GAME REVIEW: UFC Trainer for X-Box 360 Kinect

I have been eying this game  ever since I first spotted it at Sam's Club.  I didn't want to pay the $49.99 that this game costs so I decided to look for it online to see if I could find it cheaper.  After having missed a few opportunities to get it on sale for $39.99  I finally lucked up on Black Friday.   I ended up purchasing this game from Amazon for $24.99 and the best thing about it besides free shipping was the fact that there was NO TAX!!  Score one for me...;)


It arrived fairly quickly and I let it sit for a few days before I decided to give it a go.  I really had no expectations from this game other than  the fact that it would give me a good work-out.  Tuesday was my first attempt at doing this workout.  When you first start the game, it asks for you gender, weight, height and age.   ( I was really hoping that it would have a way to keep track of your weight and BMI ala Wii fit. With the balance board you  just stand on the board and it can detect your weight and calculate your BMI  putting you in a weight category anywhere from normal to obese. It would be nice to have something like this for this game as well.

After adding my stats, I was ready to workout or so I thought.  Next, I had to complete a fit test which consisted of push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks and squats.  (FYI sit-ups are not my strong suit...Crunches I can do but sit-ups?  Do they still do those?  haha)  Anyway, after that I was finally told to choose a workout.  You have the choice of daily workout in which you choose one of four trainers to train you, Fitness games which consists of the tire flip ( we'll get to that later), puching and kicking , heavy bag and some others and finally workout programs with a concentration on specific goals...weight loss, muscle building, endurance, etc.

I chose to do a 30 day challenge focusing on weightloss or weight cutting as they call it.  Since the results of my fit test classified me as a beginner, I was expecting the game to go easy on me...WRONG!  The warm-up consisted of arm circles, balance knee lifts, high kicks as a hamstring stretch and mountain climbers...yes, you read right MOUNTAIN FREAKING CLIMBERS!

I finished the "warm-up" and was ready to go. We started off with ab work....lying leg lifts, ab work...bicycles, and more ab work..V-ups.  Ummm... excuse me but since when did V-ups become a beginner ab exercise? I did what I could and then it was on to punching which I really enjoyed.  The trainer held mitts and I had to do a series of right and left jabs at his prompting.  Fun, fun fun!

Next we moved on to side lunges and squats( something else I hate)  not only did they have me doing regular squats but immediately after, I had to do squats and hold them for a certain amount of time.  I was really looking forward to this workout being over and that's when it happened..the game froze.

I gave it the benefit of the doubt and allowed time for it to correct itself but I ended up having to turn it off in order to get  it working again.  I was pissed when I went to continue my workout and found that all of my progress had been lost. Not one record of anything I had done up to that point and worse yet, in order for me to move on, I had to re-do all of the exercises I had just done....squats, abs and all.  Are they crazy?  I chalked it up as a loss and decided to play some games so I clicked on the tire flip. While the game is loading, I'm talking smack about how easy this is going to be.  I mean how can they have you flipping a virtual tire and it not be easy?..Needless to say I ended up getting 1 flip out of 10.  In my defense, I think it was due to my form or my not knowing or understanding what they would have me to do..I do know that whatever it was included some more dayum squats.  lol

By then I was done so I put the game away and revisited it again yesterday. New day new start right.  I was determined to do this challenge so this time I chose a 60 day challenge, again focusing on weight loss.  The first  workout consisted of the EXACT SAME WORKOUT I DID THE OTHER DAY. I was kind of upset but like a trooper I mustered up the energy and completed the workout.  This time  everything was saved and  your girl was a happy camper.  I could review the graphs for the various body parts that I worked that day and yes, day one was complete.

Fast forward to today, I'm ready for day two and when I click on my workout calendar, I am unable to click on today's workout because it says you have already finished today's workout.  I figure it's  an issue with the time setting on the X-box or maybe I need to wokout at the same time everyday, who knows?  I didn't fancy it a big deal so I decided to do a daily workout instead.  I choose my trainer and I'm ready to get moving. He too has me starting with the same warm-up as the previous day ( I hope this isn't the only warm-up routine they use, I haven't used it enough to be able to tell just yet)  I choose upper body as a focus and we start off with push-ups.  Okay I can do this!!!  I knocked them out and we move on to one kneed punches ( don't really know what they were called but you kneel on one knee and punch downward while twisting your torso)  I knocked those out too and then came the dayum bear crawl.  Did he really expect me to stand up straight bend at the waist with straight knees) and touch the floor so I can crawl with my hands outward to plank position and then walk my hands back in to a standing position?  Do they really expect for me to do this?  I winged my way through it (ie fake it until I make it)and then the dayum thing froze again.  Had to reboot and not only was all of my progress lost again, but yesterday's workout that I was able to save was missing too!  You have got to be kidding me!  I am so pissed I decided to write this review as well as shoot off an email to the makers of this game.

I really do think that this is a great game and you can get a really good quality gym work-out (complete with sweating, huffing, puffing and grunting).. but this freezing up and loosing progress prevents me from being able to recommend this game.  It's great if you don't mind this type of thing but I love to track my progress and see how I'm doing.  I did a little googling and learned that this issue is not unique to just myself.  Many have had the same problem and while there are some make-shift fixes ( save it to HD and if you don't have an HD TV, then go out and buy one... I mean really, who comes up with this advice? ) I'd rather have the company put forth a concerted effort to work out the bugs.  I'll update if and when I hear  back from the makers.


Getting it right,

1 comments:

That's cool, weight loss and fun can co-exist. It's like taking the first step to become an MMA expert.

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