Zumba: Rush

Even though I had major issues with Zumba: Fitness I decided to download the demo of Zumba: Rush for Xbox Kinect.  I surprised myself by not hating it!  It seems like Majesco Entertainment really took what people had to say about Zumba: Fitness to heart and fixed some of the major issues with the interface.

What I Liked:

In Zumba: Fitness, I couldn't distinguish my instructor's body parts. This made it extremely difficult and supremely frustrating while I was try to learn the dances.  When the character was doing a more intricate move, I was not able to tell precisely what the legs were doing, because it was one big, orange blob.  In Zumba: Rush, they took a page from the Dance Central game book and went with instructors that look like real people.

I get a calorie scorching workout!  I can tell my heart rate is up, because I'm sweating like...something that sweats a lot.  When I work out, I'm hard pressed to break a sweat, even in the dead of summer.  It's just nice to know that they $50 I spent on a silly fitness game was actually money well spent.

Repetition.  Many of the dances incorporate some of the same moves.  They may not be in the same combinations, but at least you can identify a move and say, "Oh, hey!  I've done that one before!"

It's fun!  Even if I'm not doing so well on a dance, I'm still having fun.  I laugh at myself all the time, because I know how ridiculous I must look flinging my arms and legs about like a flailing thing.

What I don't like:

I only have two problems with Zumba: Rush.  The first is that the tutorial is lacking.  It has a set of four tutorials, each with four basic moves.  If you have ever done Zumba, you know that there is no Zumba dance in existence that contains only four moves.  The four moves they give you are very basic, so when you get to a full song, you are completely unprepared for some of the off the wall moves they throw at you.  If I did not have 16+ years of dance training, it would have been daunting.  That's not say that the tutorial has not improved at all from Zumba: Fitness.  In Fitness, even with my dance background, I wanted to throw my sneaker at the television.  I knew very well that I was not performing the moves the way the AI was, but she kept telling me what a great job I was doing.  It drove me batty.  At least in Rush, they give you a rating of Nice, Hot! or ZUMBA depending on how well you are performing the moves.

The second problem is that there is no preparation before they launch you right into a song.  During the song, a graphic pops up to notify you when they are changing from one combination of moves to the next.  It would be very helpful if there was a graphic at the very beginning to tell you which move you were starting with.  It gives the feeling that you are always fighting to catch up.

All in all, Zumba: Rush is a huge improvement over its predecessor.  I am in love with it, and I burn far more calories in a 20 - 30 minute session than I would with Dance Central.  Don't get me wrong, I still love Dance Central, but where it is a dance game, Zumba: Rush is a fitness program disguised as a dance game.  I don't think I've sweat so much at one time.  Ever.  And that tells me that I'm getting a decent workout.