Friday, April 27, 2012

Few bugs and general feedback PS3/360

So I hope the folks behind EA sports active actually get to read this. I've been playing on both the PS3 and XBox versions of this game and have found quiet a few little bugs.
Firstly, with the 360 version I've noticed the following issues :
1) Forward/Backwards jumps - Hey look, I'm Marty Pellow from Jackals Forge Gallerie Abominate! I seem to spend my time in a semi crouched position with my feet floating off the floor. Possibly an MS issue could also be an EA issue. Either way it's pretty disturbing and obviously it's not registering correct leg positions/length/height.
2) Kickups/High knees circuit with trainer - Strangely no matter how quickly you run (and that's normally faster than the on screen avatar) your trainer just rushes off ahead to the point that he has to stop and wait for you to catch up. All the while telling you that you're keeping up a great pace.
3) Mountain Biking, climbing hills/running segment - Run in place and it seems to think your'e standing still. The only way to get you going is to take ridiculously over the top jump skip runs or equally ridiculous high knees, at which point you zoom up the hill like you're on steroids.
4) Overuse of side to side jumps (and jumps in general) - Jumps are high impact exercises, they're great at getting the heart rate going but at the same time they aren't all that great for endurance, joints, tendons, leg muscle scar tissue etc. They should be there, but not used to excess. Vary things up at least if the workout is going to involve a lot of jumps then add in stride jumps, skipping and for good cardio bring in foot fires from the PS3 version too.
5) Unbalanced workouts - The 360 version really seems to lack core and upper body exercises (and intensity in that area). In fact it seems to mostly focus on the ankles, shins and calves more than the upper legs too! Where are all the lunges and squats?
6) Lag - most noticeable on reaction games like dodgeball and goalkeeping. But also very apparent with boxing and step aerobics. Anything at all that can be done to improve this would be great, it's just very disconcerting when you move to have to wait what seems like an eternity before your avatar makes a similar move.
7) Trainer prompts - When the exercise only consists of a single rep (or even just two) then there's really no need to play the "One More Rep!" sample at you.
The workout intensity seems much lighter on the X-Box than on the PS3, this is doing the 9 week program on Hard with both.
9) Way fewer exercises. I'd really like to see more stuff on the 360, it doesn't have to be the same stuff as on the PS3, but at the moment it feels like a bit of a gyp.
Now onto the PS3 version and some of the stuff i've noticed.
1) Trainer prompts - At the end of a workout it sometimes plays back the "Time for a water break" sample instead of "well done on the workout today" sample. It's minor but it makes it feel less polished.
2) When doing follow my leader or circuits it's a bit ridiculous to hear the trainer exhorting you to "pick up the pace" or "you're going to have to work a bit harder to keep up with me today" when you've left them miles behind in the dust.
3) The right arm band runs through batteries at a ridiculous rate. In the 9 week program I went through at least 10 batteries (and only one battery change on the leg).
4) General sensitivity is nothing like on the X-Box with most exercises. If you do weights, pushups, split squats, lunges etc you're expected to hold a specific stance dead still for a couple of seconds before it "sees" you in the position shown. This throws out pacing completely, you can never get a rhythm going and instead are working to the chimes rather than the exercise. The 360 is much better at this in every exercise apart from squats where the PS3 version with it's squat bar shines and allows you to see exactly how well you're doing and to move to the exercise rather than the chimes (it tells you to squat or stand up before the chime hits and is much more predictable). This also makes the PS3 version quite dangerous for some of the weight and jump lunge exercises as it places too much stress while trying to hold position still for it to register the position correctly.
5) Overhead triceps extensions seem to have been set up for use with the exercise band only and not weights. The band pulls your hands back down but also inward towards the neck safely behind your head and keeps elbows in a position the game sees. Working with weights however which are a little bulky makes it much more likely that you could damage yourself thanks to the position it's expecting your arms to be in, this is due not to the weight itself but the size of the weights which don't pull in the same way as the band and push your hands out further away from your neck. Sadly the sensors don't seem to be able to tell which way up they are a lot of the time.
General feedback
1) During running on both systems the heart rate shows it's falling dramatically often down all the way back to the 90's when I can tell it's only falling a small amount from the 170's. This feels like a bug in the software rather than an error of the sensor itself.
2) The overall heart rate chart needs a smoothed trend curve, mostly to compensate for the above problem.
3) It would be nice if calories burned in outside activities were added to your own calorie count.
4) It would be nice if feedback you gave on your journal would also affect the next routine, i.e. if you said it's too easy then bring it up a notch, if it's too hard then bring it down. Also make some use of the "enjoyment" level to try and balance the workouts for maximum motivation.
5) The journal needs the option of giving you some tough love now and then. If I put in that I ate rubbish with hardly any fruit and veg, long spaces between meals, didn't get enough sleep or overslept, was burnt out from my exercises then it should tell me that I need to do better, not that I'm doing the right things!
Other issues
I've also suffered from the not being able to sign into the EA servers issues. I've not been able to even log in to post on the EA forums at all up till now either. Possibly linked?
Anyhow that's all for now. I hope that there's an update that addresses this stuff sometime as I do enjoy the game when it works.

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