My Weight Loss Coach

I decided to buy My Weight Loss Coach a few weeks ago. This was actually kind of a difficult decision on my part. I didn’t really care for My Word Coach that much, and like it’s predecesor, My Weight Loss Coach carried on the problem of being a bit over-priced. But what ended up to be the selling points of it really were that I need to lose weight, this is the only such thing out there for the DS, and at the very least the pedometer that is included would be nice to have to see how much I’m walking.

The game overall is, well… not even really a game and this didn’t even really bother me. After all, over in Japan there are loads of applications for the DS that have little to no game to them. Here in America, that just isn’t the case for the most part. I think they even stopped selling the DS Browser here so we don’t even have the most basic of apps. But given My Word Coach I guess I did expect at least some game to it.

Basically the game keeps track of how far you walk, the basic work out related activities that you do, the basic things you eat and figures out whether you are living a balanced lifestyle. You can also keep track of your weight and set yourself goals, for which it will help you figure out how to achieve those goals. The app will also give you advice on how to eat right and work out, and will give you tasks to do each day that I think are generally related to things you have tended to do in the past successfully. So if it sees that you seem to get those short walks completed, it might start giving you longer walks.

There are also some “mini-games” included which take the form of 3 types of quizzes that are geared to help you learn more about working out and nuitrition. Many of them aren’t entirely difficult, and most you can figure out the answers to even if you didn’t know them. Completing these quizzes will grant you access to new types of tasks and advice that previously are locked. I suppose this provides the program with a little bit more depth, but honestly I don’t think it needed this aspect much. These forms of information could have been provided by startup tips and what not throughout the game. With new activities being unlocked as you progress to your goal or through landmarks in your walking experience.

You also do have this landmark feature for the pedometer. Basically you enter your daily steps, and they add up to give you destinations that you have walked. For instance, the first landmark is that you walk the distance of the Great Wall of China. I kind of like this, it provides you with fun little mini-goals that I think smartly incorporates the pedometer, and thus your real life, into the program. You also gain bonuses to this goal by doing various activities correctly, I don’t care for this aspect of it, but whatever.

Overall, I think this program can be helpful for people trying to shed a few pounds and having a difficult time to get started. Have I lost weight? I don’t know, I try not to weigh myself too often so this makes it difficult. But at the very least I do think more about what I eat and do physically on a day to day basis which I definitely think is a positive step in the right direction.

On a graded scale I think I’d give this game a B-. There isn’t a ton to do, and I wish again like other Ubisoft causal games that it was a little lower in price, however in this instance the pedometer gives it extra value.