ESRB says Dead or Alive: Paradise contains “creepy voyeurism”

By Stephany Nunneley

The ESRB has rated Dead or Alive: Paradise “M” for Mature – which is probably the most obvious news you’ve heard all day.

However, the description of the game’s “cheesy” scenarios, and “creepy voyeurism” are enough to warrant a post.

Here’s the full thing, courtesy of Siliconera, and it reads almost as if it’s describing a soft-core flick on Cinemax:

The author picked apart the game and questioned, somewhat seriously, if Dead or Alive Paradise accurately portrays what women want. Of course, it doesn’t. Dead or Alive Paradise has tasteless pool hopping mini-games. Anyway, here is Dead or Alive Paradise, as seen through the lens of the ESRB.

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.

Paradise cannot mean straddling felled tree trunks in dental-floss thongs… apparently, the ESRB has never been to Cabo San Lucas – that or a woman wrote it.

Game’s out for PSP in April, and you can get shots here, and a trailer here.