Wii Fit's doing something right. A couple of days into the game's workout regimen, I didn't want to keep playing—it is exercise, after all. But I persevered, and eventually I improved at the minigames, felt physically challenged on some exercises, and generally felt better after racking up 15 or 30 minutes a day of Wii fitness. But I never really wanted to play. Which, I suppose, is the rule of exercise—it's exhausting, but keep it up, and you'll feel great at all other times of the day.

That's mostly how Wii Fit is. The yoga and strength training aren't really even games; you just follow along with a trainer, working out in the world's most lifeless, depressing gym. Certainly, lunges and leg lifts are great for developing muscle strength—and if you can successfully hold plank poses the way your trainer does, you're sure to burn off at least a few of those Mario-themed cupcakes you inhaled last night at dinner.

But measuring success is one of Wii Fit's shortcomings. While the Balance Board (the game's packed-in peripheral, which is a bit bigger than a bathroom scale) seems to sense—quite precisely—your center of balance and how hard you're pushing, it's sometimes tough to tell whether the game is praising you for performing the exercise right, or doing so just because you managed to keep your heel or toe dug in particularly well on a given move. It certainly lets you know when you're doing something horribly wrong (for example, if you put the wrong leg down because you lost balance), but Wii Fit's definition of "right" feels a bit more vague.

Read the rest of this review at 1Up.com: Wii Fit