Consumer Reports compares home fitness games

Consumer Reports has just posted a comparison of console exergames Nike+ Kinect Training, Zumba Fitness Core (on Xbox Kinect), Just Dance 4 (on PS3 Move), Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2013 for WiiU, and UFC Personal Trainer (on Kinect).

Their impressions: Nike gets high marks for being advanced and offering an extensive library, Zumba is praised for being a cardio challenge as well as fun, Just Dance is mainly fun, Your Shape is good for beginners and UFC is…mainly for UFC fans.

Video games are packing the dance floor this year

Last year, the success of Just Dance brought out a wave of dance games; this year, with the even bigger success of Just Dance 2 and Zumba Fitness, that wave is an all-out flood.  Here’s some of what is out, or coming…

• Sequel mania:  Just Dance 3 and DanceDanceRevolution II (which is really about the 20th game in the series) are out, and Just Dance Kids 2, Dance Central 2, Zumba Fitness 2, and Country Dance 2  are all on their way.  The Just Dance games will be coming to Kinect and PS3 for the first time, while it appears that Zumba has abandoned Kinect after having some technical difficulties.  I just got Just Dance 3 for Kinect which I love so far, and I’m also interested in Dance Central 2 and DDR II which will bring back DOUBLES! 🙂
• Super stars:  Ubisoft is putting ABBA on the Michael Jackson dance game stage with ABBA You Can Dance for Wii, featuring that group’s hits, plus a career mode and a karaoke mode so you can belt out “Dancing Queen”.  (Simultaneous singing and dancing can be one heckuva workout, as I found with Karaoke Revolution Party.)  The same company is also putting out Black Eyed Peas Experience on Wii and Kinect; screenshots of that game look more like Dance Central than MJ.
• Grease is the word:  Grease Dance, based on the movie, is coming for Kinect and PS3.  There are very few details right now, but it’s interesting that they’ve written off the Wii already, when it seems to me that it’s the most likely console to be in the households of the Grease generation.
• New to the dance floor:  Everybody Dance is a new PS3 Move game that appears to be a hybrid of Wii’s Just Dance series (because you still have to wave controllers around) and Kinect’s Dance Masters (if you choose, the PS3 camera will put your dancin’ image on screen).  Nickelodeon Dance, for both Wii and Kinect, offers tots a chance to dance with Dora, Diego and the Backyardigans.  Amazon also has listings for Dance Battle Vs. (PS3) and Dance Magic (Kinect, PS3) but little is known about either one.

Fit in Six (Wii/PS3) and Dance on Broadway (PS3) arrive this week

PS3 Move owners will get both new fitness and old dance this week, as Fit in Six and Dance on Broadway are released this Tuesday.  Fit in Six will also be available for Wii, in either camera bundles or game only (I think that’s the same camera that came with Your Shape).

PS3’s Fit in Six has an attractive feature: you can upload your own music to the console’s hard drive, and work out to that music.  Now that’s a feature that ALL video workouts need!