Progressing through the game earns you more videos and special tips from Jillian. As incentives go, it’s a little weak, but the advice itself is sound and well presented. Chances are you’ll actually learn something by playing, though it’s nothing you couldn’t find on a quick google search.

The controls are a little hit or miss, but thankfully, performing the required motions does get the old ticker going. Gamers in moderately good shape (let’s say, somebody who goes to the gym a couple of days a week) will break a sweat pretty early on, and even hardcore gym junkies will find themselves challenged by the tougher intervals. This is all assuming that you’re doing the exercises correctly – though I can’t imagine that anyone playing this game would want to cheat just to get fitness tips faster.

As for the graphics... well, have you ever seen Aidyn Chronicles – a notoriously ugly and lame Nintendo 64 RPG? That’s about what you can expect here. This game honestly makes the minimalist, streamlined aesthetic of Wii Fit look like a visual symphony. I don’t ask that a fitness game have the level of art direction or animation as a AAA title, but when all I’m doing is running in place for 3+ minutes at a time, I’d love to have something to stare at that didn’t resemble a badly animated giant running in a straight line, flanked by shrubbery.

This goes for the music as well, though for different reasons. While the title thankfully allows you to change songs (or adjust the volume) very easily, the selection is painfully limited. In my first 60 minute session with the game, I literally cycled though all of the tracks a few times (mostly because I skipped several country-ish rock songs – not what I like to sweat to). Everything in the game reeks of lazy production.

The problem is, despite how utterly drab the atmosphere and bare bones the gameplay is, it’s hard to hate on Ultimatum because it’s an important step in the right direction for the fledgling genre, since it represents a legitimate way to workout. I can see the chronology working something like this – Wii Fit made it (that is, the fitness genre) popular, Ultimatum brings in celebrity endorsement and legit exercises, and EA Sports Active (due out this spring) gets it right by marrying fun gameplay and decent graphics with the calorie burning. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.

So, Jillian, I’m giving your game a passing score because I actually got my workout’s worth. The experience wasn’t always pretty, it wasn’t always fun, and I don’t think it was even very motivational, but I did break a sweat. And counting calories burned is certainly addictive in that RPG-grinding sort of way. One wishes that the gameplay actually resembled an RPG (think of it – you could literally battle an enemy called “the bulge”!) but for a fitness video/workout game, you could do worse than pick up Ultimatum. That is, only if you absolutely love Jillian Michaels. If anything about the ultra-jacked trainer scares or annoys you, you’re much better off doing sit-ups during the commercial breaks of The Biggest Loser and calling it a day.

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