Ubisoft's Gold's Gym Cardio Workout for the Nintendo Wii Review

I was looking for a boxing game for the Nintendo Wii, because boxing is good for a cardiovascular workout. I hoped that Don King's boxing game would help to fill the void. Boxing has been incorporated into a variety of aerobics over the last ten years. My father used to train boxers in the military, and he taught us children many of the boxer's training regime. I also spent much of my youth boxing. So, I was very much enthused when I heard that 2k's Don King Boxing game was coming out on March 31st 2009. I waited and wanted to see how the reviews on this game were going to be. To my dismay, they turned out to be horrible.

Gold's Gym Cardio's average reviews over at Amazon.com were all 4 out of 5 the first couple of days after the game came out. I was excited because it actually turned out to be a boxing exercise game. Instead of using a wiimote and a nunchuck, Gold's Gym Cardio used two wiimotes. This was great, because I hated the wiimote and the nunchuck in other boxing games because the two controllers always tangled each other in the wires. I purchased Gold's Gym Cardio and proceeded to use it. You can work up a good sweat with this game. It really works the arms and shoulders. There are exercises that use the Wii Fit balance board. This is really where the shortcomings exist, because there are only four exercises that use the balance board. Pushups, crunches, a back exercise and squats. Ubisoft has utilized the balance board in many of their other games, i.e. Shaun White Snowboarding, it is unfortunate that they could not use give us more exercises that utilized the Wii Fit balance board.

One of the best physical elements of a boxing regime, is the development of stamina. Boxers have to take a multitude of blows to the head and body during a boxing match. So, the building up of the body and the ability to sustain these blows, is paramount in the boxer's training regime. This is one reason I wanted a good boxing game for the Nintendo wii. While this game is a little short on this, it very much works on burning off the calories. In each shape boxing game, it will tell you how many calories you have burned. You will have to keep track of the total calories you burned during your exercises. One thing I also love about this game, is that it tells me what my physical age is, and it is usually 22 or 23 for the boxing, but after I do the ducking and dodging exercises I am usually 43 years old or even 53 years of age. It is just so hard to move out of the way of a punch, at my age.