A Frankenstein monster built of parts from fitness god Bruce Lee, the visionary that brought us Kinect, Alex Kipman, and a parlous Nazi drill sergeant who is trapped in the perfect body of a Pleasantville dance instructor (or for those of you who are more into the real dance scene, we’ll call this figure Michael Flatly – and for the purpose of this metaphor he is a woman).
That simply sums up the entirety of Zumba Fitness: Rush into three defined phases.
Phase one – The Lord of the Dance
At its core Zumba Fitness: Rush is a dancing game where it’s all about perfect choreography. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, choreography (according to our friends over at Wikipedia) is the art of designing a sequence of movements in which form and motion are both specified. Or in other words, the science of coming up with dance moves that look amazing, are in sync, and are just downright cool.
So you fire up your copy of Zumba and you head over to the “learn the steps” icon where you can go through all of the basic moves for the 4 dancing styles; each of these are divided into 4 basic moves namely:
- Salsa – sidestep, travel, forward and back, back step;
- Reggaetom – stomp, knee lift, destroza, bounce;
- Cumbia – two step, forward and back, sleepy leg, sugar cane;
- Merengue – March, two step, six count, Zumba shuffle.
Each of these moves can first be practised at a rather slow pace, and after you feel comfortable enough, you can ramp it up to normal speed. At times this can seem gruelling, however once mastered they become routine and somewhat entertaining. Upon completing each of these an achievement is unlocked and once all of them are completed you earn your Zumba Diploma.
There are 32 different achievements that can be unlocked by goals ranging from completing a class with a five star rating through to competing on each of the stages. With 10 interactive environments ranging from a yacht docked in Miami and the Carnival in Rio, through to a Scandinavian Ice hotel. There are 6 Zumba “super star” instructors to dance along with.
This goes a long way to help with the usual monontany experienced when using exercise video guides. This moves us onto phase two.
Zumba Fitness Rush
Fitness God Bruce Lee
Fitness is in the title and fit is what you will be after playing this title for more than a week. There are two dancing modes straight from the main menu: single song; and full class.
Single Song
Single Song mode allows you to choose from one of the 44 different songs and dance along to it. A number of big name artists can be found with the likes of Pitbull, Nicole Scherzinger and many more .Each song has an intensity rating of low, medium or high. Over and above this there is a star rating system which challenges you to achieve Zumba perfection by gaining a five star rating for each song.
Full Class
This is where the true value of Zumba Fitness: Rush can be found. There are four categories of classes from which you can choose depending on your fitness level and the allotted amount of time you have to spend.
- Short Class – divided into 5 songs which should give you a 15min long workout;
- Mid-length Class – divided into 11 songs which should give you a 45min long workout;
- Full Class – divided into 14 songs which should give you an hour long workout;
- Custom class – you can create 12 different custom playlists with up to 12 of your favourite songs per playlist.
Once you’re done exercising, from the main menu you can enter the progress tracker where you can track three facets of your progress namely calories burnt , your overall rank and your technique score. Through this menu you can also access the list of the 32 achievements and see which you have unlocked and what still needs to be done to unlock the rest. A reward system for unlocking achievements comes in the form of unlockable videos of behind the scenes footage of the making of the game. There are 18 of these and they look to be rather interesting.
And finally, phase 3, Kinect visionary Alex Kipman
When Kinect was launched I criticised it hugely and stated that it would never have any real world use and its novelty value would die off within three weeks of its launch. Well here I stand red faced as the proud owner of a shiny little black sensory device and have to tell you that this is the first real world application of a very powerful gaming tool.
The Kinect picks up in-game movements flawlessly; not once did my plus size wireframe fail to complete a movement that I performed. The voice activation works relatively well considering that the game told me that the RSA region is not supported.
The instructor’s body movements are mediocre but still rendered well enough that you can see exactly whats going on and know what to do at all times. Whilst their Pleasantville/Stepford Wives-like permanent happy face is rather freaky, it does give you the idea that you’re supposed to have fun whilst doing this. The music is highly enjoyable and I could not fault it for an exercise tool.
The Zumba World icon allows you access to all the DLC; more moves and workouts are promised later as additional DLC, and you can get some nice avatars and T-shirts for your Avatars. The in-game class locater also searches for nearby Zumba live classes where, if you feel up to it, you can go out and join a real live class if you are located near an official instructor.
And relaxxxxx……
In conclusion this is a fantastic home workout tool , it takes the Zumba DVD’s to the next level and is an entertaining and effective way to work out at home. I would definitely recommend this if you are looking for a home workout solution and you own either an Xbox 360 or a Wii.
Whilst the Wii version hasn’t got all the fancy bells and whistles of the 360 version, it’s still a fantastic way to work out at home.
