10 Minute Solution is a series of popular exercise videos, featuring quick workouts that people can fit into their hectic schedules. Now the same series is available on the Wii for busy, yet fitness-minded gamers.

You can do a workout with randomly chosen exercises, customize your own workout, or plan your routines for an entire week. The nice thing about planning a week’s worth of workouts is that as soon as you turn on the game that day, you can go right into your planned routine (and graphs show your progress, too). Exercises include cardio boxing, lunges, step work, and mixed games and activities (more than a dozen in all). You can pick between a male and female player and trainer, and even choose to have your trainer speak in a friendly or bossy tone! They always remind you to stretch before exercising, and there are fitness and health tips even during loading screens. Included in the game is a 10 Minute Solution full video for working on your abs, too.

The game uses the Wii remote and nunchuck for the boxing and hand exercises, and the Wii Balance Board for the lunges and step aerobics. You don’t HAVE to own a Balance Board to play this game, but without one, you won’t be able to weigh yourself and the game won’t tally up scores for the Balance Board compatible exercises. Most of the games are similar to Dance Dance Revolution in design. Icons scroll up the screen and you must perform the appropriate action when they reach the top.

The only major problem with 10 Minute Solution is the Wii remote controls. You’ll definitely want to use the wrist strap for this game, as you really have to pump the remote hard to get it to register a move. And some of the moves I couldn’t figure out how to make them work at all, such as ducking in the boxing games. I even had to skip the tutorials to move on to the main workout because they won’t let you progress until you do all the moves correctly in the lessons. And the game kind of throws everything at you pretty quickly, so you’ll want to start out with the easiest exercises to keep up. Casual gamers who don’t play the Wii much might get a little confused because of that.

If you can look past the bad controls, 10 Minute Solution is still a decent little fitness title. And it’s not a bad deal at less than 20 bucks. If you buy it at Costco, it comes with a pair of weighted gloves, so that’s an even better deal there.

Kid Factor:

Even the youngest gamers with the shortest attention spans can enjoy the easy workouts, but they might get a little frustrated at the controls. Reading skill is helpful for navigating the menus, but there is plenty of spoken voice to talk you through the workouts. Up to four people in a family can have a profile and customize their routines. 10 Minute Solution is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews