Move Fitness Essentials PS3

Fitness videos have been a constant every Christmas, helping us work away those extra portions of turkey stuffing for 30 odd minutes a day, only to be all but forgotten under the bed by New Year’s day. Since the dawn of the motion control age it has been no different for our humble games consoles, with developers trying to get us off our couch and get fit. Some go for a fun approach like Wii Fit and it’s Balance Board, some go for all out punishment like the UFC Trainer or Biggest Loser, whilst a few score a perfect balance, like EA Fitness, so where does Sony’s own Move Fitness fit in?

A word of warning before considering this title, though the game is pitched at a budget price this is anything but cheap to run as it requires two Move controllers, so real money spent is more in the region of £70, not such a bargain now if you don’t own two Move controllers, and this plays against whatever is accomplished throughout the title.

The budget feel is apparent from the very start with a basic and quite clinical menu system to a lot of repetition from the trainers and exercises. Move Fitness totals a miserly 28 events, with each one logging an approximate calorie burn chart at the end of each session, however, even at 28 a few are very similar or just slight adjustments to other events so you do feel a little short changed. Now all the bad stuff is out of the way, I can say in all honesty that the actual gameplay is great. With an original use of two Move controllers, Move Fitness allows for a more immersive experience and the events on offer manage to be fun and give you a good workout at the same time. You can approach these exercises in a couple of differnt ways, either separately or as a pre-created workout session for specific areas like the vauge sounding Beach Body or Fat Burner.

Each exercise will have a trainer barking orders at you to give some mental support just like you are being spot checked at a gym, with each of the events and exercises being well designed and offering a decent challenge as well as the benefits of actual exercise. Though it seems the events are just randomly listed there are actually three main categories, ball events, boxing and gymnasium style events.

The ball focused games involve activities like picking up and throwing basketballs into a hoop, holding a hoop and catching balls that are automatically thrown at you and pushing balls up a sloped table and trying not to let them fall off. There is also a few styles of Dodgeball that require you to throw balls at targets and also dodge incoming balls. These events have a fun and challenging element that will make you return to beat old scores regularly.

The boxing exercises are a lot more physical with you punching holes in a gridded wall, hitting different areas of a punchbag dummy, slugging away at a heavy bag on rails, sparring and also punch gloves where you have to hit the right mit with the right coloured glove to pull off jabs, hooks and uppercuts. Whilst fun and hard work the only main problem here is there is no physical impact so it negates most of the workout, but it still gets you in a sweat.

The gymnasium style events involve plenty of jumps and squats, all with targets for you to hit for the game to mark your progress and make sure you are doing the right movements.

Finally, one that does not fit in with the rest but is insanely fun is the chopping event. With you wielding twin swords, rows and rows of plates are thrown at you, with your swift sword skills and speed required to hit all of the plates whilst in the air. The feeling of holding the swords is spot on with every pose you pull off perfectly recreated on the screen, all with a satisfying swish as the swords cut through the air; it’s a great shame more wasn’t done with this.

In the end this is actually a fun set of events that are more like minigames than supplements to your daily exercise routine and even though quite a few are similar in execution, they are well made and responsive. When compared to other titles, Move Fitness does fall a little short on content and is expensive, especially if you don’t already have the appropriate kit.