Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012

Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 Fitness Evolved 2012 really shows off the Kinect technology. It "scans" your body at the start to project a real-time model of yourself into the game. I was eating a bowl of ice cream at the start and I could see my avatar holding the bowl of ice cream in the game. It doesn't scan/render my head/hair correctly though and I don't have a funky hairdo. The tracking is nearly accurate all the time, I only had a few instances where it didn't seem to register my movements correctly in Zen/Yoga and brick breaking. There are a lot of exercises in this game, some are broken down by difficulty and stages. There's even a personalized fitness program that recommends exercises based on what you want to achieve. You don't have to follow it, and can tailor it however you desire. The running and jump rope games seemed interesting at first, but they're essentially games that require you to run in place (lift knees higher for more speed) or jump in place (coordinate with the footprints on the screen). The stomp it had an interesting premise but I had to be really coordinated and the calorie burn rate was minimal. My favorite events are balancing a platform with boxes falling down (strengthens core muscles), brick/wall breaking, cardio kickboxing, and Zen energy. Cardio kickboxing starts off slow but it builds you up quickly and the full-speed exercises are a lot of fun. I was definitely sweating big time after each event and have felt improvements in my core muscles, legs, and arms. The Zen Energy combines Yoga with Tai Chi. The really great part about Fitness Evolved 2012 is the computer trainer. She will make suggestions in real-time and provide audio/visual cues on what to do next. Games like Just Dance 4 and Zumba Fitness Core may provide visual cues but it's not always that useful. Fitness Evolved 2012 is not just about matching the movements, but doing the movements correctly with assistance and practice, as well as using calories as a performance metric. The core, abs, and other focused training events work exceptionally well. The crunches and other ab work that requires you to lie down on the floor somehow track accurately in Kinect. Although I do have a 8 foot space from the Kinect in my living room. There's quite a few pay-to-play DLC in this game, including one that requires you to buy a Gatorade G02 bottle to scan in order to unlock. I won't be buying any of the DLC or the Gatorade because the existing events are fine as-is. I didn't see anything that made me want to go out and spend Microsoft points or money to purchase. Remember to load the Kinect Playfit app for Xbox so you can get more achievements by burning calories, as Fitness Evolved 2012 is a compatible game. Overall: 5/5 stars, my favorite fitness game for Kinect with many fun and useful training exercises. Cardio kickboxing and Zen Energy are my favorites!

Listen up you 'on the fence ' wannabe fitness people! If you are like me, tired of living with 'Dunlap Disease' where your belly done lap over your belt, this will help. You have to make the decision to use it, but it will work! I am a 42 year old former Marine whose glory days are long past. This program is helping me get back in shape. It can help you too! Warning: if you have a smaller room, and use the Kinect with a magnifier, you may have issues with floor exercise or issues with exercises that require using your feet. (jump rope, sit ups, push ups etc.) You can still do them, the game just may not recognize your efforts. The warms up are good, but could use basic stretching. Routines are awesome and diverse. You can go from Cardio Boxing to Balli-Wood Dancing (yes, I tried it!), Yoga to jogging. Great diversity within the routines. You can set goals, based on your desired type of results you are looking for. Unfortunately, learning the the workouts does not account toward your progress ( a little counter productive IMO) However, once you learn the basics, the work outs are great! Make no mistake - this program will make you sweat!! Like everything, you get out of it what you put in, but over all the experience is great, and fun! I especially like the Tai Chi the Zen routine offers and the Cardio boxing as well. The Wall Breaker is a great warm up and sweat builder! Bottom line is, if this 42 yr old former Marine can get up off the couch and get back in shape, while sweating my butt, or gut, off... So can you!! Don't hesitate BUY IT!!

I was NEVER a workout kind of person at all. In fact, I didn't believe in it due to all the sweating and soreness and what not. Who wants that? But as I've gotten older I knew I needed to do something and I picked Your Shape Fitness. I didn't believe I could get a respectable workout using a game console but I have thoroughly enjoyed working out with the YSF "games". I've been using them consistently for a year now (minus a break due to surgery) and they have exceeded my exercise expectations. I lost weight, my arms are nicely toned, even my legs have more definition. They're not ripped per se, but definitely not jello-ish. I feel my fitness level has greatly improved and I'm kind of an exercise junky now. My friends are shocked by the change. YSF 2012 improves upon the original by offering more ways to workout how I want. Although there are a few flaws, overall I've been more than pleased with this program. I was happy to see 2012 offering more of the popular workouts out these days such as the dance classes, boot camp, and floor exercises. I get bored easily and I've had fun mixing and matching according to my mood and fitness goals. Because of the teacher's pet in me, adding the little gold stars via badges and calendar tracking, and seeing what I've accomplished motivates me to push myself to do more. That has been great and I recommend it to everyone who asks. With that said, here are my assessments of key aspects of the game: Navigation: The more sweeping movements to navigate the screens has been great and feels more natural. But it's also somewhat glitchy. Even if you're just sitting there tying your shoe, it might think you selected "play that really tough routine again" and then you have to stop it before the madness starts over. So just be real careful not to do a lot of sudden movements on camera. Tracking: A few annoyances I've experienced, as others have stated, are things such as it losing you in the middle of a workout even though you are following along; that's an ugh. The glitch is very predictable to the point I already know I'm going to lose my "gold" status when I see a certain routine come up. If I'm trying to see how long I can stay gold and it loses me before I meet it, it's a bummer. Same with the Yoga classes. I don't mind it losing me during yoga since yoga doesn't trigger my competitiveness as much, but it is still frustrating to stay in a place of "well being" when you're waving your arm around in triangle pose trying to get the camera to pick you up. So you have to decide, do I want the score, or do I want the workout? If you want the score, you try to modify yourself for the camera to see you but you know the camera-friendly pose isn't really challenging you or isn't even what the instructor is doing. If you want the workout, you do it correctly, but you know your score will be 25%...bummer. Having floor exercises brings more workout opportunities like push ups and sit ups, but again it still doesn't see you very well so you end up with a 50% score even though you did the whole routine. Game administration: There are a few gaps such as it doesn't easily tell you the total calories burned for your current session, but it tells you your calories burned from the dawn of time. Yes, it's interesting to see how many I've burned since I've had the games, but I just want to know how many I burned TODAY. And if you lose your xbox live connection, your progress isn't saved/synced so even the running total isn't accurate. Yes, it tells you that it needs to stay connected upfront, but can't it just save your progress on the SD card rather than via the internet since I can't control when my wireless might decide to drop? Case in point, I'd completed a challenging 4 week fitness goal, the game congratulated me for doing so, but when I went back the next day it had marked it as attempted and not completed! I was soooooo not happy about that. The calendar is cool, but it could be more interactive. Right now it just marks what days you worked out, which is good, but not as useful as it could be. For example, if I could touch a day and see what I did on that day, that would be very helpful. Like, which day I started a particular fitness goal or what calories I burned on that day, what exercises I did so I can know if I did upper, lower last time, etc. The "Favorite Day" marker I guess is supposed to imply when I started a goal, but it's not quite useful. Favorite Day= Tuesday. And? So? That's taking up space with minimal information and could be better utilized. The narrator can be a bit snarky at times- "And where do you think you're going??". To which I reply, "I'm going to your momma's house, chick! Let me get my bottle of water and I'll be right back, sheesh!" We've had some pretty heated conversations about my going off screen. Maybe that's just me... The exercises: The mini games (what I use as a warm up) are kinda fun. My favorites are Run the World, Stomp It, the punching one (can't remember the name), and Jump Rope. I don't see the point of the Stack 'em Up game. I guess it's supposed to work on your balance, but I don't feel challenged by it at all. Side note: Run the World toned my calves but my knees got bad from running in place like that. The graphics could be more realistic; I'm not positive I'm really running as fast as it says, so not sure how accurate that is; the fun facts are cool, but gets old after you've heard them a billion times; and doesn't give you the total miles you ran after it completes. But you do feel the exhilaration of completing a run without the boredom of a treadmill or the safety issues of running in traffic. I bought the add on for cool down, but I think it was uncool (gotta love puns) they did not provide it to begin with. The game should've come with a cool down already. The workouts are fun and challenging. I have my favorites, I have my groaners but they pretty much cover the basics. Straightforward stuff. The dance classes are fun too. Sometimes I find myself doing the moves I learned in the hip hop class routines when I'm just dancing around the house listening to music. Although, I think it's physically impossible to dance as fast as the Bollywood instructor moves. They must've recorded her in human time but sped it up to robotic for the game! Zen is pretty close to Tai Chi from what I can tell. I'm not an expert or even a novice, so I don't mean to offend anyone who seriously practices. I'm just basing that opinion on a group that practices Tai Chi in the park across from my building and I could recognize the moves they were doing from the game... Yoga, as others have said, is okay for stretching and some balance work but not by any means serious yoga. More like yoga-lite. But to quote the movie Babe, "That'll do, Pig. That'll do." Again, overall, super satisfied with YSF2012. Yes, it has its flaws. Couldn't expect it not to. It has definitely evolved from the original and I think it will continue to evolve over time. In my opinion, if you want to improve your fitness level and have a fun convenient way to exercise regularly, this is the game for you. Just don't get too bummed about the scores and you'll have fun and see results! If you want to get Duane "The Rock" Johnson-ripped, might want to add something else to your fitness program. For now, I'm good with my toneage and ability to walk the stairs without panting.

The cd cover was broken. Not happy with the condition of the product as does not seem to be new

one of my favorite ways to work out. everything about this game is awesome. I actually never used to care about working out, and I am competitive, so having a GAME to work out that gives you scores and percents is a huge motivator for me. This combined with the UFC game are AWESOME. Very helpful to have a system to pick up on your body and make sure you are doing the workouts properly. I love all of the workouts, and time flies when you are using this game. I never feel like giving up, and when I finally do stop, sometimes my legs are almost jello. You can go to the gym and feel this way, or you can save yourself the money and do it at home, being comfortable and confident, no distractions or people watching you, and actually be effective. awwww yeah I love my xbox now.

If you're looking for a personal trainer for your Xbox 360, look no further. This is an awesome game with variable difficulty for the whole family. It actually makes working out fun and I've had it for about a month now. Just make sure you have enough space (although I'm guessing if you have a Kinect already, you probably know that). There's also a lot of variety in this game, whether you want to play warm up games, work out a particular body part, or do some exercise classes (cardio boxing is my favorite). Before you begin, you set up a profile and the game will choose exercises based on the goals you set. I usually do the warm up games and the jump rope simulator, which is enough to get me sweating. The yoga class and zen class are great ways to stretch and relax as well! This is the best exercise game for the Xbox 360 and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to work out at home.

I haven't really used this enough to get to grips with the style of this workout mode. I found that I couldn't string different workouts together with no break between each workout segment. But on the plus side I do like the coaching, ensuring that you have correct posture, and a way to improve technique. I'll probably use it more when its colder outside.

What a fantastic game! I'll have to agree on the negatives, similar to what many users have written, the calorie count should be daily as opposed to overall, I wish I could view all of my "stats" without having to log onto the internet and some games didn't pick up the motion accurately (especially in wall breaker) The positives far outweigh the negatives though, there is a lot of variety and difference in the levels of difficulty when playing activities and games or taking classes. I love that you can see how long each activity is and the varying levels of difficulty before selecting what you want to do. I've only had the game for a month and I haven't even played every single activity there is, nearly though. I'd have to say my favourites are run the world, cardio, skipping rope (for a fast and hard work out) African rhythms dance class and more! I would definitely recommend this game to anyone looking to lose a little weight, shape up while having fun! It's really up to you how intense of a workout you want and how long you want to play each day but I found it easy to use the game daily, you always have the time to squeeze in even a 2 min workout!