Just got done trying out some of the new features in Wii Fit Plus. First of all, let me just explain what the game is. It has all of the old games and exercises from the original plus about 2 dozen new ones. New Yoga poses, new strength training and new mini-games. Plus it now keeps track of the calories you burn, and it offers work-out routines which elimate the need of having to take a break and pick out a new excerise each time you finish one. And as a nice bonus, it will import all of your old saved data from the original Wii Fit, so no need to set up new information. For just $20 it's a pretty good deal.

Today I mainly focused on the new additions. They run the gamut of completely worthless to "OMG GREATEST THING EVER!!!" The Rythm Kung-fu is pretty much like the step-boxing from the first game, but less intense and much more boring. Complete waste. The Obstacle Course is kind of cool. It's like you're actually trapped in a Mario game dodging and jumping over things. Could have been a little better, but still fun. Chicken Flying was surprisingly fun and very intense. It's hard to explain but you essentially have to shift your body weight on the board and flap your arms quickly to fly from one platform to another . . . while you wear a chicken suit. By the end of it my arms were exhausted.

My favorite by far and away was the snowball fight. You won't spend a lot of energy on this one, but you may spend a lot of time with it. It's pretty straight forward. You hide behind a screen and lean left or right to peek around it, then point the Wiimote at the screen to throw snowballs at other Miis. When you get hit your screen is partially covered with snow so you can't see what you're throwing at. Very simple, but I kept going back to this. Lot of fun, and the advanced levels are tough.

There were several other good games too, but of course the bastards at Nintendo are still bastards and they like to remind you of that. In the original Wii Fit you would occasionally have snarky shots taken at you by the balance board or other in-game characters. Well instead of insulting your physical condition, now they're also calling you stupid by testing you "mental agility." There are several body tests and games that require some basic math. Nothing hard, but they combine with excerise that also require concentration so they're kind of making you walk and chew bubblegum at the same time (shut up that's kind of hard).

For instance, in one body test you had to keep yourself balanced in the center of the screen while pointing at numbers with the Wiimote in numerical order. If your body falls out of the center you have to continue where you left off, and if you have trouble recentering your body you may have trouble remembering where you left off. Yep, I can't remember what comes after number 4 apparently. . .

By the end of my workout I'd burned through a little over 100 calories according to the system. Probably not far off. Most of what I did wasn't too tough, but the Chicken Flight and bicyling game (pretty much just running in place while steering with the Wiimote) were fairly intense and by the end of my 32 minutes I had worked up a good sweat. Of course I'm eating a donut now so I've pretty much negated all the work.

Once again I do recommend the game for anyone who has the original WiiFit. It's a nice extension with a lot of good new content. Plus for $20 it's a much cheaper alternative to buying a different fitness game, and probably lot more fun than the others as well.

Yeah, I really need to go back at Wii Fit. I am most interested in the Yoga exercise, because there's a Judo guy that drops me like a bad habit. I figured if I improve my balance I would be harder to take down. It will also help with my kicks.