Saturday, March 14, 2009

Resident Evil Racism

The following is a response to this article:
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Racism is a concern to everyone with any sense. That said, Resident Evil 5 is a game with the same plot as RE 1-4. A government agent character has to fight his way through an army of infected Zombie-people. The last installment, which I enjoyed, had our hero mowing down legions of undead Spanish peasants.

It's a zombie type horror game, and as such lots of extremely bad things happen to formerly alive, formerly innocent people. Once they become monsters, what exactly should the game have happen? Is Africa just off the table for the setting of a zombie game? Should Capcom abandon the white main character of the franchise because the setting is Africa?

The RE series are extremely violent, R-rated type games. While I wouldn't let my 7 year old play them (or watch me play them), I refuse to let others dictate to me what is and is not ok for me. I'm extremely liberal pacifist who happens to enjoy First Person Shooter video games. Sometimes it's aliens, sometimes its futuristic distopian cyber-soldiers, often times its Nazis (it's always okay to kill Nazis, they don't have feelings), and in this case is zombified people who happen to be African because that's where story is set. I don't think that makes me a bad person. I just want to play good games. I don't think it makes the people who made any of these games bad people. They're just trying to make good games.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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