Burnit Quest
Disclaimer: Mr. Couple's Kitchen fell quite ill before we were invited to review this game, so he was only able to play one stage at a time before having to stop and rest. This review cannot cover the overall storyline of the game for that reason. Though, as a former athlete, this game is right up his alley and will see more playtime in the future. This review may or may not be edited if there are more things to add at a later date.
Burnit Quest is an interactive fitness game that makes exercise fun and entertaining. By using a smartphone as a controller, players can do exercises in real life to match the action in game, making it a very immersive experience. Different stages are offered to push players to the limit, challenging them to overcome obstacles through running in place, doing squats to make the character jump, and punching their way to victory (just don't accidentally throw your phone). Stretching sequences are incorporated at the beginning and end of play sessions, and encouragement is intermittently given by a friendly hamster companion to cheer players on. To incentivise completing stages and beating records, achievements are offered for accomplishing certain goals, and skills can be purchased with points from a skill tree to make the game more interesting. Colourful, eye-catching artwork and pleasant music serve to complement the player experience as well.
There were some minor drawbacks. For one thing, the hamster voice quality sounds a bit off. There seems to be an echo, but thankfully, you have the option to mute the voice volume if this becomes off-putting. We also checked to see if it was possible to cheat the game, for experimental purposes, and it does seem rather hard to do so. While this works out perfectly for the purpose of the game, it works almost too well. At least for us, we could never truly get the jump mechanic to work. Rather, we achieved jumping by swinging the phone back and lifting it quickly. The game works well other than this, and we only saw a few hiccups in our time playing it. Not being able to cheese through certain parts also means that the player should be mindful of their limits and take breaks often.
Lastly, there is a co-op mode, but because there is only one smartphone between us, we were unable to try it out. From what we could gather, you play as the hamster in their floating hamster ball and run in place beside Player One. This makes sense mechanically, of course, though some players may not like that. It also seems that the two players have to be on the same local network to play together.
Overall, Burnit Quest is a fun and physically challenging game. It is certainly a good way to get a bit of exercise in for couch potatoes who spend all their time playing video games.