Michael Phelps: Push the Limit Review

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I'll be the first to admit that when I first heard about a Kinect swimming game, I thought it was a joke. I'll also be the first to admit after many hours of playing Michael Phelps Push the Limit, this game is no joke. To be even more specific, if you are looking for a fun game that is addicting and gets your body moving, then Michael Phelps Push the Limit might just be the game you are looking for.

This is not a collection of mini-games or cheesy distractions. Michael Phelps Push the Limit is straight up competition swimming. There are various modes going into the game. You can dive into career mode, plunge into a quick race, challenge friends (online and local), or do laps around the leaderboards. While finding a match online may be hit-and-miss, I am just thrilled about having online leaderboards. I am surprised at the recent trend of Kinect games with no online play; thankfully Michael Phelps Push the Limit is not following this trend and put forth the effort here.

Playing with two people in the same room works fine. You can see an excellent example of two people playing from this video of Phelps himself, taking on Jimmy Fallon. Of course you will need plenty of space between players, but the larger problem with multiple people in the room is menu navigation. Most Kinect games have no problem keeping track of which players are playing and not letting passing animals or kids take control. See my review of Sesame Street Once Upon a Monster for an example of amazing player tracking In Michael Phelps Push the Limit, menu tracking can be jumpy if you happen to have small kids jumping on the couch or even standing near you. Otherwise, menu navigation is easy and smooth.

This is probably one of the best looking Kinect games on the market. Everything looks sharp and realistic, from water effects to Phelps's abs. Even the menus have a nice water effect as you move your hands across the screen.

CAREER MODE & SWIMMING MECHANICS

Career mode is where you'll have the most addicting fun while playing solo. Starting out, you are given a tutorial video of the basics and allowed to choose a character. I was pleased to see the option to pick a male or female swimmer, but a little let down that less-than-perfect physiques were not an option. Oh well, I guess no belly flops into the pool for me.

The real race is made up of several smaller units, where you'll be required to perform realistic feeling tasks. The only time I feel like any of these are like mini-games is at the beginning, where you are required to pump up the crowd to get a performance boost. Pumping up the crowd is achieved by pumping your fists and waving your arms. While not as boisterous as Hulk Hogan's Main Event, I would have liked to see a little more enthusiasm in my swimmer's usually stoic face.

Racing is where you'll spend 98% of your time in this game. Thankfully, racing feels naturally and is incredibly fun. To be perfectly frank, the commercials for this game make the players look quite sappy. I can assure you, when you try to play for yourself, you'll definitely find more enjoyment than you may be expecting.

After hyping the crowd, you get set on your starting block. Getting set depends on the type of swim, but will require either a squat or bending over at the waist. At the gun, stand quickly to the diving position. Swimming is perfected by performing the proper stroke in the correct timing. The four different strokes in this game are: front crawl, breast stroke, butterfly stroke, and back stroke. Each of them are performed while standing towards the television and in the timing shown on the screen. If done properly a boost can be achieved by yelling the word "boost" when made available. For longer races, there is an area to pick up energy by moving your hands around collecting energy circles while avoiding energy sucking circles. This is the only unrealistic part of the race. Towards the end of the race, there is a "push the limit" area where you perform your strokes as fast as you can. No 'performing duck tales', as the manual calls it, but you are required to do full swimming motions. Finally, when approaching the end of the race, you must do a reach at the right moment.

If you perform these parts well, you may see yourself on the podium as event champion. Again, my only real complaint would be how stoic the characters are. I've personally watched many of Michael Phelps's races and don't ever recall seeing him win a race casually. If it was me, beating Michael Phelps, I would be jumping in and splashing the water in every direction.

Career mode is pretty nice. You are guided along with mostly tutorial and practice events before getting into seasonal play. Each of these events can be practiced in almost any order and can be redone if you didn't do as well as you wanted. Once you get into annual play, these events are locked in and you don't get any second chances, unless you reset the entire season.

My absolute favorite part of the career mode is the ability to level-up your character. While there may not seem to be a huge advantage, I at least feel like I'm making a difference when I'm allowed to pick character attributes. After each race, you are given a certain number of skills points to attribute to various skills. These points are based on how well you raced. While you may be tempted to put all points into the speed skill, you'll see other attributes, such as stamina, will have an impact later in career mode.

THE FIVE F'S

In reviewing Kinect games, I like to look for the five f's: fitness, fun, functionality, family, and firsts. If you are looking for a good arm workout, this is a great game. Besides Fruit Ninja, I can't think of a game where you'll be moving your arms more. You will be required to stands quickly from a bend and a squat, but nearly all your efforts will be in your arms. In other words, you'll definitely feel this in your shoulders after playing.

I was surprised at how fun this game was. While Sonic might get the vote for the first Kinect game to feature swimming portions, Michael Phelps Push the Limit gets to nod for the first Kinect game to fully rely on swimming and to feature a celebrity athlete (unless you count Virtua 4 Tennis). Thankfully the game works amazingly well and with the addicting career mode, you may just find yourself spending longer on this game than you planned.

This is easily a game the whole family can hop into and have fun with. As long as you are opposed to healthy looking men and women in Speedos, then there isn't anything to object to here. There is no swearing (personally I would of liked more enthusiasm, but that is beside the point) and there is no violence. The game is rated E for everyone from infants to adults. Be warned though, small kids will wreak havoc on you while navigating the menus.

PROS AND CONS

Pros:

* Realistic and fun

* Beautiful graphics

* Leveling up in career mode

Cons:

* Player's character too stoic when hyping crowd or winning the race

* Menu navigation can be tricky with people moving around you

FINAL THOUGHTS

Michael Phelps Push the Limit may be one of those games that sells better with a demo on the Xbox LIVE marketplace. The game is fun and addicting and made even more enjoyable with the addiction of online multiplayer and leaderboards. What you see is what you get. Don't expect to do much else besides swimming. With that said, words and commercials cannot prove just how fun virtual swimming can actually be. If you are a video game player looking to work up a sweat while having fun, you may just want to check out Michael Phelps Push the Limit.

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I admit, like most of you probably are, I was really, really skeptical when I first heard of the game Michael Phelps: Push the Limit for the Xbox. After all, swimming is something done horizontally in the water, while playing video games is something done vertically in the air. But surprisingly, they actually made it work. It's a very enjoyable game--provided you go in with the right expectations. You're not going to become a better swimmer because of it. But you will enjoy an excellent and realistic simulation of what it's like to be a competitive swimmer, and as a bonus you may get some decent upper body exercise out of it.

When you start the game your menu options are pretty simple. You can select "Quickplay" which lets you start competing in swim meets immediately, customizing all aspects of the race including your swimmer, your stroke (front crawl, butterfly, breast, back), your venue (a number of attractive fictional swimming venues such as a New York or LA rooftop by night), your distance (50, 100, 150, or 200 meters), and your level (there are three levels of difficulty, Gold, Platinum, and Elite).

You can choose a swimmer from a list of swimmers with varying levels of skills, the first being Michael Phelps himself, of course. There are a number of other swimmers who I first thought were actual Olympic swimmers but after Googling the names it turns out they're just the names of employees of the video game company that developed the game. It would have been nice to have actual venues and swimmers, but my guess is they just couldn't / wouldn't pay the licensing fees that would have been necessary to get the world's greatest swimmers. A shame, because that really could have helped boosted awareness of the sport, especially as the Olympics roll around later this year.

Basically, here's how the game works:

1) To start the race, in some venues you can "pump up the crowd" by waving your hands, which will give you a little boost during the game.

2) You stand on the starting block and crouch down. A disclaimer on the screen will remind you not to strain your back. As with real swimming, the timing of your dive off the starting block is critical. To "dive", you basically stand straight up and hold your hands out horizontally. The system does a pretty good job of detecting your timing (displayed in milliseconds) and your arm angle (angle your arms too low, and your dive will be too deep, angle them too high and your jump will be too high).

3) You then start "swimming". You basically stand upright and mimic the swimming strokes, trying to time them to a beat and an on-screen display. The strokes are all very similar to real life; for front crawls you alternate moving each arm forward over your head, for butterfly you move both arms forward together in a circular motion, for backstroke you move both arms backwards together in a circular motion, and for backstroke you alternate moving each arm backwards over your head. I was surprised at how accurate the Kinect tracking was--when I accidentally did a breaststroke instead of a butterfly, the system knew right away and stopped me cold in the water.

At the beginning of the race it's important to time your strokes carefully to avoid overexerting your on-screen character and to build up your "Push the Limit" energy gauge.

4) On Platinum and Elite levels, you need to master the turn. Basically, as you near the end of the pool a gauge will fill up, and you need to push forward with your hand when the gauge is at its fullest. The better your timing, the cleaner the turn.

5) For long-distance (200m) races, you'll hit an "endurance lap" which is the only part of the game that's not too realistic. Little icons will appear on the screen and you need to hit them like in an arcade game to build up your strength.

6) Towards the end of the race you'll hit the "Push the Limit" zone. This is where you just flail your arms as quickly as possible.

7) Finally, as you near the end of the race, you'll be told when to put your hands down and then to reach for the finish by sticking your hand out at the right time. Again, as in real swimming the timing of your reach can make all the difference in a close race.

There's a "career mode" where you create a swimmer and go through a series of swim meets; if you place first, second, or third in the races, you'll be allocated points which you can use to improve your swimmer's diving skills, stamina, speed, turn skills, and finishing skills. You go through three "seasons" of swimming events, with each season culminating in the "Annual Games", which are set up very much like Olympic compeititon. You can choose which events to compete in, swim a qualifying heat, and then if you qualify you can swim for a medal.

Gameplay can actually get surprisingly competitive and physical. After playing through season 1 of career mode, I was actually sweating and my heart was pumping, especially after the "Push the Limit" part of each race. What I appreciated about this is that it wasn't just gratuitous activity as in other active games--it was a pretty good representation of what goes on in an actual race in terms of the timing of your dive, the pacing you need to do at the beginning of the race, the sprint you do at the end, and the timing of the turns and reaches. And believe it or not, as I type this I can actually feel my muscles have gotten tighter not unlike the feeling after a good swim (albeit not as intense, of course).

The game is not without its flaws. You need a minimum of about 8 feet of space in front of the Kinect Sensor or the game will constantly stop and tell you you're too close; of course this is a common ailment among many Kinect games. At various points the Kinect would lose track of me or not pick up on a motion, causing me to lose the race. There were parts of the game that required me to shout commands to the Kinect Sensor (such as "Boost!"), but the microphone wasn't picking me up, resulting in my falling behind in the race.

The biggest risk in playing this game is probably developing some kind of tendonitis. What happens is, when you swim in real life, the water provides real resistance to your muscles. But when you play this game, you're swinging your arms through the air with no resistance, and you'll be able to do it much longer without getting tired. Ultimately, that can cause painful soreness to your joints and tendons. Usually, the prescription is just a week of Advil and staying away from video games. But of course, the best thing to do is avoid it in the first place by doing proper stretches and taking breaks. Something else you can do is use hand weights, which will provide the necessary resistance and of course is something you can do easily on the Kinect that you can't on other video game systems that use controllers.

Overall, I give this game a solid four stars, provided you go in with the right expectations. It is a fun diversion for anyone who follows the world of competitive swimming. And if you're looking to use your Kinect for working out, while it may not be the most intense workout, it's fun and gets you moving. It's funny how the world of video game exercise seems to be in two camps: workout games that get boring and repetitive, and fun games which motivate you and get you moving but lack intensity. While this game falls more on the side of the latter, it does start to bridge the gap between the two.

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First, I'd like to say that there is a patch (update) for this game that automatically installs when the disc is inserted into the 360. I think this may have fixed some of the problems that the first reviewers had.

On to the game, do you like swimming in mid-air??? Not me, but it's a workout, and anything that makes working out fun, I'm game. Sure, I can go to the pool in my condo, but I can't race, and hype up the crowd (well maybe a couple of senior citizens). In all seriousnes, I liked the demo, but wasn't overwhelmed. I also saw the demonstration of the game when M. Phelps visited one of those late night talk shows, and was impressed. The best part of the game is the career mode, in which you can add a point to one of your attributes for the swimmer you create. So, for each race I qualify, I can add a point towards dive, stamina, speed, turn, and finish (reach). The first half of the lap is just diving and keeping in rhythm with the meter.

You don't want to go too fast because you will lose stamina for the second half of the race. On the second half, you can use all your energy when you enter the Push the Limit zone to swim as fast as you can to catch up. The breast stroke is also included in the career mode later in your career, as well as the butterfly and backstroke. Finally, for the speed boost to work, you have to scream "Boost!", but for some reason my voice recognition isn't working. I found this to be a fun workout, and the Kinect reads me accurately, but am having a little more accuracy issues with some of the later swimming styles in the game. I'm glad 505 resolved the problems with the initial release, and overall would recommend this as another workout routine to the Kinect library.

Honest reviews on Michael Phelps: Push the Limit

Great fun for swimmers who are also game players. I am coach swimmer and mom of a swimmer who loves both. We like to race.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Michael Phelps: Push the Limit

At $9.99 , it's still $9.94 too expensive. You can play this game in any room anywhere without owning it or an xbox...just pretend to swim and tire your arms out and save the money. Just an awful game........awful.