Get Fit With Mel B

When Wii Fit appeared for the Nintendo Wii console it instantly pulled in countless non-gamers and their mothers and got them sweating and cursing in front of their televisions. So it's no surprise then that Microsoft's new Kinect system already has a handful of exercise-based titles looking to cash in on this same casual market. This latest entry from developer Lightning Fish may be more of an interactive workout video than it is a game in the traditional sense, but Get Fit With Mel B definitely offers a comprehensive workout for those looking to shape up. Just don't come in to this gym expecting a particularly polished fitness experience.

Hosted by ex-Spice Girl Melanie Brown, Get Fit With Mel B makes use of Kinect's motion sensing abilities to track your movements through a wide variety of exercises, with Mel B's constant presence there to motivate and guide you along the way. The scope of available exercises is quite impressive, covering routines for all round fitness and general health as well as more targeted workouts for when you need to firm up, slim down or bulk up specific areas of the body. After answering a few basic questions, such as your gender, height and weight, you are told to select your goals which will then determine the personalised workout schedule which Mel will present you with each day. These goals include the basics such as general weight loss or developing your upper body, as well as more focused workouts to prepare for a special occasion or to get fit for a specific sport.

The inclusion of a secondary goal and the option to decide how you split the focus on your two goals helps to make sure your workout is well suited to your needs. The goals you select determine the kinds of exercises which will make up your daily workout schedule, so if you decided that you want to banish that belly then don't be surprised when your workout is loaded with exhausting core exercises and so on. Doing the same workout day after day would soon become really boring, so it helps that the routines are shuffled around daily but still focus on achieving your goals. After each workout Mel asks you if the day's session was too easy or too hard, and then adjusts the intensity for the following day based on your answer.

If you aren't in the mood to work towards your specific goals there is a fully featured Custom Workout option which allows you to put together a routine which meets your requirements for the day. There are also a number of challenges which test specific areas of your fitness, but there isn't much reason to worry about these unless you are after the medals you earn from them. The addition of a basic nutritional guide is a nice touch, offering quite a lot of recipes and shopping lists for healthy meals, but without a detailed nutritional value chart for the items, it's far too simplistic to become your 'go-to' source for a healthy eating guide.

The actual workouts take place in a selection of stereotypically upmarket locations around the world, from a pre-rendered luxury apartment to a stunning infinity pool setting. They are all as serene as you could imagine and provide a neat backdrop for the torture which takes place on the exercise platforms. Get Fit With Mel B uses the Kinect camera to superimpose your image on the backdrop, placing you on one half of the screen and Mel on the other, each on your own workout squares. Being able to see yourself doing the exercises is both a good thing and a bad thing, because while it does wonders to help you correct your form, it also means you have to stare at your flabby self as you struggle alongside the svelte figure of Mel B. Kinect then analyses your silhouette to judge how accurately you are doing the exercises, and for the most part it works rather well. Unfortunately there are times when it goes quite horribly wrong, and when you are trying to complete a hellish set of staggered push-ups the last thing you want to do is to have to re-do a few reps because the bloody camera didn't do its job properly. Overall though I was quite impressed with the amount of times it worked compared to the times it didn't. It was especially dodgy when it came to groundwork such as crunches and push-ups, made all the more frustrating because these are the exercises where it's most difficult to actually watch yourself on screen to adjust your form. There are some exercises, specifically the dance-related ones, which entail quite a bit of arm, leg and hip wiggling, and Kinect seems too forgiving for these, letting you sometimes get away with just moving in more or less the right direction.

Before each exercise begins Mel gives a very brief explanation of what it will entail, but most of them are far to vague to give you much of an idea of what to prepare yourself for. Beyond the basics such as jumping jacks and squats, many of the routines really need proper explaining unless you are already a serious gym bunny. Thankfully there is a tutorial which allows you to learn the individual exercises, even though using it really kills your workout momentum. The other problem here is that if it takes you a few reps to figure out what you are supposed to be doing, there is no way that you can then catch up with Mel as she speeds ahead to the goal reps for each exercise. I'm not saying that she's too fast, I mean that the game wont allow you to catch up no matter how fast you do the reps. This is also a problem when Kinect doesn't register your movements properly, usually because you are not facing the right direction, and you fall behind. For some it won't be an problem, but my competitive nature got the better of me and I was often frustrated with the game when my exercise rating was lower than it should have been because there was no way to catch up.

Mel B spends most of her time yelling out encouragements and corny motivational lines while she effortlessly cruises through the exercises, your puffy red face a disgrace alongside her. Her comments are usually quite helpful when it comes to timing your repetitions, and sometimes giving you that little boost when you feel like you can't take it anymore and she hollers "Almost done, don't start slacking now!". Her voice over work sometimes tends to be a little bit emotionless, but rather that than a constantly shrill and over enthusiastic voice drilling into your head as you suffer through your workout. Something seriously lacking in the audio department is a good soundtrack to get your blood pumping. The tracks on offer are painfully bland and do nothing to motivate you. Even worse, they are often in the wrong tempo to the exercises you are doing, so when Mel tells you to follow the beat, it just throws your rhythm off completely.

In terms of visuals and presentation, things are functional but not beautiful. Getting around and making sense of it all is simple enough, with big buttons and the usual Kinect style of navigation where you hold your hand cursor over a button for a few seconds to activate it. Considering the number of exercise categories and sub-categories, the menu system is well organised and easy to navigate without overwhelming the user with too many options at one time. Mel B herself appears quite well integrated with the pre-rendered backgrounds, but the same can't be said for your own image, which looks very much like the overlayed cutout that it is. Your surroundings also make a difference here, and the more contrast between you and your background the clearer your image will appear on-screen and this in turn improves how well Kinect reads your movements. On the subject of your surroundings, let me warn you that you need a substantial amount of space to properly complete all the exercises. The usual Kinect-friendly play space is not going to be enough when it comes to some of the more flappy dance moves or wide diagonal squats and so on, so you'll want to move some of that furniture into the spare room. Or maybe knock out a wall and extend your living room.

As an exercise tool, Get Fit With Mel B has enough going for it to make it a worthy consideration if you want to get fitter, stronger and leaner. The exercise techniques are solid and varied enough to work towards your chosen goals without boring you, but as with any workout plan you need to be dedicated if you want to see results. That's is an important factor, because while playing other Kinect titles such as Kinect Sports or Kinect Adventures you will also be up and moving and getting a bit of exercise, but it feels like play time. With Get Fit With Mel B it feels like work. This means that unless you are determined to get fit you may lose interest before you start to shed those extra kilograms. Don't ever think that this is easy either. I am reasonably fit, and these workouts had me almost literally in tears at times.

As an early entry into the fitness genre for Kinect, Lightning Fish's effort is a competent but basic one, and will probably be surpassed as developers figure out new, more interesting ways to get us moving. It doesn't try very hard to impress us with clever features, but it provides a good workout for those who are interested in getting fit. If you can look at this as a fancy workout video which monitors your performance and guides you to reach your goals, you may find that this title is just what you needed to kick start a new you.

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