When Nintendo released the original Wii Fit a year and a half ago, it sparked a revival of the exercise game genre in its ongoing revolution of the videogaming world. The title’s massive sales brought on the inevitable bandwagon jumpers looking to get in on a good thing while it’s hot and popping. Some of them jumped on with good results, some of them didn’t. Everybody from Electronic Arts’ EA Sports to Gold’s Gym to TV show The Biggest Loser to Daisy Fuentes to even Jenny McCarthy has offered their own particular "exer-gaming" packages and it is no different for (formerly fat) fitness maven Jillian Michaels.

Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2010 is the sequel to the 2009 edition of the same name and seeks to bring her blunt forceful persona to the growing field of exer-gaming routine. The case cover shows her in-your-face type of personality and you expect the title to be permeated with her confrontational identity. A short introductory video of her on a rocky shore appears after the customary developer logo screens before the title screen displays (along with some appropriate rock music playing rough and rugged in the background). The presentational framework consists of a clean simple blue/bright blue background with wiry white designs and simple text fonts. Very straightforward and basic with little flourish lending idea that this game is all about getting straight to the business-at-hand instead of admiring the pretty atmosphere. I can deal with that. Photos of Jillian on screen in various poses breaks up the monotony as you move from page to page in your selections.

After the title screen, in Registration you can choose to enter a profile detailing your name, age, height, weight, and gender or just play as a guest (you won’t get to save performance records under this option). The game asks you if you have a Wii Balance Board which is semi-optional for this title since not all exercises require use of one. But with Wii Fit being automatically packed in with the Board, it’s smarter for the other exercise games to allow for less dependence on the board just for the sake of differentiation. The Ultimatum has 9 Wiimote-only exercises and 9 Balance Board exercises so don’t look for this to be a true Board-less alternative to Nintendo’s exerciser. “Did you just say 9 a piece? Isn’t that just 18 exercises altogether?” Yes, it appears so (unless there’s hidden unlockables I’m unaware about). But instead of focusing on what isn’t here, let’s focus on what is and if it’s good.

After you register you see the heading Island Hub and its main of the five selections, Workout Area, where you get the choices: Island Overview, Single Exercise, Circuit Training, and Resolutions. Island Overview gives you a choice of 9 locales to perform a random exercise on this dully illustrated, ecologically diverse island (Cascade, Desert, Marshland, Jungle, Beach Landing, Pier, Sand Dunes, Rock, and Hilltop). Bad if you don’t have a Balance Board because even if you told the system you didn’t have one, the randomizer still leaves those exercises in the choices. Single Exercise gives you the ability to choose from the 18 activities, amount of repetitions, location to exercise in, and music to listen to while you do it. Circuit Training lets you pick from gauntlets of 9 various exercises (called Jillian’s Circuits) targeting certain areas for development or custom-create your own. Resolution puts you on a long term calendar trial where you either undertake one of Jillian’s pre-selected routines or customize your own to stick with for the duration of the Resolution. By the way, there’s also stat tracking on weight and other items under the My Info selection from the Island Hub heading.

As for the exercises, they are a mix of familiar and different with Wiimote ones being: Water Pump, Sledge Swing, Hip Twist, Oblique, Side Lunge, Back Kick, Jumping Jacks, Squat Jacks, and Running; and Balance Board ones being: Boat Pose, Crunches, Swing Kick, Lunge Kick, Bicycle, Side Plank, Pelvic Thrust, Push-Up, and Closed Push-Up. Ultimatum 2010 uses a new 4 quadrant system that reads Wiimote movement on a NW/NE/SW/SE axis. You follow along with the movements of the (blandly rendered) Jillian on your TV screen and this system rates your accuracy with traffic light colors of success (green is good, yellow is OK, red is bad). You are scored at the end of each activity for accuracy and intensity of movement (power points).

But the game gives poor feedback and poorer pre-instruction to learn if you’re doing the routines correctly. No voiceover of the instructions (hard to read text in its place) or Jillian-helmed practice area to feel it out beforehand. Jillian rushes through the activities without mercy and you’re left just to catch up in haste never feeling that you’re in control of the action. She does speak out sparsely if you mess up but it’s barely audible over the background music and scenery effects (you have to change volume levels in the options). For a game selling itself on her persona, you’d expect more of the brash vocal dressing down she gives people on TV. It’s barely there and generically added when it is.

And when it comes to those Balance Board exercises, be careful as some of them are downright DANGEROUS! Nobody is laying their backs on that hard Balance Board to do some crunches! Furthermore, many uses of the Board in Ultimatum 2010 look tacked on and unnecessary. Unlike in Wii Fit, this game has you put your hands on the floor BESIDE the Board having the push-up measured on it by your chests (which can be damaging if you slip on top of the board without arms to break fall). In exercises that deal with right and left halves of the body, the game never tells you how to orient yourself. Do you move your left when she moves her left or do you mirror her movements like in Wii Fit? Already hard enough with the questionable accuracy of the movement, Jillian’s rushed-through motions, and non-engaging feedback. I don’t need incomplete instruction and cracked ribs on top of it! Terrible!

They threw in some alternate outfits for her to wear (two) under Jillian’s Locker but it doesn’t even matter. Even the Credits screen is boring. About the only entertaining part are some of those fitness tips she gives you in-between screens. One said, “Brush your teeth. You don’t want to eat your food with toothpaste mouth.” That was about the only thing to make me laugh outside of the disjointed tough love talk you hear after you bomb an exercise.

It honestly felt like Jillian Michaels had next to nothing to do with Fitness Ultimatum 2010, outside of approving her name to be used for marketing it (she actually helped in designing it!). The generic graphics and bland presentation could be forgiven if there was more love and dedication put into it. This game screams ‘cash-in’ and explains why people started doing game reviews in the first place. On top of all that, it doesn’t even have the multiplayer aspect that Ultimatum 2009 did (but it makes sure to feature its full Spanish translation support)! She’s already on the cover of The Biggest Loser exercise game (since she stars in the TV show) and it would be hilarious if that game ended up being better than the one of her namesake. I would recommend avoiding this in search of better exercise games on the Wii and, as Jillian would say, this game is half-dead!