So today is the very near anniversary of me starting Wii Fit. My first day was actually May 23rd 2008, but I think If I wait to post something I might forget to do it in two days. So here’s my anniversary post.

It’s actually kind of interesting that for the last few sessions I’ve been feeling pretty tired. Today I felt really energized though. I have no idea why. I was sick the past few days but today I feel pretty much at 100%. Maybe it’s because I got a lot of sleep while sick. I also had a Twig and Berry salad from Zingerman’s today for lunch.

Anyway, when I started Wii Fit about a year ago I was obese (according to the machine) and weighed about 202 pounds or so. Today the Wii Fit declared I am merely overweight and that I weigh about 179.9. So within a year I lost 20 pounds. I actually lost the 20 pounds between May and November, I wanna say. Then between November and now, I think I hit some kind of ceiling (or floor). I’ve sort of slowly been losing again. I think it might be a seasonal thing.

Besides the lost poundage, I’ve been consistently feeling better (physically) ever since I started, and have been getting better and better. These days I can walk to and back from campus very easily when a year ago it’d feel like a hike (it’s a little over a mile each way, I think). I believe my general endurance and energy levels have been better, too. I haven’t only been doing Wii Fit to get healthier though. I’ve also been trying to eat better and live more healthily in general. No more soda (pop) for me.

I’m pretty happy with my progress with Wii Fit so far. I wish I had done better between the November-Now time points, though I will admit that I made non-pound progress (I am now doing 20 push-ups instead of 10 and lunges are doable when before they were insanely hard). Hopefully I’ll be able to report back in a year with even better numbers and results.

Bonus actual anniversary update: (5/23/09)
I look at my time completed in Wii Fit and it appears that I did 83 hours and 33 minutes of working out. Not too bad. I know I did less in the beginning and have been ramping up to about 34-45 minutes of workout each session though I don’t do it every day. I’ll probably have more time to commit to working out over this summer though.

I’ve been “playing” this Wii Fit thing for about two weeks now. So far I’ve lost a few pounds and I think I’m probably quite a bit more “fit” than I was before. I guess the most remarkable fact is that I’m still at it after a few weeks. I’ve already pretty much unlocked everything in the game, so I just go through the normal exercises in my routine. It’d be cool if new exercises were to show up as downloadable content or something.

I’ve been feeling pretty good lately as well. Besides the major pain factor of the “plank” exercise, most of the stuff isn’t too bad. I think I’ve already been building muscle, and now the actual weight loss might begin to show. I’m also trying to eat less. “Normal” portions in the US are way too big, so I’ve been trying to get small stuff for lunch and share things when possible. It seems to be having a positive effect.

I also seem to be more flexible during the yoga stuff. Who knows if I’m doing it right, but the Tree thing is a lot easier for me to do (and my foot actually can go up that high now).

I’d like to get a Wii and Wii Fit for my parents since they’d probably enjoy doing the exercises and could probably use the exercise themselves. Too bad it costs a bunch and the equipment is still in high demand and short supply. Overall I’d say the product is pretty sweet, and if you have enough self-motivation paired with the game’s motivation (it says stuff like, “I see you were too busy to exercise last night…” when you miss a day) you can easily live a healthier lifestyle.

I pre-ordered Wii Fit from Amazon.com and got it a few days ago, on Friday, I believe. That was probably a good idea, since it seems there’s a Wii Fit shortage of sorts going around (in addition to the shortage of Wiis themselves). I saw them going for pretty inflated prices on the Amazon Marketplace. I wonder if they’re actually selling for that much.

Wii Fit comes with a neat balance board and a “game.” I put “game” in quotations because it’s really debatable if it’s a game or not. The balance board is sort of a scale, balance sensor and exercise step all in one. Wii Fit (the game) is a collection of stuff that more or less fits in four categories:

• Yoga Poses
• Strength Training
• Aerobic Stuff
• Balance Games

The game starts out by giving you a really hippie-esque lecture about how balance is really important for you body. Like, the kind of balance where you don’t fall over and you put equal weight on your feet. I guess I never thought much about it, but I did the test and had some pretty interesting balance issues. My right foot seems to be pretty darn prominent. The board also tells me I’m obese! NOOO! I lost a lot of weight playing DDR but since grad school started I’ve gained it back and then some.

So I’m making a resolution of sorts to lose some weight. This is where Wii Fit actually does pretty well.

First off I’ll say that the Yoga and Strength Training parts have a trainer that you can pick. Male or Female. The trainer does examples of the moves before you do them, then you see them do it as you’re doing it. Being a male, I chose the female trainer. I think this is probably what most people do. They pick the opposite sex because it’s more motivating. The female training avatar chick is kind of okay looking, but I think it would be cool if you could “customize” the experience. That’s all I’ll say about that.

The yoga stuff probably won’t help burn much fat and stuff, but it is good for working on balance. I just finished unlocking all the yoga things (today is my 6th day on Wii Fit). The last one is pretty crazy, but many of them are doable. I can do that one that the lady is doing on the box art (the tree) even though it looks kind of insane. At the very least the yoga stuff is good for mellowing out and breathing (which I learned to do pretty well being a brass instrument player, but probably suck quite a bit at now).

The strength training is probably the best part of the game to get fit. I should note that Wii Fit is probably the most painful game I’ve played since the original NES system (and its blister-inducing controller). Like, I’m in a lot of pain for much of the exercises. Especially the push ups (which are really hard for me) and the plank, which is basically torture for fat people. It even sounds like a torture device! In the 6 days I’ve been doing it, I think I actually am getting better. Imagine that, a game that gets easier each time you play it.

The Aerobic stuff is kind of fun. There’s this weird hula hoop thing. It’s a little weird. Also, there this thing where you just run in place for a while. This wouldn’t be fun, except you get to see your Mii guy run around the island. It still isn’t really that fun, but it’s more fun than staring at the wall and running in place. I bet running outside would be even better though.

The balance games are sort of fun, too. The skiing one is very fun, and there’s also a snowboard one (which you do sideways). There’s also a zen thing where you sit on the board and stay as still as possible. Sounds like the luge or something!

Overall, Wii Fit is great because it provides so much feedback. When you do something right, the avatar tells you that you did a good job. If you screw up, they’re not too hard on you. But you get an actual number to show how well you did and you can keep track of that number. That’s definitely an incentive to keep trying and improve on stuff you’ve done in the past. When you weigh yourself, you get a history of your weight and you can actually see it getting closer (or farther) to the goal!

I think the biggest thing keeping people from exercising is probably motivation. The game gives you a good, personal motivation to keep trying to reach your goal. It does a good job of not sounding too preachy, but also telling it to you like it is.

I’m not sure how long I’ll stick with it, but for now I would like to continue until I reach my goal of having a “normal” BMI.

I’ve never bought anything using Wii Points before since I don’t really like the idea of micro payments. I mean, Nintendo should give us free NES games just for having a Wii, right? Anyway, when I was on the Wii Store channel today, I noticed that Punch Out was on the VC!

Punch Out is one of those games that I can still enjoy playing, even after like 20 years! I can’t believe it’s that old! I can’t believe I’m that old! Anyway, I used my credit card to buy some Wii Points and downloaded Punch Out! This is the version with Mr Dream, not Mike Tyson… Speaking of changes, I was on Wikipedia like last week looking at Punch Out stuff (totally unrelated). Apparently “Soda Popinski” used to be called “Vodka Drunkenski” in the arcade version. How awesome is that!?

I got to Bald Bull before I actually lost. That dude is a bitch. I remembered how to defeat his bull charge, but let’s just say I was a little rusty. I finally beat him, but then I couldn’t beat Piston Honda in the next league or whatever. I’ll try again later. I remember that when I was a kid, that was also the part I gave up. I guess some things don’t change…

Also, the new Wiimote isn’t the best controller to play Punch Out on, but it sure as hell beats the original NES controller. I like to call that old controller “The Blister Machine!” Seriously, it hurt.

I hope they release Super Punch Out for the SNES for the virtual console soon. That game was really awesome, too. Back in the days where all SNES games were prefixed with the word “Super!”

I just got Super Paper Mario for the Nintendo Wii yesterday. I played through the first chapter, so here’s my quick mini-review.

Super Paper Mario is different from the other Paper Mario games in a big way. The RPG elements have been pretty much removed. Now, instead of taking turns attacking and defending, Mario just attacks the enemies in real time. So it’s more like the original Super Mario, except with hit points and stats.

I’m not too happy with this, since I liked the RPGness of Paper Mario. I thought Paper Mario was just an extension of the old Super Mario RPG games. Now that they’ve got rid of the RPG, it’s just not as fun.

The graphics are pretty neat though. There’s this thing where you flip from 2D mode to 3D mode. It’s like going from a flat world to three dimensions. You can find hidden stuff and avoid the 2D enemies in 3D mode.

The humor is still intact, too. There’s a lot of references to the original Super Mario Bros. game. There’s even the super mushroom that turns you into a giant version of the pixellated Mario.

Super Paper Mario is still fun, but I have a feeling it would’ve been better if they had kept the gameplay from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door intact.

I got Wii Play from Amazon.com yesterday. The main selling point is that it comes with a wiimote and costs $50, so the game itself is worth $10. It comes with a bunch of minigames, much like Wii Sports, but they’re not all sports.

Out of the nine, I’d say 3 or 4 are actually fun to play.

The Shooting Range game is not Duck Hunt, which makes me sad. Basically you just shoot stuff. Sometimes the Duck Hunt ducks will fly by and you can shoot them, but otherwise you just hit targets.

Find Mii is lame, unless you enjoy finding people in crowds. Table Tennis is really weak, because you can only control the horizontal action of the paddle. Tennis in Wii Sports is about 100 times better, and it comes with the Wii when you buy it! Pose Mii is also pretty boring.

Laser Hockey is actually very fun. The graphics are cool, and who doesn’t like air hockey? I need to get a friend to play this one with me, since the CPU is kind of dumb. Billiards is good too. It’s not quite ready to be its own game, but I enjoyed it (and I actually played it more than once).

Fishing is worthless. This looks like a tech demo. An unfun tech demo. Charge is kind of okay, and very surreal. I like how it uses the wiimote, at least. Tanks is also very fun with the nunchuck. I imagine getting 4 players would make this very, very fun.

In the end, if you’re looking to get an extra wiimote anyway, then Wii Play isn’t a bad buy. If you already have enough controllers, I don’t think it’s worth $50 for the game. There’s some good games, and there’s some not so good games. I personally think Wii Sports is more fun. Laser Hockey might be worth $10 by itself though.

After getting my Wii, I immediately noticed that the cables that came with it were only the normal RCA crap ones. I have an HD capable TV, so I was pretty peeved. I went to Play-Asia.com and ordered the cheapest component cables. I ordered ‘em on the 23rd and they came on the 31st, so it took about a week.

So far, I’m fairly impressed. After switching the Wii from 480i to 480p, the difference is pretty noticeable. Before, I could see the picture getting blurry where the cursor was moving. It was kinda weird. With the component cables, that doesn’t happen anymore.

I tried playing Zelda: Twilight Princess. There’s a huge difference with the cables. Before it was super blurry, and now it’s somewhat jaggy. Sure, the antialiasing could use work, but it still looks 100% better.

If you have a Wii and a TV that takes component input, you MUST get cables. These ones were like $13, shipping included.

So I was playing with my new Wii. The sports game that comes with it is really fun. One game that I suck at in real life, but can do okay in with Wii sports is Baseball. Unfortunately, I just lost my first game. I think the game gets harder as your skill level progresses.

The first game, I got like, 11 runs or something. And there’s only 3 innings! I’d say that Wii Baseball is probably the most physically challenging, since you’re either flinging the remote as fast as possible when pitching, or doing an actual bat swing when batting. Eventually I got tired of doing the whole “hey batter batter” thing and just used one hand. I still use two when I’m not sore, though.

During my first loss, I found out that there’s a mercy rule. Yep, when you have 0 runs and the opponent has 5, it’s time to just give up. This is pretty much crap, since on my first game, I won by like, 10 runs or so. I totally would’ve made a sick comeback, too. Stupid Wii baseball…

That’s right! Two months after the Wii was released in America, I finally got it! Yesterday was some kind of national Wii holiday. Apparently 1/21/06 was the day for all retailers to hold the Wii. This is probably why I couldn’t find one in stock for the past two weeks since my last attempt.

I decided to head over to Circuit City around 9am. That’s an hour before they open. I was surprised to see two guys standing there. They told me that the Circuit City guys only had 2 Wiis to sell to the general public, and that the others would go to their pre-order customers. False Advertsising!!! I’m probably going to file a compaint.

Next I got to Best Buy around 9:30. I was under the impression that the store would open at 11am, since that’s what the online store checker thing said. The opening time was actually 10am. So I got there only 30 minutes early. I saw a pretty long line and counted around 38 people in front of me. Still, I figured they might have a ton; they’re Best Buy.

So once 10am rolls along, they start herding us in there like cattle. One person remarked that it was a good sign that they didn’t hand out tickets. There must be enough for everyone in line. We snaked around the store until we got to the video game section. There we waited for each person to pick up a Wii and move along. It was kind of like the Soup Nazi thing from Seinfeld. When I finally get to the Wiis, there are about 3 left after mine. My linemates and I all share some high tens.

In my daze of my accomplishment, I decided to also pick up Legend of Zelda: Twighlight Princess at full price. This is even though I know I can get it cheaper. I’m a tool like that. I didn’t even use a gamer’s gift card…

As far as the Wii goes, it’s pretty darn cool. The remote control is neat because it can give you some vibration feedback when you’re going over buttons. The IR sensor is still kind of inaccurate, but maybe I need to do some more calibration.

Wii Sports is insanely fun. I could probably play the bowling game for hours at a time. That is, if my arm wasn’t so sore right now. My mom even played it, and did really well in bowling. My dad couldn’t quite get the hang of releasing the button before throwing the ball.

Zelda is pretty cool, but the graphics seem kind of lacking. I’m gonna go get a component cable and see if that doesn’t help things. I think the Wii graphics are only slightly better than the Gamecube, which was actually the strongest console of the last generation…

Another cool thing is that the Wii has full backwards compatibility for the Gamecube. You just flip open the top and find some memory card slots and controller ports. I really wish there was an option to save to internal memory, though. It kind of blows that I need to keep using the very small Gamecube memory card.

All in all, I think the Wii is very cool. Hopefully the good games will keep rolling in. I might have to pick up Trauma Center or Wario Ware. Wii Play is coming out soon, too.