Zumba Fitness Core - Xbox 360 Game (Retro Fam)

Zumba Fitness CoreI've never really heard of Zumba until a friend at work told me about her part-time job as a Zumba / Hip Beatz (sic) instructor at a local dance fitness studio. I ordered a Kinect for my Xbox 360 Slim and decided to give Zumba Fitness Core a try since it is the latest in the Zumba Fitness franchise, and is supposed to focus on the core muscles.While many people seem to complain about the repetitive dance moves, I find that the choreography of most songs seem to rely on similar routines, which is beneficial for participants since you can piece together some of the familiar movements. I don't know the names of these dance moves but I could recognize them when I watched some videos of my friend's classes on Youtube.The game uses "realistic" models of the instructors, which doesn't really help or hurt the overall experience. What does hurt the overall experience of the game is when the camera moves away from the instructor to make it look more "artsy", as if the game developers wanted to impress you with a 2005-era graphics engine - except the whole point of the game is to follow the instructor's movements. This can be hard to do when the camera pans out at an angle so the instructor is about 0.5 inches tall!I don't recognize most of the songs, but some of the high intensity routines are truly intense. I am breaking some serious sweat after 5 songs (short Zumba workout session). My friend uses a MotoActv for her actual classes, and she will burn 800-900 calories.

I frequent Zumba classes and love dancing. I absolutely love this workout, it's all core and you can really feel your strength developing after all the dancing. I love that you can pick songs individually, or you can pick a workout based on length and difficulty. I did one of the harder ones last night and it was amazing! I also love when the instructors do more dancing than aerobic moves. That is a problem i was running into when going to live classes, and i just don't get as much out of doing jumping jacks and lunges as I do with feeling the music and moving my hips and legs. Also, its so freaking cold where I live right now, so I hate to venture out anywhere. Since I'm stuck inside I may as well keep myself in shape!I highly recommend this Zumba game, the songs are unstoppable and developing your technique is easier with the way the game queues up the next move in the routine. I LOVE THIS GAME!!!

I'm on a Zumba kick, but paying for classes can get expensive. This is such a good alternative. The music is great, the choreography is easy to follow, and the instructors' movements are very lifelike. If you do well on a song, they cheer for you,. My son likes to watch to see how they'll react. You can customize your workouts too, either just dance to your favorite songs, or they create workouts for you.I think it's worth the money, and fun to boot.