With the snow season practically over, we are starting to miss those winter days of snowboarding and hot tubbin'. This summer when the snow is long gone we might actually have an outlet for our snow-sport deprived lives. The 
Apr 15, 2008 06:01 AM
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With the snow season practically over, we are starting to miss those winter days of snowboarding and hot tubbin'. This summer when the snow is long gone we might actually have an outlet for our snow-sport deprived lives. The Wii Fit. There is a whole set of mini-games that take place on the mountain. With games that range from ski jumping to snowboarding, it makes us wonder if it will be enough to kill the mid-summer, snow-missin' blues.
Sadly, we only got to test out the ski-related games. We could see that there was a snowboarding game, but it was not unlocked to play. Yeah, we were mad too. But what we did test out gave us a good idea of how the Wii Fit works.
The first thing that the Wii Fit had us set was our center of gravity. This is the basis for most of the games, since the Wii will be able to determine which way you are leaning by your center of gravity. When we first stepped on the balance board we couldn't help but notice that our size 10 feet barely fit. If we had any larger of a foot, our toes would have definitely hung off.
With our center of gravity set, we quickly found our way to the snow-related games. We first gave downhill skiing a try and found we had no clue what we were doing. Attempting to lift our feet and lean the direction we wanted to go didn't work.
Halfway through ruining the first run, we noticed that in the top right corner of the screen there was a small center of gravity display. This showed our realtime center of gravity, so as we leaned it obviously reflected the changes.
In our next run down the mountain, instead of focusing on our Mii, or character-whatever they call it, we put all of our attention on that center of gravity display. We quickly learned how leaning a certain way or shifting our weight to one foot was correctly changing our center of gravity.
This same principle helped for the ski jump game. When dropping in for the jump you need to keep your center of gravity perfectly. Once at the lip of the jump you quickly shift your weight up, without removing your feet from the balance board. While in the air we had to pay close attention to that center of gravity display, making sure we were never too far off from perfect. If we kept the center of gravity close enough to the center we landed clean.
So will the Wii Fit be saving us from summer hell? We don't think so. Even though the skiing mini-games are fun, come this September, nothing will kill our anticipation to ride. Not even the Wii Fit.
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