Serious Game Classification

The Biggest Loser is a health and lifestyle game for the Nintendo Wii, compatible with the Wii Balance Board. Based on the hit NBC reality TV show the game mirrors the format of the show by featuring intense training routines, weekly challenges, nutritional goals and information and the iconic weekly weigh-in and elimination from the show.

Created with the support of the personal trainers, doctors and nutritionists from the TV show, the game features voiceovers from the show?s most famous trainers, Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels. Their dialogue is used throughout the training routines to provide detailed instruction, safety information, tips and player feedback. The game also features a wide range of healthy recipes sourced from various Biggest Loser cookbooks as well as the official The Biggest Loser Club website.

The focus of the Biggest Loser?s training is on providing real weight loss and fitness results through hand crafted fitness routines, designed to burn calories and build muscle mass. Following from the principles of circuit training that are central to the workouts found in the TV show, the game aims to keep the player moving by changing exercises every 30 to 60 seconds. The game features 66 exercise routines created from a set of 88 different exercises covering a wide range of intensities and muscle groups. Exercise routines can last between 20 and 80 minutes, depending on the player?s chosen difficulty level.

Notably player failure during the exercise routines is not punished by stopping the routine, instead the dynamic feedback dialogue from the trainers is used to motivate the player to push themselves within their abilities. This ensures that the carefully designed pacing of the fitness routines is maintained throughout, significantly reducing player frustration and helping them to get the results they desire.

When engaged in a full fitness program the player first selects a one of the previous show contestants to represent them as an in-game character. The game features a total of 8 different characters taken from the first 5 series of the TV show. After entering a number of critical pieces of personal information and selecting a difficulty and goal the player is given a number of fitness routines to complete in each week, followed by a single challenge game and the weigh-in event.

The challenge games were influenced by the challenges found in the TV show, and set the player a number of exercises to perform in order to move their in-game character through the event. Unlike the exercise routines, the challenges require the player to successfully complete each exercises to progress through the game. Upon completing a round of the challenge event, the player is shown the scores achieved by their AI competitors. In each round the lowest scoring character is eliminated until only two characters remain. In the final round, the highest scoring character wins.

All training and challenge results are fed into a comprehensive scoring system alongside the player?s real weight change and diet tracking information during the weekly weigh-ins. The player?s combined score is then represented through their chosen character?s weight loss. In each week of the competition the characters who have lost the least weight are then up for elimination. A vote then follows to determine which character is eliminated. As the player progresses through the game, their chosen character will visibly lose weight, mirroring the player?s success towards their personal fitness or weight loss goal.

The competition fitness and weight loss programs available for the player can last either 4, 8 or 12 weeks. The in-game character who has lost the most weight at the end of the program is crowned The Biggest Loser. [source:mobygames]

Distribution : Retail - Commercial
Platform(s) : Wii

Links

• http://www.mobygames.com/game/biggest-loser/