My Weight Loss Coach steps onto DS
Ubisoft dons a leotard and encourages us to fight the flab
As you'll remember if you've been using the software, you can already train your brain using your DS. Or use it to teach you French, courtesy of My French Coach.
Logic therefore suggests it was only a matter of time before a publisher decided to tantalise the casual-gamer types with a weight loss game.
Japan already has Let's Yoga, a game unconfirmed for release here. But Ubisoft has announced My Weight Loss Coach will be coming out a bit closer to home – in the US – this year.
The game is in development at Ubisoft's Montreal studio under the guidance of both a fitness coach and a nutritionist. Which is probably for the best considering game developers aren't necessarily the first people you'd entrust with dishing out advise on healthy living. (Not if the various 'kitchen stations' comprising nine microwaves and a gargantuan fridge we saw at Ubisoft Montreal last time we were there are any indication.)
Probably the most interesting bit of the game is that it'll come with a pedometer peripheral. So, presumably, your DS will keep track of the number of steps you take in a day, by either extracting the information from the pedometer when you slot it in or when the DS is carried around with you.
The rest of the software allows you to create a personal profile, set objectives and track physical activity and nutritional habits. Real-life landmark checkpoints, as they're called, convert all your hard efforts into measurable real examples.
Like our every-January plans of thrice weekly exercise and muesli for breakfast, we give it one week – then you'll be trading it in for a copy of Metroid.
Still, we'll keep you updated on Ubisoft's plans for releasing the game outside of the US (where it's more urgently needed, even if the UK is catching up fast).
