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This thread has been linked to the game 'EA Sports Active 2'.
Following in the footsteps of Wii Fit, EA Sports Active 2 for the PS3 is an exercise game that supposedly gives you the ability to keep fit in your own home! Pretty revolutionary, eh? Sarcasm aside, while it’s true you can buy various pieces of home exercise equipment, you still have to work out your own exercise program and stick to it. EA Sports Active 2 takes a lot of the hassle out of this and can work out a detailed exercise programme for you. Or if you just want a quick one off work-out then EA Sports Active 2 can do that too. While I haven’t played Wii Fit Plus, I do know that the original Wii Fit lacked any kind of exercise programme facility and so you ended up just doing a bunch of exercises without any real rhyme or reason. EA Sports Active 2, on the other hand, even lets you create a workout to focus on a particular part of your body – so if you’re lacking in core strength, you can create a workout to do just that.
While the Wii Fit made use of the Wii Balance Board, the PS3 version of EA Sports Active 2 doesn’t have that option, for obvious reasons. Nor does it make use of the Playstation Move, which is mildly disappointing. Instead, EA Sports Active 2 for the PS3 comes with three sensors for you to use during your workouts. There’s two arm sensors, and one leg sensor, which you strap on to yourself. This does make you look a bit silly – I certainly wouldn’t answer the door wearing them – but they do the job. It also means that you don’t need as much space as you do for the 360 version of the game, which makes use of Microsoft’s Kinect.
You also get the distinctly low-tech resistance band, which is used in about a quarter of the game’s exercises. My bug-bear with this is that the manual does not tell you how to assemble the band – in fact, I had to go on YouTube to find out how to do this, and I apparently wasn’t the only person with difficulties. Once you’ve got all the kit together, EA Sports Active 2 works quite well. There’s plenty of activities to keep you in shape, including squats, running and jumping activities, sit-up style activities and more. The game also starts and finishes each session with some warm up and cool down activities.
So does it work? Well, I’ve not been using it long enough to see any major results, but the activities do make you work up a sweat, especially since they get harder as you go along. And for under fifty pounds, it’s a good alternative to going to the gym – though I suspect people who start off using this will graduate to going to the gym - it’s also a cheaper alternative too. Each exercise features an on-screen trainer – male or female, your choice – who will do the exercise with you. You also get a ‘show me how’ video that explains the exercise in more detail – this plays the first time you do the exercise, and can be replayed as needed. And the game tracks your heart rate during activities, and will help catalogue weight loss – it doesn’t weigh you, so you have to tell it your weight yourself.
It’s not perfect, though. There are one or two exercises – mainly the football passing exercises – where the sensor doesn’t always seem to pick up the movement properly. And the sensors also can’t tell if you’re doing a hook punch or a jab punch during the boxing exercises. Although the on-screen prompt tells you what to do – and the system is generally pretty good at telling if you’re doing an exercise properly or not. Given that EA Sports Active 2, complete with sensors, can be had for fifty pounds and in some cases, a lot less, it’s well worth checking out. Granted, it doesn’t have a great deal of competition on the PS3, but it’s still an excellent program.
(Review also posted on Ciao.co.uk)
While the Wii Fit made use of the Wii Balance Board, the PS3 version of EA Sports Active 2 doesn’t have that option, for obvious reasons. Nor does it make use of the Playstation Move, which is mildly disappointing. Instead, EA Sports Active 2 for the PS3 comes with three sensors for you to use during your workouts. There’s two arm sensors, and one leg sensor, which you strap on to yourself. This does make you look a bit silly – I certainly wouldn’t answer the door wearing them – but they do the job. It also means that you don’t need as much space as you do for the 360 version of the game, which makes use of Microsoft’s Kinect.
You also get the distinctly low-tech resistance band, which is used in about a quarter of the game’s exercises. My bug-bear with this is that the manual does not tell you how to assemble the band – in fact, I had to go on YouTube to find out how to do this, and I apparently wasn’t the only person with difficulties. Once you’ve got all the kit together, EA Sports Active 2 works quite well. There’s plenty of activities to keep you in shape, including squats, running and jumping activities, sit-up style activities and more. The game also starts and finishes each session with some warm up and cool down activities.
So does it work? Well, I’ve not been using it long enough to see any major results, but the activities do make you work up a sweat, especially since they get harder as you go along. And for under fifty pounds, it’s a good alternative to going to the gym – though I suspect people who start off using this will graduate to going to the gym - it’s also a cheaper alternative too. Each exercise features an on-screen trainer – male or female, your choice – who will do the exercise with you. You also get a ‘show me how’ video that explains the exercise in more detail – this plays the first time you do the exercise, and can be replayed as needed. And the game tracks your heart rate during activities, and will help catalogue weight loss – it doesn’t weigh you, so you have to tell it your weight yourself.
It’s not perfect, though. There are one or two exercises – mainly the football passing exercises – where the sensor doesn’t always seem to pick up the movement properly. And the sensors also can’t tell if you’re doing a hook punch or a jab punch during the boxing exercises. Although the on-screen prompt tells you what to do – and the system is generally pretty good at telling if you’re doing an exercise properly or not. Given that EA Sports Active 2, complete with sensors, can be had for fifty pounds and in some cases, a lot less, it’s well worth checking out. Granted, it doesn’t have a great deal of competition on the PS3, but it’s still an excellent program.
(Review also posted on Ciao.co.uk)
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Following in the footsteps of Wii Fit, EA Sports Active 2 for the PS3 is an exercise game that supposedly gives you the ability to keep fit in your own home! Pretty revolutionary, eh? Sarcasm aside, while it’s true you can buy various pieces of home exercise equipment, you still have to work out your own exercise program and stick to it. EA Sports Active 2 takes a lot of the hassle out of this and can work out a detailed exercise programme for you. Or if you just want a quick one off work-out then EA Sports Active 2 can do that too. While I haven’t played Wii Fit Plus, I do know that the original Wii Fit lacked any kind of exercise programme facility and so you ended up just doing a bunch of exercises without any real rhyme or reason. EA Sports Active 2, on the other hand, even lets you create a workout to focus on a particular part of your body – so if you’re lacking in core strength, you can create a workout to do just that.
While the Wii Fit made use of the Wii Balance Board, the PS3 version of EA Sports Active 2 doesn’t have that option, for obvious reasons. Nor does it make use of the Playstation Move, which is mildly disappointing. Instead, EA Sports Active 2 for the PS3 comes with three sensors for you to use during your workouts. There’s two arm sensors, and one leg sensor, which you strap on to yourself. This does make you look a bit silly – I certainly wouldn’t answer the door wearing them – but they do the job. It also means that you don’t need as much space as you do for the 360 version of the game, which makes use of Microsoft’s Kinect.
You also get the distinctly low-tech resistance band, which is used in about a quarter of the game’s exercises. My bug-bear with this is that the manual does not tell you how to assemble the band – in fact, I had to go on YouTube to find out how to do this, and I apparently wasn’t the only person with difficulties. Once you’ve got all the kit together, EA Sports Active 2 works quite well. There’s plenty of activities to keep you in shape, including squats, running and jumping activities, sit-up style activities and more. The game also starts and finishes each session with some warm up and cool down activities.
So does it work? Well, I’ve not been using it long enough to see any major results, but the activities do make you work up a sweat, especially since they get harder as you go along. And for under fifty pounds, it’s a good alternative to going to the gym – though I suspect people who start off using this will graduate to going to the gym - it’s also a cheaper alternative too. Each exercise features an on-screen trainer – male or female, your choice – who will do the exercise with you. You also get a ‘show me how’ video that explains the exercise in more detail – this plays the first time you do the exercise, and can be replayed as needed. And the game tracks your heart rate during activities, and will help catalogue weight loss – it doesn’t weigh you, so you have to tell it your weight yourself.
It’s not perfect, though. There are one or two exercises – mainly the football passing exercises – where the sensor doesn’t always seem to pick up the movement properly. And the sensors also can’t tell if you’re doing a hook punch or a jab punch during the boxing exercises. Although the on-screen prompt tells you what to do – and the system is generally pretty good at telling if you’re doing an exercise properly or not. Given that EA Sports Active 2, complete with sensors, can be had for fifty pounds and in some cases, a lot less, it’s well worth checking out. Granted, it doesn’t have a great deal of competition on the PS3, but it’s still an excellent program.
(Review also posted on Ciao.co.uk)
While the Wii Fit made use of the Wii Balance Board, the PS3 version of EA Sports Active 2 doesn’t have that option, for obvious reasons. Nor does it make use of the Playstation Move, which is mildly disappointing. Instead, EA Sports Active 2 for the PS3 comes with three sensors for you to use during your workouts. There’s two arm sensors, and one leg sensor, which you strap on to yourself. This does make you look a bit silly – I certainly wouldn’t answer the door wearing them – but they do the job. It also means that you don’t need as much space as you do for the 360 version of the game, which makes use of Microsoft’s Kinect.
You also get the distinctly low-tech resistance band, which is used in about a quarter of the game’s exercises. My bug-bear with this is that the manual does not tell you how to assemble the band – in fact, I had to go on YouTube to find out how to do this, and I apparently wasn’t the only person with difficulties. Once you’ve got all the kit together, EA Sports Active 2 works quite well. There’s plenty of activities to keep you in shape, including squats, running and jumping activities, sit-up style activities and more. The game also starts and finishes each session with some warm up and cool down activities.
So does it work? Well, I’ve not been using it long enough to see any major results, but the activities do make you work up a sweat, especially since they get harder as you go along. And for under fifty pounds, it’s a good alternative to going to the gym – though I suspect people who start off using this will graduate to going to the gym - it’s also a cheaper alternative too. Each exercise features an on-screen trainer – male or female, your choice – who will do the exercise with you. You also get a ‘show me how’ video that explains the exercise in more detail – this plays the first time you do the exercise, and can be replayed as needed. And the game tracks your heart rate during activities, and will help catalogue weight loss – it doesn’t weigh you, so you have to tell it your weight yourself.
It’s not perfect, though. There are one or two exercises – mainly the football passing exercises – where the sensor doesn’t always seem to pick up the movement properly. And the sensors also can’t tell if you’re doing a hook punch or a jab punch during the boxing exercises. Although the on-screen prompt tells you what to do – and the system is generally pretty good at telling if you’re doing an exercise properly or not. Given that EA Sports Active 2, complete with sensors, can be had for fifty pounds and in some cases, a lot less, it’s well worth checking out. Granted, it doesn’t have a great deal of competition on the PS3, but it’s still an excellent program.
(Review also posted on Ciao.co.uk)