I live in a fairly small town, and the only 24-hour store that sells videogames is a Meijer about 15 minutes from my home. Gamespot posted an article stating that the game would be extremely difficult to find, and may not even arrive Wednesday at many places, so I didn't get my hopes up. When I got to Meijer, I started walking towards the electronics section, but on my way I noticed a decent-sized line formed behind a large stack of Wii Fit boxes (maybe 50 of them). I stepped in line exactly at midnight, so I was last to get my copy of the game, which was heavier than I expected. I'd say that 20 or so people picked up the game with me at midnight, with plenty of stock left, but I expect them to be sold out by day's end.

Excited to play, I quickly drove home and opened up the box. The balance board is quite big (17.5 inches wide, and about 10.5 inches deep). The balance board takes four double A batteries (included), and probably weighs over 10 pounds (I'm not very good at estimating weight, haha).

The game is really friendly, and very simple to navigate through. Everyday, you can weigh yourself and test your balance (as many times as you want per day, but you can only save one weight per day for graphing purposes). Since I only have one weight recorded (173.1 lbs, 6'0, 23.44 BMI, 19 years old), I can't really test how comprehensive the charts are, but it seems very user-friendly and feels accurate, allowing you to point and grab the graph to move it around freely with the Wii remote. The game allows you to set a weight loss goal, and this goal will show up on the graphs as well, making it very easy to track progress.

I expected to play this game all night, but after just an hour of working out, I felt fairly exhausted. Not to say that I couldn't handle playing some more, but I can definitely say that after trying out a bit of what the game has to offer, I got a good workout. After each exercise, you get "minutes" which add up to help unlock new exercises. I was under the impression that I could use these minutes to choose exercises to unlock, but it seems that it is all predetermined, where you will automatically unlock new things as you play.

A personal trainer is provided to help teach you how to do certain exercises. I feel that the trainer actually gives out good tips on how to get the best workout. Additionally, the trainer tells you exactly what muscles are being worked out with each exercise. The game is definitely a lot harder than it looks; some poses look extremely easy, but are fairly hard to imitate. I started sweating after just a couple short yoga poses (about 2 minutes for each exercise), and after playing for an hour, I feel like I had a great workout.

Overall, I would say that this game has (so far) lived up to my great expectations, and my ultimate goal is to get my BMI down to 22 (which is said to be ideal), and to get my abs back (I blame beer for my lack of them, currently).

Great impressions so far. Remember WiiFit is not solely going to make you a healthier, fitter person. I see WiiFit as a really fun way to aid you in losing weight. Nothing can replace eating right, for example. For those abs, make sure to do situps daily!

I am dropping by after work to pick this up. Hope they have it by the time I got there...

Crap! I need to gain weight.

I'm getting this in a little less than six hours. So it does give you a good workout then? That's what I'm really interested in, that and how well the balance board works.

I heard Wii Fit also allows for that through muscle-building.

I think it would be great for muscle building.

Something people have glossed over - I think its a great tool for *professional* athletes & gym people. The logging functionality is great, plus the tracking of time/events that you do each day.

Throw in BMI, CoM of measurement as well - and its well worth the cash.

how is it good for muscle building?

It definitely provides for a good workout. Some of the exercises could be "cheated" on to get a better score, I suppose, but what's the point in that? Most of the exercises require you to look at the TV and keep your balance dot within a certain region, ensuring that you are working out the correct muscles.

I only have about 35 "minutes" in the Wii Fit Bank. Minutes aren't directly translated into "Wii minutes", as you only get minutes for the time you are actually working out, so menu time doesn't count, and neither does practice time. I unlocked about five extra exercises already, with still lots more to get.  It seems like it will take a long time to truly unlock everything.

Also, if you find the workout to be too easy, you can increase the rep count, but I found that even the base minimum felt fairly strong for most exercises. There was not a single exercise in any section of the game that felt easy or pointless so far; everything the game has to offer seems to provide a unique muscle workout.

I'm no expert in training, but you only use your own body weight in Wii Fit, so it's not going to be as effective as working out with weights in a gym. But you do the movements rather slowly, plus you'll have to concentrate on maintaining your balance, so it's actually surprisingly taxing to do the muscle workouts.