Sitting down to write this review (which was a struggle in itself), we're in the worst pain we can remember being in for a while. Stairs have become our worst enemy, and even a chair is a battle against our burning thighs. And it's all Ubisoft's fault. Them, and their fitness games, encouraging us to push ourselves to our limit (and apparently beyond), causing immense pain - and also hopefully burning a few calories along the way.
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved is the latest game in Ubisoft's Your Shape series of fitness games. Starting out on the Wii, where it came bundled with its own camera, Your Shape obviously seemed like a perfect fit for Microsoft's own motion sensing device, Kinect. For those who still don't know, Kinect is a much more advanced form of a motion sensor that utilises infra-red technology, meaning Kinect sees you, and your living room in 3D, allowing it to track you precisely - at least in theory.
You can sort of see yourself in the silhouette. Creepy.
And, somewhat unnervingly, this is the first thing that Your Shape does. Presenting you with your height and vital statistics (although it couldn't quite work out how tall we were), you watch as a line scans your on screen persona, with your bone structure superimposed above it. It's an impressive, if somewhat scary feat, and a sign of how seriously this game takes itself.
After inputting your age (which is one of the few things the game can't guess by itself), weight, and telling it how often you work out (we went for the kindly worded "we aren't very active" option), and delving into your first exercise, which works as something of a tutorial, you'll quickly realise how much of a difference Kinect can make to a fitness game, vs. a balance board, or the previous Your Shape camera.
Now, there's no room for taking thing easily, as it's impossible to chicken out of any of the exercises. As you watch your virtual instructor taking you through each move, before attempting to follow suit in time with the music, Kinect will see all of your mistakes. It knows if you're not raising your legs high enough; it sees when you're not lifting your arms, and it'll penalise you because of it. For every repetition of exercises you go through, you'll be given a score as a percentage. However, scoring 100% isn't just as easy as performing the exercise as well as you possibly can - you need to do it accurately as well. In the top right of the screen, you'll see a number, that becomes something of a lifeline, as it counts down the number of repetitions you've got left. Below that, there's the name of the exercise you're doing, along with two additional points, that are highlighted in green if you're doing them right. These additional points help you to make the most out of the exercise, and are little pointers for maintaining the correct form.
See, now, that's clearly not doing it right.
And it's an impressive idea, if a bit totalitarian for a fitness game - the only problem is, it doesn't really work. Time after time, the game told us we were either falling "out of time", or decided to grey out the "arms up and down" box, even though we were standing there, as in time as we could possibly be, doing exactly as the game was telling us. Looking at our bright orange silhouette, we could see that we were doing exactly as the in game trainer was doing - but somehow, it wasn't good enough.
And if anything, it's Kinect that lets Your Shape down the most. Like many other Kinect titles, it attempts to be accurate, but the hardware (or software) simply doesn't seem to be up to scratch. Worse, when you fall out of time, or aren't doing something quite right (which the game unhelpfully also refers to as "falling out of time"), it won't tell you what you're doing wrong. All it does is tell you your timing's wrong - and when you're failing the move because you're lifting the wrong leg, or not bending your knee enough, that's more than a bit counter productive. Of course, there's nothing stopping you just carrying on doing the exercises, knowing in your mind that you're doing them all right, despite scoring 30% or less, but that kind of ruins the whole idea of playing the game.
Unfortunately, again, in what's becoming something of a repeated pattern for Kinect games, the amount of room you have is a big limiting factor for Your Shape. Having already cleared our coffee tables and other objects out of the way, we thought we'd have plenty of room for strutting our virtual stuff - but Your Shape is one of the most space hungry games out there. We were OK doing the knees lifting thing, and the squats, but when it came to doing a thrust, and stretching our leg out behind us, we simply didn't have room. We've got enough space to play every other Kinect game, but Your Space demands more - a fact it really should mention on the packet. We were so surprised, we even got out the tape measure, where we confirmed we were standing a solid, uninterrupted 8 ft away from the Kinect sensor, with a sofa positioned behind us, and a wall behind that, meaning we couldn't go back any further. Frankly, it seems a tad ridiculous, especially when the game gives you no warning of the extra space it needs. For people who don't live in converted barns, it looks like Wii Fit could still be the way to go if you want to keep fit.
There are several minigames included - one of which is the Kinect version of the hula hoop game from Wii Fit!
At the end of each workout, you'll get a rating that tells you how well you've completed each series of exercises, along with a figure that tells you how many calories you've burnt, which is one of the most rewarding parts of the game. Believe us, to begin with, you'll feel every calorie you've burnt for the next week!
It's a game that very much drops you in at the deep end, and takes no prisoners with its approach. Once you've completed the opening fitness test, you'll be able to choose workouts which have been designed to tone a certain body part, or muscle group, with exercises being recommended to you depending on the options you've chosen. But even getting through the fitness test is a challenge in itself. Requiring you to do twenty squats followed by twenty knee lifts, the game then asks you what lifestyle improvement you're looking for - and one of the options is "I want to be able to climb the stairs without running out of breath". If you run out of breath climbing the stairs, you'll be calling for a paramedic after doing the fitness test on its own, yet alone any of the plans.
Where Wii Fit tried its best to make fitness both fun and accessible, Your Shape is a game that's been designed to replace a gym membership for the most fanatical of fitness fanatics. Yes, you'll burn calories like Pastors in the American deep south burn Furbies, but if you don't already possess that level of fitness to begin with, you'll be stuffed when it comes to this. That the game drops you into an exercise like squats without taking you through a warm up first says a lot about its attitude to health.
If you're a fitness guru who's looking for an easy way to stay toned without the trip to the gym, then Your Shape could be for you. Even buying Kinect and an Xbox 360 with it, it's only a little bit more than a gym membership - unless, of course, you factor in having to build an extension for your house to fit it. For people who're just looking to begin exercising as they build towards a healthier lifestyle, however, you'll be best giving Your Shape a miss, and possibly trying The Biggest Loser, or Wii Fit instead.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
