ESRB offers hilarious description of Dead or Alive Paradise (Updated)

Sometimes I wonder if the term “fan service” was created with the Dead or Alive series in mind. The latest game, a PSP game called Dead or Alive Paradise certainly goes above and beyond to deliver the kind of pandering some fans of the series expect to see. It’s a vacation simulation game, with volleyball, mini-games and the ability to make friends with the even more scantily clad than usual Dead or Alive women so you can pictures to oogle later. It’s due out in 2010, and was recently was rated by the ESRB, with some interesting results.

The ESRB description for Dead or Alive Paradise starts out fairly mundane. It announces that it is a PSP game that the ESRB decided to tag a Mature rating on because it has partial nudity, sexual themes and simulated gambling. Pretty typical, and nothing special. But then it moves on to the rating summary, which offers the best video game description I’ve seen in at least a month.

The ESRB summary goes a little something like this:

This is a video game in which users watch grown women dressed in G-string bikinis jiggle their breasts while on a two-week vacation. Women’s breasts and butts will sway while playing volleyball, while hopping across cushions, while pole dancing, while posing on the ground, by the pool, on the beach, in front of the camera.

There are other activities: Users can gamble inside a casino to win credits for shopping; they can purchase bathing suits, sunglasses, hats, clothing at an island shop; they can “gift” these items to eight other women in hopes of winning their friendship, in hopes of playing more volleyball. And as relationships blossom from the gift-giving and volleyball, users may get closer to the women, having earned their trust and confidence: users will then be prompted to zoom-in on their friends’ nearly-naked bodies, snap dozens of photos, and view them in the hotel later that night.

Parents and consumers should know that the game contains a fair amount of “cheesy,” and at times, creepy voyeurism—especially when users have complete rotate-pan-zoom control; but the game also contains bizarre, misguided notions of what women really want (if given two weeks, paid vacation, island resort)—Paradise cannot mean straddling felled tree trunks in dental-floss thongs.

That is obviously the work of someone who genuinely loves his or her job. There’s no other explanation for how such an entertaining, yet accurate, description can show up on the ESRB site. It seems like the writer is making fun of the kind of game Dead or Alive Paradise is and the gaming experience it happens to be providing.

Update:

Kotaku has reported that the ESRB has pulled the humorous Dead or Alive Paradise description. A check of the description page at 8:30pm CST on February 3, 2010 confirmed that the previous description is gone. The ESRB is stating that the previous Rating Summary, depicted above, was not supposed to be posted. The previous summary was removed due to the fact that it depicted personal opinions and was not an unbiased description of the game. The new description is as follows.

This is a collection of mini-games, based on the Dead or Alive game series, in which players assume the role of a bikini-clad female character on vacation on a tropical island. Players engage in daily activities that can include hopping across floating pads on a pool and beach volleyball.

Players earn credits after each activity that can be used to purchase new outfits, accessories, and gifts to give other female characters on the island. Players can earn additional credits at the island casino as they wager credit in slot machines and in games of poker and black jack. Some purchasable outfits include string bikinis, one-piece thongs, and sling bikinis. Sling bikinis and thongs often provide very little coverage of breast and bare buttocks.

Throughout the game players can view characters engaging in variety of activities—pole dancing, stretching, gyrating to music, and climbing trees. Characters are frequently displayed in compromising position (e.g., buttocks up in the air, legs splayed open, straddling tree trucks, etc.) during these activities. These scenes can often feel voyeuristic as players control the camera to rotate, pan, and zoom in on various body parts as they photograph the characters in different poses.

I’m so disappointed! The previous description was very nearly epic. Now the description is just, well, normal. How boring.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 8:57pm CST on February 3, 2010 to reflect and remark on the ESRB changing the Rating Summary description for Dead or Alive Paradise.

Read [Siliconera] Via [Kotaku] Also Read [Kotaku] Site [ESRB]