Your Shape: Fitness Evolved Impressions

Let's face it. Most of us have probably tried a fitness game at some point or another, and your Wii Balance Board or resistance bands are likely sitting in a drawer somewhere or left neglected in a corner collecting dust. In theory, combining video games and fitness is a great way to get the blood flowing and encourage people to be a little more active than a couch potato. However, the games eventually become repetitive, and you start to lose interest in your fitness routine faster than you can get the game out of the box.

At the Microsoft press conference during the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Ubisoft showed off Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, which will use Microsoft's newly named Kinect to scan your body so that the game can register your movements and provide immediate feedback. A bright orange clone of yourself is scanned into the game before you even start, taking note of your dimensions and height. Menus will appear in places that make sense if you were to make any selections, and they follow your movements for convenience. For example, you should not have to wave your arms above your head to make a selection to back out.

It's easy to follow instructions onscreen and think you know what you're doing, but the perk of going to an actual fitness class is that the instructor can tell you when you're not doing the exercises correctly. Your Shape: Fitness Evolved looks like it will let you know whether or not your legs are bent enough and how your overall form is. Instructions from the coach will also appear in the top right corner of the screen to give you some additional direction.

Michael George, a celebrity trainer, took the stage to talk about how the game includes low-impact as well as high-intensity workouts for you to choose from. You have the freedom to choose how you want to work out so you can keep it strictly yoga or mix it up with some martial arts or combat training. In the demo, one of the activities involved breaking down a large wall of bricks, and it gives you a score at the end.

For a cooldown, the already simplistic white background switched to a peaceful-looking Zen garden with a tree and a pool of water for you to work out in. Tai chi is one of the activities that we are looking forward to the most, and it looks like it could be fun. It's a low-impact exercise and won't require a ton of space, and with the immediate feedback from Kinect, you could practice your tai chi moves at any time in your living room instead of waking up at the crack of dawn to participate in your local tai chi class. Exercising in your pajamas is always a perk too.

Look for Your Shape: Fitness Evolved when it is set to be released on November 4.