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I've been waiting with great anticipation for the release of miCoach by Adidas. The last really excellent workout game that was developed for any system was EA Sports Active 2, but it seems that EA has all but abandoned that franchise. The Wii U will be getting Wii U Fit in the fall, and the Xbox will be getting Nike+ Kinect, which means Adidas MiCoach is really the only serious player in the fitness game market for the PS3 in the foreseeable future.
The game starts out with a video greeting from the athletes who'll be "training" you. What's very cool is that all of them are real athletes and stars in their respective sports, from Dwight Howard to Kaka to Tyson Gay, to Andrea Petrovic, to Eric Berry. The online trainers are rendered very well; with a few exceptions they look like their real selves and not some creepy computer-animated version of themselves (I'm talking to you, creepy Jenny McCarthy).
One thing that no one really bothered to tell me before I bought the game is that you do need to buy additional equipment, namely a towel, a stability exercise ball, and dumbbells. You can use the game without these, but you'll be limited in how many of the exercises you can do. The game also supports the use of any ANT+ compatible heart rate monitor; if you have this your heart rate will be displayed throughout the game.
Something else important to know before purchasing the game is that you need a LOT of space. You need a least 10-12 feet of space in front of your PS3 Eye camera, 10-12 feet from side to side, and about 1-2 feet above you for certain activities. Bottom line, the camera needs a full and unobstructed view of your whole body whether you're jumping or lying on the floor. If you don't have this the game will be terribly frustrating for you.
There are three basic options in the game: Training Plan, Training Games. and Conditioning.
TRAINING PLAN
The Training Plan portion of the game literally lives up to the name "My Coach". Training Plans seem to be intended for people who want to do some professional-caliber, in-depth training for a sport (specifically, basketball, football, running, soccer, and tennis). You can also choose from two generic options: men's training or women's training, and you can select "Getting Started" which will acclimate you to the system with some simple stretches.
The training provided can get very technical, comparable to the types of programs that strength and conditioning coaches and trainers use for professional athletes.
For each of the sports there are core exercises to 1) build strength, 2) increase speed, or 3) maintain a certain level of fitness during the season. Within each of these options are additional choices; for example, under the "build strength" option for basketball the sub-options are 1) game shape, 2) build lean mass, 3) maximize strength, and 4) sky high, each focusing on a different aspect of strength training.
Once you choose one of these sub-options, you'll get set up with a set number of workouts over a set number of weeks (for example, "sky high" consists of 12 workouts of 4 per week over a 3 week period). You'll also be told what equipment you need, and your calendar in the game will be set for you.
These are not easy workouts. Most of them last anywhere from 45 minutes to over an hour and have an intense number of exercises. As I said, the exercises get very technical, tailored towards working out parts of your body needed to excel in the sport you chose--there are floor exercises and stretches, cardio workouts, and drills. And with each sport, you'll have actual professionals who'll demonstrate the exercise to you and give "insider" tips during the training. The professionals include:
Tennis: Ana Ivanovic, Andrea Petkovic, and Fernando Verdasco
Football: CJ Spiller, Eric Berry, Jozy Altidore, Von Miller
Soccer: Gareth Bale, Jose Mourinho, Kaka
Basketball: Josh Smith, Dwight Howard, Jrue Holiday
Track: Tyson Gay, Jessica Ennis
As you progress through your workouts you can unlock video "master classes" from the athletes which give you further advice.
One thing to note is that you do NOT get intense cardio workouts with these exercises, which are aimed more at strength and flexibility training. See the "MiCoach Integration" section below for more about this.
TRAINING GAMES
This is the "lighter", "more fun" portion of the game, and it is fantastic. It consists of simulations of actual sports. Specifically, you can practice shooting baskets, which is by far the most realistic basketball simulation I've played on any video game system. You can also simulate being a soccer goalie blocking shots, again an excellent simulation that really requires you to move. Finally, there's a tennis game that has you returning serves and trying to hit blocks; not the most accurate simulation, but one that's still a lot of fun. The level of workout you get from these training games is not nearly what you'd get from playing the real thing, of course, but it's a very well executed part of the game that provides some workout, and some very good fun and much needed distraction for the shorter-attention-spanned amongst us.
CONDITIONING
This is the part of the game I'd suggest for the more casual fitness gamer. Each conditioning routine consists of a certain amount of exercises, followed by recover periods, followed by training games. The conditioning workouts seem to be around 20 minutes, making them ideal for morning or evening exercise.
MOTION CONTROL
Now for the most important question in a PS3 Fitness game: how accurate were the motion controls?
Interestingly, not all exercises use the Move controller. The game attempts to be Kinect-like by use just the Playstation Eye camera to track certain exercises. This is a welcome development for those exercises where it's just too unwieldy to try to hold a controller. As for how well it works, I'll be honest, it's hit or miss. There are times when I'd be adjusting my position to prepare myself for the exercise, and the system will have already counted my random movements as two or three reps.
For those exercises that use the Move controller, again, I found them hit or miss. I found that exercises where I had to lie on the floor were more "miss", while exercises while standing or on the stability ball were more "hit".
The biggest takeaway for me was not that the motion controls were horrible, but that your conditions and lighting need to be absolutely perfect for the system to recognize your motions correctly. It'll take some trial and error to figure out the best positioning for you (both standing up and lying down) as well as for your PS3 Eye camera. One good thing that MiCoach does is allow you to skip an exercise if it realizes it's not tracking you properly, instead of berating you mercilessly for your failure (I'm talking to you, creepy Jillian Michaels). But I would have much preferred for them to provide some better guidance on how to set up your system and your environment rather than just bail on you.
INTEGRATION WITH MICOACH
MiCoach for PS3 was designed from the ground up to integrate with MiCoach.com (and by extension with their iPhone app). MiCoach.com is Web site by Adidas that's been around for a few years, which was designed to give you the ability to set up both cardio workouts and strength/flexibility workouts for different sports, and to track your progress (using high priced MiCoach accessories, of course). What the PS3 version of MiCoach does is replace the "strength/flexibility" workouts on the Web site with interactive versions of the same workouts.
Again, you won't get major cardio from the game, so it's up to you to choose cardio workouts on the Web (most of which are interval training). For example, I'm doing the "Men's Training Get Lean" program on the PS3, but I'm also using the iPhone app to track cardio exercise I'm doing throughout the day.
When you start up the PS3 game you're asked if you want to connect your game to your online account. I already had a MiCoach account, so all I had to do was enter my Playstation ID and a personalized six-digit code under "Settings > Sharing/Connections". If you don't have a MiCoach.com account yet, you can set up a new one for free at that point.
The integration isn't perfect. There are times I'd set up plans on the PS3, and the Web calendar wouldn't be updated (for example, when adding conditioning exercises to Training Plans). Similarly, there are times I'd make adjustments to the calendar on the Web (such as adjusting the date for a specific workout) and the PS3 version wouldn't be updated. You're very much limited in what you can do on the PS3. There also seem to be a lot of bugs with data on the PS3; according to the stats, last week I travelled 31,726 miles in one workout (in case you're wondering, the right answer is 2.12).
Overall I give their integration efforts an A for effort, but a D for execution. They have a lot of work to do here.
CONCLUSION
Overall, MiCoach for PS3 is a game that shows a lot of promise. I'd strongly recommend it to you if you fall into one of the following categories: 1) you are already an active user of MiCoach, 2) you already own (or are already planning to buy) the required equipment such as an exercise ball, hand weights, and a heart rate monitor, or 3) you are actively training for any of the supported sports and looking for professional-caliber workouts.
If you're more of a casual gamer I'd still recommend it for the training games and the conditioning exercises, but you may find yourself completely ignoring the main part of the game, the Training Plans.
I give the concept, the graphics, and the attention to detail in the individual exercises a 5 of 5, but the motion control issues and the snafus with integration are enough to push it back down to a 4 of 5. Still, I'd say the game easily surpasses games like Fit in Six, UFC Personal Trainer, and EA Sports Active 2--and is on par with Get Fit for Mel B--to jump into the echelons of the Best PS3 fitness games. Hopefully they will continue to work on these things and send updates to both the Web site and the PS3. This thing has a ton of potential, but it just falls a little bit short of perfection at the moment.
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UPDATE: Motion detection is really horrible with normal indoors lights. During daytime with blinds open, I did not have any issue but trying to do workout at night is nearly impossible. Right now, I cannot recommend this game at all unless you have a perfect setup at home. Very bright room. At least, 10 feet between you and camera and 4 feet of free space behind you. Space was not an issue for me.
I got this game over weekend. Let me point out the negatives first:
1. You cannot customize your training plan. You cannot tell it that you don't have stability ball or weights.
2. It doesn't do a fitness test like in EA Active 2. I love to see overall progress.
Now good stuff:
1. Graphics are way better than EA Active 2.
2. It has more energetic feel.
3. You don't have to put on 3 different sensors to make it work.
4. It shows a video of how you are performing right next to trainer. Makes it easy to correct your form.
Now my wish list:
I had this idea after realizing this game doesn't do fitness test. I wonder how awesome it would be if this game took your full body photo every week or so. That way you can see any improvements. And for miCoach team they can add a feature where you can crop your face out and share your photos online. That would help them advertise this game more.
I am really hoping that miCoach team will release a patch that would let you customize your training plan and do a fitness test. Maybe even take photos. :) Then it would be almost perfect workout game.
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We have lots of fun with our Adidas coach ps3 game nice to keep healthy with whole family enjoys it
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Great workout programs. Took a couple uses to really figure it out that you literally have to follow the image in order for it to pick up your movement. The instruction book is not helpful.
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With the PS3 Move controller being on the market for over 2 years, why is it still so difficult for someone make a workout program that offers accurate motion detection? Sports Champions does it. Even Move Fitness did a competent job.
Like Get Fit with Mel B, I found Adidas miCoach has a lot of promise in terms of a workout program, offering a very deep variety of exercises and programs. I also preferred working out to a video of a personality rather than a poorly rendered avatar. But, unfortunately, like Get Fit with Mel B, the motion detection is extremely hit and miss. I can do a rather complicated exercise that registers perfectly, and then something simple like bent over rows I can never get to register. Or, an exercise that registered perfectly over the course of several workouts will suddenly stop registering, though nothing in my set up (lighting, camera distance, body position, workout attire, etc.) has changed. This is very frustrating to say the least.
And yes, like others have said, to get the most out of this, you'll need a number of accessories, particularly a stability ball and dumbbells of varying weights.
One thing that I never understood, I registered at micoach.com to gain access to some cardio workouts as advertised in the game's menus. But once I registered the workouts were added to my calendar, but I don't see where or how to do those workouts either in the game or via the website. What's worse is that half the time I select to view the calendar in-game, the game crashes when it hangs trying to synch with micoach.com. UGH!
At any rate, if you're looking for a workout video game, I would still recommend "Fit in Six." It's not the flashiest, nor the best in terms of offering a long-term workout program, but it has a very deep set of exercise routines (from salsa dancing and pilates to core boot camp and cardio boxing), and I almost never have trouble with motion control detection.
