The Biggest Loser is a Nintendo Wii health and lifestyle game compatible with the Wii Balance Board. Based on the hit NBC reality TV show, the game features intensive workout routines, weekly challenges, dietary goals and information, and the iconic weekly weigh-in and elimination from the show.
The game incorporates voiceovers from the show’s most prominent trainers, Bob Harper, and Jillian Michaels, and was created with the help of the show’s personal trainers, doctors, and nutritionists. Throughout the training routines, their language is used to deliver extensive instruction, safety information, tips, and player feedback. The game includes healthy recipes, Loser cookbooks, and the official The Biggest Loser Club website.
The Biggest Loser program offers weight reduction and fitness outcomes with handcrafted workout routines designed to burn calories and develop muscle mass. Following the idea of circuit training in the TV show’s workouts, the game seeks to keep the player moving by changing exercises every 30 to 60 seconds. The game includes 66 training routines comprising 88 activities of varying intensities and muscle areas. Exercise routines can take anywhere from 20 to 80 minutes, depending on the user’s difficulty level.
Notably, the player’s failure during the training routines is not penalized by terminating the practice; instead, the dynamic feedback conversation from the trainers is used to urge the player to push themselves within their capacities. This guarantees that the workout routines’ carefully calibrated pacing is maintained throughout, considerably decreasing player dissatisfaction and assisting them in achieving the desired outcomes.
When starting a comprehensive fitness program, the player chooses one of the past show contestants to represent them as an in-game character. The game includes eight characters from the first five seasons of the TV program. After entering several essential pieces of personal information and selecting difficulty and objective, the player is presented with a series of exercise routines to perform each week, followed by a single challenge game and the weigh-in event.
The challenge games were inspired by the TV show’s challenges and assigned the players exercises to advance their in-game character through the event. Unlike the fitness routines, the challenges require the player to finish each activity successfully to proceed through the game. After completing a round of the challenge event, the player is presented with the scores of their AI opponents. The lowest-scoring character is removed in each round until only two remain. In the final round, the surface with the highest score wins.
During the weekly weigh-ins, all training and challenge results are put into a comprehensive scoring system, coupled with the player’s weight change and diet tracking information. The player’s total score is then represented by the weight loss of their chosen character. The characters who have lost the least weight are eliminated each week of the tournament. Following that, a vote is held to determine which character is eliminated. As the player continues through the game, their selected character’s weight will visibly decrease, matching the user’s achievement in reaching their personal fitness or weight loss goal.
The competition fitness and weight loss regimens accessible to players might last four, eight, or twelve weeks. The Biggest Loser is the in-game character who has shed the most significant weight by the end of the program.
