Exerbeat is a great product if you haven’t exercised for a while and are trying to get back into regular exercise.

The workouts are short to start with and fun which for me is key to keep me motivated, Exerbeat is a really good Wii game for getting you active and would definitely recommend it.

Buy Wii Exerbeat Game

Exerbeat does increase your heart beat and makes you sweat, which is missing in Wii Fit Plus for example, although fun the games in Wii Fit Plus don’t give you a good cardio workout.

Exerbeat is good for a cardio workout and it’s got the fun factor, your started off easy and then the game slowly increases the amount of time you spend exercising from just a couple of minutes to a full workout (so far I’ve reached 6 minute workouts) which is great for people hoping to get back into exercise, this could be a possible problem for people who are already at a high fitness level as you would have to do the short training games until you unlock longer routines, I don’t know how hard the routines or the duration of the exercises will become as I haven’t got that far in the game yet.

A big negative point for me is the moving around the world After every exercise routine, even if the routine only lasted 3 minutes the game transports you to a screen (you have no choice) where your avatar walks a predetermined path around the world, whenever you hit a check point (which is a country) an irritating orange blob pops up and you have go through loads of blurb about that country. which I found rather annoying and pointless, it seriously cuts into a good workout, which is not good, OK if you need a big long rest after a routine, but terrible if your after continues fun and this part of the game could be another problem for people who are quite fit, if you have just done what will be for you an easy exercise, then straight after you have to spend a few minutes on a pointless screen having your avatar walk across the world could be frustrating, it was for me and I’m far from a serious exerciser or fit.

I didn’t find this helpful as it means stopping and starting constantly during your workout, it’s just annoying having to go through this screen every time an exercise is over, it stops the fun and your heart beat doesn’t keep a healthy rhythm, any trainer will tell you it’s not good to keep stopping and starting during exercise, for example you get better exercise if you take a brisk walk rather than walk your dog because the dog keeps stopping to go to the toilet, it’s much better to slow down and do something easy rather than stop altogether, this screen of watching your avatar walk across a map can last several boring minutes, I dreaded it every time I had to go through this pointless part of the game, it adds nothing.

I could understand it if you where getting some mini game related to the country to unlock and play, but it seems to be for no reason at all! it would be easier to just have a straight forward, well done you’ve unlocked a new level, they should have replaced this bit of the game with more mini games or something more useful.

In other review on Exerbeat some people liked the walking the world, one person even claimed it was helpful in motivating them to get a little further each time, for me though it ruined a good Wii active game.

You unlock extra levels as you go along in Exerbeat the more you do in the game the more you unlock which means you always working towards a goal of increasing the difficulty and variety of the routines in each section in the game, there are 150 games (I like to call them routines) in Exerbeat.

Dance Exercises:
Aerobics – 20 exercises.
Hip Hop – 20 exercises.
Latin Dance – 20 exercises, some of these use the wii balance board.
Also see the Just Dance : Wii Game for a Wii Dance Game.

Martial Arts Exercises:
Boxing – 20 exercises.
Karate – 20 exercises.
Karate Forms – 10 exercises.

Body Condition:
Yoga / Pilates – 20 exercises, I’d recommend using a mat for some of these.
Stretching – 10 exercises.

Five party games:
Swimming
Dance Fever
Pizza Toss
Wall Smasher
Pirate Attack

Some of the dance routines can take a bit of getting used to, learning to hip hop for example when your dancing style is more Latin can feel awkward at first, but with plenty of practice you will get the hang of it and be able to get the best out of Exerbeat.

Exerbeat can be played by one or two players either with one or two controllers for each player, it doesn’t use the wii nunchucks.

Exerbeat is motion plus compatible and for some routines the wii balance board is used, but it’s not many games and they can be skipped.

Exerbeat is a good workout wii game, it’s fun and you will be smiling while you play the game, I found it to be a little more serious than other Wii active games like Just Dance, without it loosing the fun factor which for me is an important ingredient in wii active games, I want fun and exercise :).

I love the daily challenge section you can unlock each day, the challenge is to complete an exercise routine which lasts about 10 or so minutes, you have to score no less than 70% accuracy, I found this a lot of fun and a good motivation tool encouraging me to do one more workout before I go for a much needed rest, pushing me just that little bit further.

The mini games are OK, not the best or most active I’ve played on the Wii and there aren’t enough of them IMO, I love crazy active mini games, Exerbeats mini games seamed quite tame to me compared with some really active mini games like on Raving Rabbids for example which are more party games then exercise related, so this part of Exerbeat was a little disappointing for me, one of things I like about Wii Fit Plus is the mini games, I very rarely use the yoga and muscle training in Wii Fit Plus I find them rather dull.

This is where Exerbeat excels over Wii Fit Plus although your doing some serious exercise it doesn’t feel like your exercising at all, just having fun, so unlike Wii Fit Plus which when you do the yoga and muscle exercise games it’s rather uninspiring with sedentary music and boring coaches Exerbeat is exercising, fun and challenging while you do some serious exercise to up beat energetic music.

Some people have complained that the voices of the coaches in each training category (there are 4 coaches) are annoying, personally I’m to busy concentrating on the exercises to pay much attention to they say, I found them to be quite funny. The exerbeat coaches are very enthusiastic when you have finished your game, leaping in the air, giving a dance and telling you how brilliant you are :) I’ve named all the male coaches Brad and the female coaches Mary Beth, they seem to fit :) I did keep making WII Fit Jokes at the end off each training session making my son laugh, which for me was fun in itself.

There is a personal coach mode which you can unlock that you can modify, helping you to make your own workout by selecting your favourite games or if you want to have a workout that will specifically target a problem area this is the mode for you, this part of the game is important for people who want the most out of there time on the wii.

A small peeve I had is that although exerbeat is balance board compatible you can’t use the board to take your weight, at the beginning of the game you are asked to put in your details like date of birth and how much you weigh (I’ve found other games to also lack this feature), I had to stop creating my profile and insert my Wii Fit Plus disc into my machine to get my weight, then reload Exerbeat and go though creating my data again.

I doubt I will play Exerbeat as much as Wii Fit Plus, Just Dance or my Step to the Beat game, mainly because of the irritating world scenes (you have to be in the right patient mood to cope with it, it gets tedious), but I will play Exerbeat, the exercises are fun and challenging.

Exerbeat Star Rating 4/5 stars.

Buy Wii Console

Buy Wii Exerbeat Gym Class Workout Game