EA Sports Active 2

First off... this is NOT a game.. so if you buy this thinking "this will be fun"... it wont be. This is designed to push you, make you sweat and ache and sometimes hurt.

Anyway... as a TOOL to help you exercise, workout, tone up and burn calories.. it does the job.

I've worked my way through about 2 weeks of a 9 week programme so far and I'm impressed. I'm not an exercise expert at all and obviously a programme on the PS3 will never replace going to a real Gym, but as an alternative its impressive.

It does what it says on the box and helps idiots like me do an automated workout 4 days a week, for about 30 minutes a time.

You wont get fancy graphics or astounding sound or interface here, but it all doe the trick. Although to be honest.. the menu system is a bit slow and there is a lot of "loading" stuff and having to click "OK" to proceed. It can feel excessive.

But you wont be using this for prolonged amount of time each day. Its a case of put the disc in, get set up, do your workout and then collapse until the next day.

The programme basically asks you to set up a character, putting in age, weight, height and appearance and then off you go!

It asks if you want to do a 9 or 3 week programme of exercise, over 4 days a week (which you can choose) and then it starts.

You then set up the 3 body sensors (one right arm, one left arm and one on your left), plug in the USB dongle and you get started.

When you start the workout, you get around 28-33+ exercises to do, which take around 30 minutes to complete. Covering upper, core, lower or full body.

You also get a resistance band which does the job; but Ive personally bought my own set of hand weights to replace it. You have an option ingame to tell it you are using either a resistance band or weights and it changes the animaton accordingly,

However, for some reason, it does the weights in 1.5kg, 2.5kg and 3.5kg. But there is no reason you have to use exact weights measurements as the game states. I use a 2kg hand weight pair and it works fine.

You also have the ability to make you own, personalised workout, to aim for certain body areas. I set one up for the upper and core areas, but be warned... you have to be careful.

I made a personalised workout which was toooo much for me and I learned to ease it down. You get a choice of 3 workout levels:

The easy one is 5 reps I think (never tried it), the next is 10 reps and the highest is 15 reps per exercise. Trust me when I say that 10 reps is enough for most people. 15 reps can be hard if you are doing a lot in one set,

The sensors for the most part work great. They arent perfect and do occasionally miss-read your body. This can be an issue if you are holding 2kg weights in your hands and it doesnt recognise that you are straining yourself with full stretched arms.

But 95% of the time they work!

Theres nothing really bad with this programme as it does exactly what you need it do. The sensors work, the resistance band is use-able and the automated workout sessions are great,

But you probably will find that you run out and spend more money on weights and maybe even an exercise mat. This isnt a cheap option.

It also has charts, data, a calender and lots of other stuff to track your calorie burns, heart-rate health and so on. Over-all... I would recommend this, but keep in mind its a serious programme and not a game to just mess about with.

i bought this last month and have used it a couple of times and my god it nearly killed me but in a good way ive already started to notice the pounds coming of,the only thing now is im having problems with the sencors the signal not being picked up when im using the big rubber band i have to skip that exercise,part from that bloody marvelouse bit of kit

Have you tried making a profile for your wife on the PS HOME screen? (click right to the end where you can switch the console off (left side) and choose "add profile") when she signs in her profile all games register to her only and she can then have her own profile in game. this would include sports active 2. most games don't need to rely on internal profiling as the console already acts this way. A bit like how windows works when you sign in different users on the same machine. hope this helps!

When the missus said she wanted this I was, to be honest, doubtful it would be worth the money. I've played on Wii fit and thought it wasn't really a worthwhile fitness product so didn't rate 'at home console fitness'. Well after a couple of 40 min workouts (don't worry, you don't have to jump into one this long) I can honestly say its a very good workout!
I would consider myself reasonably fit anyway as I already work out 3-4 times a week but this still tired me out haha!
The menu's are fairly confusing though (could just be me), but this can be overlooked seeing as it works at what its supposed to do.

This was better than Wii Fit, only flaw with this was the Resistant band didn't stretch far enough to get the full potential. Also when doing certain excerises such as the reverse tricep rowing exercise it didn't seem to pick up on i was doing it, I've tried it 3 times now and not once have i done 10 reps without getting frustated.

Overall I would have given it a 4.75/5