With Halloween candy, Thanksgiving feasts, and Christmas goodies all lurking around the corner, it can be hard to lose weight and stay in shape if you’ve got an on-the-go lifestyle. Luckily there is a new iPad app from Majasco and Zumba Fitness that’s like having a Zumba console game that you can take wherever you go!

Zumba is a popular fitness program that incorporates dance and Latin music to keep you moving with a cardio workout. It’s been extremely successful, with best-selling DVDs, clothes, live classes, and other fitness video games, too. The one on iPad is kind of like the Kinect versions of the game. The game uses the iPad camera to sense your movements as you play. It does detect outward arm movements really well, but anything closer to your body, not so much. You’ll need to make sure that the iPad is about level to between your hips and knees, and about four to five feet away from you for best results. Only problem with that is from that distance, it’s a little hard to see details like the stick figure that shows what dance move you’re supposed to do next. Or maybe my older eyes can’t see that far away very well.

You can try a single song or do a short or long class full of consecutive songs. Or create a custom class from a playlist. Try to dance in time with the beat and as close to the movements with the instructor as you can to earn stars and increase your score. You’ll know you’re doing well because a meter will fill up on the left side of the screen. And when you do that enough, you’ll see fireworks going off in the background. You can also learn the steps to the dances, which may be a good idea to do since the songs do them so fast it’s kind of hard to keep up if you’re a klutz like me. You can also set fitness goals and track your progress. There are also tabs where you can buy Zumba gear and locate live classes, too.

Only problem with the game aside from the camera reading movements is that when you buy the game, you only get about six songs and a starter class. You have to purchase and download other songs and classes separately. So it’s a bit misleading. However, I recommend buying the whole package, as it’s still WAY cheaper than having to buy the console game and a Kinect or other device to play it on! Plus, having it on your iPad is pretty handy if you are traveling and still want to keep up with your fitness regime.

Kid Factor:

Zumba Dance isn’t rated by the ESRB, but some of the other console games are E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Mild Lyrics and Mild Suggestive Themes. The songs aren’t any worse than what you hear on the radio, and the outfits aren’t any worse than what you see on the Zumba infomercials. Reading skill is helpful for getting around some of the game menus. Since the game is geared to be a one player game, it may be hard for groups of kids and families to play together. But kids do love to dance, so they’ll probably have fun with it anyway.

Zumba Reviews

Here are links to past Zumba game reviews I’ve written, if you’re interested in learning more about them:

Zumba Fitness: Join the Party

Zumba Fitness 2

Zumba Fitness Core

Inspiring Stories and Videos About the Zumba Fitness Video Games

Tags: Game Reviews