Muscle March, As Described By The ESRB

Namco Bandai Games America picked up Muscle March, a bizarre WiiWare game with bodybuilders in speedos chasing a “protein thief.” Since the North American release is due out soon and the ESRB took a look at it before stamping E10+ on it for comic mischief.

In addition to the rating, this is how the ESRB made sense of Muscle March.

Bodybuilders dressed in super-tight Speedos chase down a "protein thief" through cities, villages, and space in this whimsical puzzle-action game. Pedestrians, straphangers, school teachers, farmers, police officers, and librarians are fully clothed as they go about their business; the bodybuilders—not so much. Players must perform correct poses to fit through dozens of holes-in-walls created by the fleeing thief. If players do not pose correctly while running, their muscle men (and one woman) will crash through the walls and lose their stamina. Losing stamina means collapsing to the ground face-first, buttocks-last (flexed gluteus facing the screen). It may also mean that between stages, the happy bodybuilders can dance together in space, throw rocks by the riverside, or flex their pectorales major on menu screens (the lone female bodybuilder flexes her chest muscles, too). But the running gag in the game is the odd juxtaposition of traipsing bodybuilders, scantily clad, with the fully clothed working city dwellers—librarians’ eyes agape at seeing their reference sections destroyed by the Posing Ones.

Can’t wait to read the ESRB’s description of Cho Aniki Zero!