Huge improvement over the original EA Sports Active, and the original was an excellent exercise program.

User Rating: 9.5 | EA Sports Active 2 WII
EA Sports Active 2 for the Wii is the gold standard for an exercise program, and it blows the Wii Fit franchise out of the competition.

Here is why:

1) Active 2 pretty much frees you from holding the Wii remote, except for certain exercises where it is logical and needed. The result: Freedom. You can use hand weights instead of the flimsy exercise bands and the Acitve 2 even shows you working out with weights. Fantastic. No more nunchuck tangles and exercise-cord limitations. The Wii remote is still used for hand movements like basketball shooting, and that's fine.

I have two sets of hand weights I use for the weight routines, 5 pounds and 8 pounds. It depends on the exercise. But now I can get the workout out I want and not be limited by the bands.

2) The heart rate monitor is an incredible achievement, on the par with the Wii balance board (which, by the way, I don't bother using with Active 2). You get incredible feedback when you see your heart rate rising from 65 (resting) to 150+ during the harder cardio exercises.

3) Active 2 now offers more complete exercise routines, with more logical warmups and cool-downs focusing on stretching.

4) Active 2 incorporates more traditional on-the-floor exercises, such as pushups and leg lifts, that the original skipped. That captures some of the most-needed content of Wii Fit.

5) The music and presentation are a nice step up from the original Active.

The one negative is that the programmed weeks-long workouts require you to choose the days of the week you will exercise, and it is inflexible. Sorry, but in real life we need to skip a day here and there and catch up a day early, here and there. (But you can still do trainer generated workouts outside the structured program, at least.)

I am pretty amazed by Acitve 2. The heart-rate monitor is a fantastic advance, and the exercises are a lot more sophisticated and well structured.

This program will motivate you.