You will never un-see this. Ever.

I’ve been writing a lot about the whole fitness gaming genre recently.  I’m doing so because I think the genre has a tremendous amount of potential to really push video games as something good in our lives instead of the common misconception that gaming is bad for you (a misconception that, unfortunately, our current President seems to share).

As with anything that becomes a hit in popular culture, though, there will inevitably be a flood of cheap imitators that simply wish to capitalize on the success of those who came before them.  Airplane! was brilliant.  Meet The Spartans? Not so much.  Creativity and innovation have a tendency to get watered down in pursuit of the all mighty dollar in the long run.

I don’t think we’ve gotten quite to that point when it comes to the exergame genre yet, but I know we have at least one entry that’s causing me to react with a hearty WTF?

Namco/Bandai (the company that brought us the wonderfully quirky and insanely addictive Katamari series) is now distributing a game in Japan only that goes by the name of Muscle March.  Players of the game assume the role of body builders who are attempting to catch a thief that has run off with their protein supplements.  While seemingly health-conscious, the bandit doesn’t appear to be particularly clever as his escape plan consists of smashing through any walls that get in his way.  You, as the player, must strike body building poses in order to get through those holes and apprehend your dastardly foe.

I swear I’m not making this up.

Honestly this particular game probably falls into the “quirky niche” category instead of being a straight up exergame, but I can’t help but think that the rising popularity of fitness games in general had something to do with this one coming out.  That being said, if it’s ever released here I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that it’s weird enough to make me consider trying it.   If anyone can make body builders and robots fun it’s the folks who made us giddy about rolling up entire cities to make a narcissistic monarch happy.

Edit – “Pooter” kindly pointed me to a link for the trailer.  The level of awesome in this game just got ratcheted up about one million percent.