Ephemeris of the Mind (Game Review) UFC Personal Trainer: The Ultimate Fitness System
Time to read: 3 min read
Game Cover
Your muscles should be ready for a great workout now!
Platform played on: Xbox 360 (Kinect)
Review
During the lockdowns when the gyms were closed I had to find novel ways of working out. One of the ways is exploring workout video games. The idea of gamifying more cumbersome tasks appealed to me greatly and I happened to own a Xbox 360 Kinect along with this game.
UFC Personal Trainer features big names from the UFC coaching such as Greg Jackson, Mark Dellagrotte, and Javier Mendez. The core gameplay includes following along with exercise instructions, the exercises range from body weight, to cardio, to different stretches. The difficulty ranges from easy to moderate; while you technically don’t need any equipment, having a yoga mat and some free weights will help a great deal, as many of the exercises require one to lie on the ground and some exercises are too easy without any resistance. Many of the exercises I remember from my martial arts days. The stretches, however, are very repetitive as there are only four. There are also some mini-games featuring some cameos from famous UFC fighters such as Cain Velasquez.
Gameplay
I was surprised that after some calibration, the Kinect actually works decently well at detecting all the movements, even those on the ground such as push ups and leg raises. It’s not perfect though, and oftentimes it’ll move itself out of calibration after some usage. My biggest complaint about this game is the lack of QA; the game encourages you to be consistent by having a profile feature where one can track one’s activities in-game and also having either a 30- or 60-day program to target specific goals such as losing weight or improving endurance. The issue is that these features don’t work; oftentimes new activity isn’t saved and for some reason, the game periodically deletes your profile, making you restart from scratch each time, including losing all your progress with the programs you're currently on.
Even though this attempt at gamifying exercise is poorly executed, I do think that exercise gamification is an excellent idea and with the development of new technologies (namely better computer vision), it can be a viable way for people to stay consistent with their fitness routines.
Conclusion
Definitely not a replacement for going to the gym but a decent companion if you can't make the gym.