outline over the button that slides to the next options as you move your hand higher and lower, left to right. To select it, you then move your hand perpendicular to the menu like you are throwing the item to the side. It works in Dance Central very well.

This game however was too sensitive with the menu scroll and not sensitive enough with the throwing to the side. Over and over I would have to throw the item to the side with no reaction. Then when I finally got it to respond, it would accidentally scroll to another option and I’d have to back up because it had gone into the wrong area. Very aggravating. My wife was so perturbed by the system she gave up and used a controller to navigate through the menus.

The game does try to make a nice amalgam of a fitness game mixed with an actual video game. In The Biggest Loser “Game” it runs you ragged with actual exercise routines. It’s not fun. It’s just working out with a digital version of Jillian or Bob yelling at you to keep up. This game is not quite fun, but it’s more amusing than an actual workout. Jillian encourages you to run through a decrepit temple and gives you a some workouts that are loosely connected to the work you do. For example, I needed to sidestep by a bunch of spike traps and so it had me doing side lunges back and forth to avoid them. Some others had very little connection and therefore would really make you feel detached from the game. The game got my heart rate up and my body sweating though, so that I can call a success. If you are looking for connect games to get you active and in shape, this is probably the more “fun” of the workout based ones.

I get plenty sweaty just moving my thumbs let alone my entire body. I’ll just stick with Dance Central and Kinect Sports for my working out, thanks.