Shape Up - Xbox One

Ok, we have had a version of kinect and different games for pretty much every game console in our household for years. I was always the oddball out in games with my gamer teen daughter and gamer husband. So from a non-gamer perspective, the only game that really held my interest for Xbox & Kinects had been the Just Dance. Honestly the family only utilized our kinect a few times a month at best.As a mother, I have tried everything to motivate and show my 13 year old teen daughter that physical fitness could be fun, but nothing would stick. In her words "mom, I'm a gamer, gamers are not into physical fitness"Okay child.... challange accepted. *smirking to self*Then this game came in the mail! Oh boy! I say it all click for her during this game. We all set up our profiles and the competition was ON! We had a blast the first time, and now she runs through the door from school ready to "PLAY" again. And I quote "play" because when I see sweat dripping from her face I know that we are both winning:) were getting physical activity and she gets to maintain that shes a gamer!Wins in the debate about gamers:Child = 0 ( or 1 depending on how you look at it)MOM & DAD= 1Winning! (Now let's just leave that between us;) the kids don't need to know

I bought this game about 6 months ago. We have 5 people in the house (me, wife, 3 kids from 6 to 3 years old). This is now our most played game, surpassing the previously most popular Just Dance 2014. Admittedly we're not a super gaming household, really the Xbox is more a TV turner or Youtube machine, but I'll play Rayman or AC:Black Flag a bit here & there. But this game is great for the kids. Yeah, they whined a bit a first when they didn't always get to win, but that's a good lesson.Overall we really like the game. I'm glad I didn't pay the original $60 price as that would have been too much, but we got it on a $30 sale and currently it's $17, which I think is a great value. For our family I'd say $35 would be a very fair price.We've only done a bit of the "campaign" stuff, it was alright, but we really enjoy the competition mode. My 5 year old daughter can do squats like she's spring loaded, and the kinect recorded her best score for us to compete against, it's great to play vs her even after she's in bed. And the taunting dances you can record to play if your recorded exercise beats the player are really fun. My wife & I have had multiple occurrences of trying to set a high score to get to replace a family member's dance with one of our own and in the process inadvertently done 30 minutes of really intense exercise - which is incredible. I'd never before accidentally done multiple intense 3 minutes sessions to squats or jump rope or pushups...but I have now.My couple negatives:The Kinect works pretty well, it definitely see's my wife & I better than the kids; so if we're playing vs a child we have to tell everyone else in the room to either stay still or stay far outside the camera's field of view...which is kinda crappy. We've even had cousins over for birthday parties play this lately, they love it, but the Kinect really starts having problems focusing on the 2 player characters when the couch behind them has 4 people sitting on it.Another gripe...the menu. I hate hate hate Kinect controlled menus. It's terrible in Just Dance, it's terrible in Dance Central, it's terrible in every Kinect game I've tried navigating in. Kinect games are typically best played multiplayer & often with kids...but that means lots of hands moving in the room & Kinect just get's confused. I really wish all Xbox one games had an option to turn off Kinect menu control. Shape Up does great at tracking me during the game, but when I'm trying to scroll around in the menu, my cursor randomly jumps up/down/left/right for no discernible reason. I'll be trying to scroll to "Squat to the Moon" which should just require clicking right 6 or 7 times, that would have been a piece of cake even back on my dad's Atari...but not in Shape Up on Xbox One. I can't ever seem to get more than 3 clicks right or left without the game randomly moving the cursor up...which takes me into some other clickable stuff that I'm not looking for. I assume that it's from people moving in the room and kinect interpreting it as command, though it even happens a bit when I'm alone and staying perfectly still.3rd & last gripe: The computer it too good. I don't mind if the current computer avatars were kept for us to play against once we were really good at a game, but they should also have some crappy ones to play against for kids, out of shape people, or for when we're not wanting to be dialed in 100%. In many of the games I can only stay relatively close to the computer if I'm going 100% and my kids just get destroyed...which isn't fun. Also some of the rhythm games (piano step, river jump); the computer avatars are unbelievably perfect, making it less fun to play. The kinect regularly misses steps in the exercises requiring stepping on the floor & thus we don't ever beat the perfect computer. The saving grace is that they record videos of our best score and we just play vs our own recordings.Overall, I enjoy the game & the kids do too. It's unfortunate that the menu's are always frustrating, but I'm able to deal with it. I'd love to buy a sequel to this with better menu control, a kid challenge option (easier computer), and more games.NOTE: they sadly chose to lock a bunch of content behind a DLC paywall. I've not played any of it & don't think anyone really should. This game was already thin on contend on release for a full price game. The fact that they then charged people more money for added content strikes me as a bad policy. I'm of the opinion that the DLC content should have been earned through points accumulated in playing the initial games, and not been "additional content" sold to players after their initial purchase of the game. (I kinda want to knock a star off my review of the game for this, but ultimately I still think this is better than a 3 star game, so I'll leave my rating at 4)

I hope to increase my rating for this game as I think it will actually be a very fun and useful training game but some of the issues I have with it so far are keeping it rates a 3 for now.I bought the disc version of this game and the loading process went with no issues other than an update of 2gb was already needed by the time I installed this about 2 days after release day. But when install was done, it started without any issue.Let me start with my main issues for this game as these might cause someone to not want this.1. There seems to be no element of personal body management like in other games. I was never asked to input weight, height, body frame, male/female, etc... I've played other games on my Wii that have done this where you can track tons of stuff like the above as well as meal information and such. When you are playing the challenge mode in this game (which is a 4 week period), I would think you would want this here. Unless I am missing something, all I see is that you challenge some other player (in my case it is a computer challenger). That is fun as a game but not really a good way to track "real" health progress. Maybe a patch will add this in later2. Crash and burn - Initially I did a couple of individual exercises/games before starting a challenge. I did the game where you cross punch and knee objects and I did the piano game where you need to step/jump on various pinao keys that come up. Both were very fun and I was feeling my heart rate go up. decent cardio start. I then went into challenge mode to begin my first challege. I made it through two games: A river game where you need to jump onto planks using either one foot, both feet as well as jumping side to side. Not a bad game and I found it failry hard my first time. The other one was a train run where you are on top of a train and you have to run in place, duck, squat and jump side to side to avoid things. After this event, i was really feeling my heart rate and I just about started sweating! Then..........CRASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The game suddenly just froze with no response. Looked like it had an issue during a transition to the next screen. I was forced to exit out to the Xbox main screen and restart the game. Unfortunately, NONE OF MY CHALLENGE SAVED!!!! At this point, I gave up for the night (not something an exercise program should be doing to you on the first attempt!)This is a HUGE issue if it keeps happening. Not only does it interfere with an exercise routine but without the ability to save more often, it wastes your progress. I really hope the game makers see this and do some more testing. If I continue having the issue, I will post back here.3. Lighting and space - I play my Xbox in my basement on a projection screen with a front projector. I usyually keep my lights dimmed but I kept getting a message popping up saying the game was having trouble finding/following me. I turned up the lights completely (which is very bright) and I kept getting the message. The game seemd to be following me fine but I don;t know if maybe it was missing stuff or not. The message also said to try and expand the playing area. I was playing in a 8 foot by 8 foot area...not the biggest but how many people have a full gym to play a video game?! Again, it seemed to be OK in general but some of the side to side jumping had me at the outer edge of my playing field.OK...onto the good stuff1. Challenging - The events I tried so far are pretty challenging and got my heart rate up. granted, I only played cardio type games as I assume the chaleenge will start there before jumping into anything where more physical stuff is needed like push ups....you need a warmup and it seems to handle this well. As you do well in a challenge, the game adjusts and will make it more difficult as well.2. Gameplay - I know I was exercising but each event did feel like a game. And it records your gameplay so you can compete gainst yourself to better your score. I did this on the punching game and it was pretty fun. So the main attempt at making exercise fun seems to be working. I know some of the games I will enjoy playing but I have a feeling some I will want to skip and the game does allow this. Hoping it will be adjustable where you can substitute within a challenge but I am not sure just yet.3. Will it work? - I think so. Based on how I felt after maybe 15 minutes, I can see how this will work as part of a diet program. I think it will do enought to give the necessary cardio workout most of us need as well as some strength exercises. You (i.e. ME) just need to use it and hope it doesn't crash!This is a great first attempt at making exercise fun. But some missing features and glitches (as my 7 year old calls them) need to be addressed otherwise this will be a big flop. I will continue updating this review as I use the game and report back any more issues and my progress at trying to get back into some kind of decent shape.November 16 update***** SO VERY FRUSTRATING!!!!! The game freezing/crashing is a common thing so I know it wasn't a one time thing. It crashes when transitioning between screens. How on earth could the developers release a game in this "shape". I will be returning this if a patch isn't released soon.November 19 update***** For the first time ever, I was able to complete a challenge day without any crashing. The game went through no updates that I could see so I don;t think Ubisoft actually released a patch. However, what I did notice is that I kept getting a message saying "connection to Ubisoft servers was lost". It didn't affect the game but I am wondering if the Ubisoft servers were causing the crashing issues. In my brain I am thinking that during screen transitions, maybe the attempts to connect to the servers were causing some kind of hangup. No clue but at least I got no crashes.A bit more on the game itself. I did the strength training challenge and completed the 15 minutes. Overall I got a great feeling workout and was sweating a bit but I am out of shape so the real test would be to see how this works with someone who can walk a flight of stairs without breathing heavy! My guess is that after a couple of weeks, 15 minutes is not going to cut it for me.I like some of the challenges a lot. The punching and kneeing one is great. The cardio/wrestling one is fun once you learn the moves and it does work up cardio a bit. There are some challenges that are brutal though....the alien shooting one for abs is a bit much for a newbie. You are basically holding up in a situp position for about a minute while using your arms to get aliens. Very tough on abs and I see a lot of people either hurting themselves or getting frustrated. The pushup challenege is also a bit much. It lasts for one minute and you are basically doing pushups the entire times other than a few points where you are told to hold position (which makes it even harder). I got 47 in 60 seconds but I had to finish the last 25 or so on my knees (which the game says is OK). Again, another challenge that could cause people to strain themselves if they are rushing through it to beat a score.I have a few other items that I think people need to consider.1. At least ne exercise so far would be better if you have a set of dumbells. The coach on the screen uses them and it is to work biceps, triceps, shoulders and chest. I have a set of 25 pound ones and they were a bit much towards the end. I would suggest buying a cheape set that gives you a range of weights.2. The warmup in the strength challnge is basicaly non-existent. Not much in the way of real stretching before getting into push ups or other execisies. I know some studies show that muslces actually respond better when no warmup is done but others show the opposite. If you usually do strecthing and warmups, I'd look to do them beforehand or try and customize the workout.3. I'm a bit confused on the challenges. As I said, 15 minutes is fine for starting but most people will need longer time. Maybe it is in a customized challege but the stock ones are 15 with the option to start the next 15. it is tough to see goals so i think they need to add some stuff like current weight, target weight, lenght of time to achieve, etc...4. Execise vs games - I know I said that this game was going to be different than others I played but it really isn't. Once you start going, the games become second to the struggle of doing the moves. Maybe over time the game/challege will pop back to the front but I was struggling with some of the movements so my focus was there.I used to play a lot of Wii Fit and I found that game to have superior planning options for losing weight. Hopefully some of those features will end up in this game but I think future development will only get done if they sell enough copies of the game. There is a section in challenges that says new features/challenges will be released later but who knows.I haven't tried any of the online stuff yet. I haven;t subscibed to Live Gold but I am thinking of it. I will post up if I ever do try the online.Now pardon me while I go cry a little bit from the pain I am feeling from all those pushups!