Daisy Fuentes Pilates

Daisy Fuentes Pilates

(Collision Studios/Interactive Game Group/Sega) for Nintendo Wii; Grade: B

It’s hard to discuss “Daisy Fuentes Pilates” in the context of a game review, because when it comes right down to it, it isn’t even a game so much as (a) an interactive, customizable workout tape or (b) a personal trainer you can mute with a remote control.

As serviceable introductions to Pilates go, “Pilates” does a serviceable job. Ten exercises (not including warm-up and cool-down exercises) are available for perusal, and each features a demonstration of the exercise, a narrated tutorial, and three difficulty settings that alter some (but not all) of the exercises’ physical demands.

In a nice touch, “Pilates” also supports user-customizable workouts: Users can pick which exercises to perform, the order in which to perform them, and the number of reps for each exercise. The game has save slots for five custom workouts and complements those with five prefabricated workouts based on need and experience.

All of this, of course, leads to the exercises themselves, and this is where any notion of “Pilates” being a game in the vein of “Wii Fit” or “EA Sports Active” completely falls apart.

“Pilates” aspires to score players by using simple timing metrics to calculate whether a player is using proper form. The measurement of that aptitude is displayed in the form of a timing bar that glows green, yellow and red based on one’s ability to mimic what Fuentes’ onscreen avatar is doing. This sort of works during exercises that rely on the Wii Balance Board, because all the game does is track when a player’s feet touch the board.

If you lack a Balance Board, the exercises that employ it lack any means of scoring your work. But it honestly is just as well, because the exercises that use the Wii remote to gauge your form might as well not score you either. The motions that constitute a typical Pilates exercise are far too slow and controlled for the remote to properly understand, the game has no real way of properly judging your form, and taking the score to heart merely creates frustration where there need not be any.

The complete uselessness of the scoring mechanic — which is the only means of stat-tracking the game has — makes “Pilates” similarly useless as a tool for tracking progress. Other attempts to give credence to the “game” claim — a tool for changing Daisy’s outfit, a flimsy resort tour option (which basically just changes the backdrop), a smattering of low-tech tips to accompany the general budget-mindedness of the overall look and experience — don’t fare any better.

On the other hand, while it’s still $10 more expensive than it should be, “Pilates” costs $30. That puts it in the same price ballpark as numerous Pilates DVDs that lack the interactivity this, in spite of its significant failings as a game, ultimately does provide.

Billy O’Keefe, McClatchy Newspapers