If you let the recent $35 Child of Eden deal at Amazon pass you buy, you made what is, in retrospect, a shrewd move, because now you can get it for $30.
The discount is part of a Kinect sale going on at GameStop through July 20, which brings four other Ubisoft Kinect games down to $30, including Your Shape and Michael Jackson: The Experience.
If you're just shrugging your shoulders at this sale because you don't have a Kinect (and therefore your shoulder shrug doesn't register as an in-game movement), GameStop also has an offer for you: a $25 GameStop gift card with purchase of the sensor. Now, if only there were something you could put that $25 towards ... oh, wait!
#keepingthemhonest
Can you believe the hype you hear from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo at each year's big E3 circus of video games? Year after year, the big three make promises about their consoles and their games. Do they deliver? More »
Amazon is currently offering a "select game" for 50 percent off when you buy a Kinect sensor. Yes, the word "select" should scare you a bit. The selection the online retailer is offering up features a couple solid workout games, but the rest is the C-team of Kinect titles.
Your choices include Your Shape Fitness Evolved and The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout, along with Dance Central wannabes Dance Paradise and Dance Masters. And then we get to Fighters Uncaged and Fantastic Pets, the latter of which features a creepy, smiling horse on its cover. Nayyyyyy, nay we say.
Ubisoft may not have said anything officially, but the ESRB seems to think that the publisher is coming out with another piece of exercise software to keep the various Your Shape and Gold's Gym titles company, this one entitled Fit in Six.
According to the rating board's description, the title is a fitness game that has players doing personalized "yoga, Pilates, cardio, dance, and kickboxing exercises." That sounds an awful lot like programs inside Ubisoft's Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, but, you know, without the branding.
Fit in Six will be available for the PS3 and Wii. We've contacted Ubisoft to sweat out some details.
Dance Central, Harmonix's full-body dance title for Kinect, cha-cha-chinged with sales in November. According to NPD, the game was #11 in overall sales for the month and the top-selling Kinect game as a SKU. Of course, by units, Kinect Adventures moved the most copies, as it was bundled with the peripheral, which sold over 2.5 million units globally in the month of November.
Although NPD generally no longer shares specific software sales, we were told by the company that Kinect Sports and Your Shape: Fitness Evolved were the second and third best-selling Kinect titles, respectively. For an audience stereotyped as lazy, gamers seem to have responded the most to three of the sweatiest Kinect games.
Good news for fitness fanatics getting bored with the workout fare included on the Your Shape: Fitness Evolved disc: two new workouts are now available on Xbox Live Marketplace. The Toned Body Program and Cardio Boxing Platinum can be downloaded for 320 MS Points ($3) and 400 MS Points ($5) respectively, or you can grab both in a single bundle for 560 MS Points ($7).
Furthermore, Ubisoft has announced that more than 12 pieces of DLC will be released "in the first half" of 2011. Limber up that index finger and click the play button for a new trailer.
Next month, Ubisoft begins a full-on Your Shape: Fitness Evolved DLC strategy by offering its first of 12 planned fitness program packs throughout the first half of 2011. This first content pack, which will be available in "early December," includes the "Body Toning Program" and "Cardio Boxing Platinum," a new fitness regimen and advanced exercise class, respectively.
The second bunch of DLC, available "shortly after" the first set, will include "New Year New You," a program designed to get players back into shape after the holiday festivities, and "Dance Workout Bollywood," a high impact dance workout using popular Bollywood dance moves." It all sounds well and good, but if we can't summon demon hipster chicks afterward, we're gonna feel cheated.
No price has been set for any of the DLC, though Ubisoft did say it'll offer each pack individually or in bundles. We just have one question: With all of that DLC to create, how will you find time to get your online portal fully functional, Ubisoft?
#review
At last, I have a way to exercise in front of my TV without any contraptions near my body but still with a way to get yelled at if my form is bad. No joke: Your Shape: Fitness Evolved has the potential to be a huge breakthrough in home fitness. More »
The original Your Shape for Wii was marketed primarily as a post partum pudge-buster with new mom Jenny McCarthy leading the fitness charge, but left a lot of players cold. Now, with the advent of Kinect, the game has evolved and Jenny McCarthy has been replaced with generic fitness girl and fitness boy, in what can best be described as a frill-free but serviceable exercise in ... exercise games.
For all its talk of customized workouts tailored to your personalized goals, the sad truth is that Your Shape: Fitness Evolved really boils down a few standard questions about your age, gender, weight and lifestyle, while the Kinect sensor measures your height and length of your limbs -- there's no real way to gauge your fitness, flexibility or exertion level. (And it never it once suggested that I check my heart rate.) Yet where it struggles the most is in its lack of ability to motivate. With trainers devoid of personality and charm, and with very little in the way of actual personalization, there isn't really much here to get you to put down the controller and get up off your butt.
While Richard is away, Alexander and Dave will play. Tune in for more discussion on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, our proposed X3F Flab-Off and some discussion on the September NPDs. Grab the latest episode via your preferred means below and jump past the break for this week's links.
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[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.
Hosts: Alexander Sliwinski (Sli Xander, @xandersliwinski) and Dave Hinkle (KnifefightYaDad, @davehinkle)
Music: Intro/Outro: "Electromooq" by Uma Floresta; Break: "Strictly Rule" by Vetiver
One of the ways Your Shape: Fitness Evolved plans on keeping players motivated and encouraging interactivity is with the Your Shape Center, an online portal that not only provides feedback on your own progress but allows players to motivate each other through custom challenges. An example given was setting a certain number of calories users would need to burn over a predetermined amount of time. Then through the online portal, you could see which of your friends completed or failed the custom challenge in question.
It's a motivational tool Ubisoft hopes will keep users engaged over the long run. For a brief overview of Your Shape Center, stretch your clicking finger and head on past the break.
#xbox360
I've played a bunch of controller-free Kinect games (and watched Crecente dance through one!). Some are cool, some familiar. Some are a little broken. But two bits that I've experienced were spectacular teases about how Kinect can excel. More »
