Spring is here, and it’s a great time to get in shape for summer. Now you can dance your way to great shape with Zumba® Fitness: Join the Party for Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Move, and Xbox 360 Kinect (Wii version reviewed here). The Zumba® Fitness Program is a popular workout regime that features vigorous dancing to Calypso, Salsa, Samba, and other Latin music and beats. Zumba encompasses DVD workouts, gym lessons, and now a video game!

In Zumba Fitness for Wii, you’ll follow the dance moves to the beat of the music. The more you move around, the faster a meter fills up at the bottom. When it’s full, the screen will get packed with more dancers and lights. And you’ll get bonus points, which are tallied up at the end of your session. The Wii game comes with a fitness belt for you to put the Wii remote in so you can have your hands free for the various dance moves. If you want more belts for multiplayer, you can order them at the Zumba Web site.

The game has a tutorial mode that shows you how to do each of the dance moves, and there are many. They start out showing you slowly, and then speed it up and add new moves later. Although for klutzes like me who can’t dance worth a flip, the tutorials were still a little too fast. But practice makes perfect! I also liked how they encouraged you to take water breaks, so you may want to have a water bottle handy as you play.

There are several game modes to get you dancing. Progress through easy to difficult routines in Zumba Party. Beat all ten to unlock the Zumbathon for advanced dancers. Or you can just try a single class or even just one song in Zumba Class and Single Routine Modes. Finally there are competitive and co-operative multiplayer modes for up to four dancers. You can also schedule your workouts with a customizable in-game calendar.

The graphics are both disappointing and amazing at the same time. It’s too bad the dancers are just silhouettes or shown in limited colors. But the good thing is the movements of the dancers are very precise and realistic, which makes following along that much easier. Since the game only senses motion, it gives players plenty of opportunities to cheat. But if you follow the dances instead of cheating, you will get in shape because they really make you MOVE!

Kid Factor:

Zumba® Fitness: Join the Party is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Lyrics. I don’t even think I heard too many lyrics in the Latin songs at all, but I imagine nothing heard in the game is worse than what you hear on the radio. Reading skill is helpful for the menus, but not necessary to play as there are plenty of spoken voices and movement cues. Even though the Wii version allows you to ‘cheat’ more than say, the Kinect version would, I have to say the Wii version may be better for younger gamers. Some of the dances can be pretty advanced for beginners and less coordinated folks like myself. So, younger gamers can still have fun without getting frustrated. And as long as they are having fun and moving around, who cares if the kids aren’t following the moves EXACTLY, right? Since you can just pick single songs, this may be great for shorter attention spans, too. If your kids enjoy other dance games on Wii, they might like this one as well.

Tags: Game Reviews