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Nutrition Matters Nintendo Wii

Format:
Nintendo Wii

Genre:
Improvement

Buy/Support:
Support Josie, click to buy via us...

Nutrition Matters is another offering for the Wii console designed to get you thinking about your health, fitness and diet. But you'll need a medal for setting up the game its self and that's before you even start doing any exercise!

This game combines lots of genres but also uses the Wii-fit board too. One of its main focuses is its food diary tool. I was quite keen on the idea of this as I've used online food diaries before, always heralded as a great way to keep tabs on those extra calories that seem to sneak in without you noticing.

Nutrition Matters also brings with it exercise and fitness tools, giving you ways of creating activity and weight goals. Combine the two and you should have the perfect health check-up! The game also makes use of your Wii-fit board for your daily/weekly/monthly weigh –inn's (depending how keen you are!). If your Wii-fit board is anything like mine it will enjoy having an outing from its hiding place under the sofa!

Sadly the game doesn't really measure up to its crisp box graphics and promises. The graphics are scratchy and over bright, the text too small and the navigation too fidlly. I always stipulate that any Wii game needs to be clear and easy to navigate other wise that inevitable arm-ache ensues trying to click on the correct miniscule icon. Not only are the graphics poor but the game is so laborious to set up.

Firstly there are endless options for choosing, clothing, accessorising and colouring your ‘Avatar' (virtual you). Mine ended up being bright blue, as I was given a full spectrum colour wheel, not just your average brown to pink skin tones. So then onward with my blue avatar to set up my food diary. You are asked to input your anticipated meals for each day, a little strange to be doing this in advance I feel. Unfortunately I had no way of exiting this part of the game, so I had to continue until I had a meal for each day. You are given a list of generic meals to choose from, all of which have been calorie and nutritionally worked out for you. Or you can pick from an alphabetical list of ingredients.

Now from what I understand and from food diaries I've done before, there can be enormous variations in the calorie content of different food stuffs, depending on how much you use and where you buy it. This leaves me thinking that the pre-planned meals on this game may be way off the mark of what you are actually eating. If you really want to take this part of the game seriously you have no option but to choose all the ingredients one by one. I'd like to meet anyone who has the time to do this and if so my message to them would be - get up off the sofa and do something more interesting!

The same goes for the exercise options, the choice is limited and by then I had lost the motivation to look to see if there was any way of inputting my own exercises. After all the set up you can see a graph of your projected weight gain or loss for the year, worked out from the food you've inputted into your diary (because we all eat the same thing every day don't we!?) and your exercise regime. Even this part, which should have been where it all came together and made sense was confusingly laid out and hard to understand. Also incredibly inaccurate (unless you've spent those few hours inputting everything precisely) so what's the point really?

If you really want blow the dust off that Wii-fit board, I'd opt for the far more user friendly EA Sports Active, or Wii-Fit which actually gives you exercises to do plus all the other diet and fitness goals in a much nicer and easier to navigate format. No food diary though, but hey, I don't think you are missing much! If you do want a work out try throwing this game out the window to the bottom of the garden.

Written by Josie Campbell

You can support Josie by buying Nutrition Matters



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Josie Campbell writes the Domestic Gamer column.

"As quite a domesticated mum of three I love the thought that Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS lite and PSP games can have a practical role around the home and enriching everyday life but also fun to chill out and unwind with too. Here are my Domestic Gamer review, join me to read about all sorts of games, from cooking, health, and family ones too."

Here are the games I've been playing recently:

• Just Dance 3
• All-in Yoga HD
• Fruit Ninja
• Wii U
• Home