By Daniel Rutledge
When I first heard someone mention ‘Zumba’, I thought they were referring to a character from the Lion King movie – I had no idea it was the new Tae Bo.
Looking into it a little, it appeared to be the new Pilates/spinning/gym craze, but with one quite interesting point of difference. An emphasis on bunda.
Bunda is very important in Brazilian culture, as Arnold Schwarzenegger discovered in this amazing visit to the South American nation:
Zumba Fitness 2 has you attach the Wii-mote to your hip and then follow the movements of an attractive Brazilian on-screen which all emphasize wiggling your bunda.
There’s 20 different dance styles including salsa, hip-hop, Bollywood, Pasodoble and mambo. All of them involve moving your whole body, not just your bunda, but it’s the bunda that really matters.
Being a lazy creature I expected to hate this, but I actually really dug it. There’s no getting around the fact that it’s hard work, but all forms of weight loss and getting fit are. Making that hard work seem less hard by making it fun is the task, and Zumba Fitness 2 does a good job.
It’s also quite valuable when you compare it to the price of regular gym classes, or even Zumba instructional DVDs. The tutorials could be done better, but it’s easy enough – just follow what the babe on-screen is doing is the general gist of it. There are some pretty cool virtual locations to work out in too, keeping things visually interesting all the time.
It’s really hard to rate this game alongside other games. I mean, would there ever be a situation when you were deciding to buy either Battlefield 3 or Zumba Fitness 2? As such I haven’t given this game a rating.
As a n00b to the world of fitness games, I have to say I enjoyed Zumba Fitness 2 quite a bit. I have played a Kinect dance game and that was an experience I shan’t ever repeat. With Zumba Fitness 2 I didn’t feel nearly as ridiculous, and with the focus on losing weight and getting fit rather than ‘having fun’ dancing about to awful pop songs, it seems like a far better idea.
Whether or not I’ll stick with this game and actually lose weight with it now that I’m done reviewing it remains to be seen. But should I ever be in an active and healthy mood at home, I’ll definitely be reaching for Zumba Fitness 2.
3 News
Zumba Fitness 2
:: Publisher: Majesco Entertainment
:: Developer: 505 Games
:: Format: Wii
:: Rating: G