Red Dead Redemption may hate women, and Resident Evil 5 may hate blacks, but I still played the shit out of both those games, cause they're AWESOME.
Surely, I jest. I'm stoking the fires. It's not true, except for the part about me having clocked many hours on both games.
I continue to play RE5. The disc currently inhabits the drive in my PS3. It's a great game--the control mechanics and response are tight and smooth, the stage design is interesting, detailed and varied, the enemies look awesome, the way the multiplayer games work are engaging and keep you guessing
Playing other gamers online is my favorite thing to do, by far. I mean, going thru the game and getting every trophy is one thing. But I have kids. I have limited time to play if I ever get the chance. And I don't want to get out my laptop to open a walkthru everytime I want to play to find all the hidden medals you gotta shoot up in these impossible-to-shoot places far away, only line-of-sight accessible from an island a mile away.
I'm squandering that chance right now by doing this when everyone in my house is in bed. But I and my wife felt that a little defense of RE5 and RDR was in order, after I slammed both of them pretty hard.
I guess I got caught up in the fury and fervor of those Cracked articles. They were really incendiary, and that's what Cracked does well. But I took it and I allowed the invective to get under my skin.
One thing I'm not good at is being accusatory. So when I dip my hand into it I always pull back one less finger.
And now, I'm gonna start talking about race relations, and I really hope I don't put my foot in my mouth.
I'm about to take a class called Race and The Law at UW for fall quarter. I hope that after that's done and I have a renewed concept of race, I can read what I'm about to write and still agree with myself.
Now, with RE5, the white-on-black ultra-violence is shocking. There's no getting around that. But blood and gore as a genre and as a gameplay mechanic in an of itself is not the issue. The failure of the game is in the writing.
I'm sure Capcom have arguments for writing the game they did, and I'd love to hear them.
I suppose they just really wanted it to place the story in Africa. Not a bad idea on the surface. I wonder what it was like in the writers' room when they were thinking of moving the story from Spain (in RE4) to Africa, contemplating the creation of a game full of hordes of African zombies being slaughtered by an attractive, white American dude.
Now let me inject here that the game is awesome. I point to one fact in defense of this argument:
As of last month, RE5 sold 4.73m copies.
I've played it all the way thru, almost twice, and I've spent easily three times that amount of time on online multiplayer and The Mercenaries.
I still hold that they should have made the main character black.
I could see S.T.A.R.S. sending in a black man in the same capacity as Chris and Sheva. I could see said character sort of losing their mind, having to slaughter so many fellow black people. And then said hypothetical character starts acting like a zombie, like on 28 Days Later, from both the personal anguish at so much undead murder, and at the irony of all the black-on-black violence (given what black people have been through in history), and make said character's hatred for The Umbrella Corporation that much stronger, make it personal for him, give him a real reason to go in there, all savage, guns blazing, and burn it all down, it would have been fucking great!
The zombies in the game aren't all black, but most of them are. Some are Middle Eastern-looking--which, given the current political climate, isn't insensitive at all, right?
None of them are white, but they made plenty of white zombies in RE 1-4 and Code: Veronica and all that shit. They were all fodder for handgun and shotgun and flamethrower and acid round slaughter.
And I say this lovingly. All those zombies hold a place in my heart.
It's not like Capcom is claiming to be racist, or not racist--they're doing what an educated person would do--not talk about it. For racism to go away, it needs to be a non-issue. People need to stop talking about it.
To NOT make a horde of black zombies to be the counterpoint to all the white zombies they made, they'd look like caucasian-haters.
Now they're equal-opportunity zombie creators and slaughterers.
I still think they should have made the main character black or Middle Eastern. They would have had to sacrifice canon storyline development by putting Chris and Jill on the back burner, but they could have avoided looking like they hate black people.
I believe they don't, but the implication is there. I mean, they made Chris Redfield, the main character, an overly muscled, gelled-hair model-looking guy, and sexy to the nines.
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They take the epitome of American douchebagism--white, male, confident, privileged, and flippantly sexy--and pit THAT against a horde of mindless, murderous black people.
I mean, come on.
There are others who have noticed this, and have put it into better words than I. Years ago.
I'm way late on the ball, as always.
Look here for further commentary by Dan Whitehead via Eurogamer. Of particular note is this graf:
Speaking of which, here's a quote from this article by Jim Sterling via Destructoid, which I think is poignant:
... now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do a duo round or five of Mercenaries: Reunion. Those have the most zombies.
I've taken to turning the music down to zero and letting my Spotify playlist play out. Much better soundtrack.
Oh yeah, they lose half a point for the sucky soundtrack.
3.5 out of 5
Uhhhg ... they make up for it with the option to turn the music off, and the online multiplayer action ....
Okay, 4 out of 5 it stays.
RE5, folks. For the kids.
Red Dead Redemption, on the other hand, is BEAUTIFUL. I mean, have you taken your horse thru the river's edge, in the middle of the daytime, and just stared at the stream and the waterfall? Have you noticed the effort they put in making the landscapes lush and lovely?
Aside from that, it's got good voice acting, humor, a real cowboy feel (as far as my '10s ass knows), horses, and it's a sandbox-style playworld like Rockstar does well. All points in its favor.
And I didn't get the woman-hating vibe during my play experience. It just never occurred to me.
But women are really brutalized in the game, it's true. You can be riding your horse along a road and there will be two men dragging a woman off to a tree to hang her for who-knows-what.
It's pretty brutal, and involves a lot of killing. Murder fills the game. So maybe woman-hatred takes a back seat to all the killing, yeah? That's what people should be complaining about, if anything.
If you're okay with depictions of killing and not depictions of misogyny or racism, isn't there something wrong with you?
The game is beautiful, the storyline is well-written, the characters of John, his wife and son are engaging engaging, and the way THE DLC UNDEAD NIGHTMARE ENDS--DID YOU SEE THAT SHIT?
Awesome.
4.5 out of 5 for Red Dead Redemption from my end.
Surely, I jest. I'm stoking the fires. It's not true, except for the part about me having clocked many hours on both games.
I continue to play RE5. The disc currently inhabits the drive in my PS3. It's a great game--the control mechanics and response are tight and smooth, the stage design is interesting, detailed and varied, the enemies look awesome, the way the multiplayer games work are engaging and keep you guessing
Playing other gamers online is my favorite thing to do, by far. I mean, going thru the game and getting every trophy is one thing. But I have kids. I have limited time to play if I ever get the chance. And I don't want to get out my laptop to open a walkthru everytime I want to play to find all the hidden medals you gotta shoot up in these impossible-to-shoot places far away, only line-of-sight accessible from an island a mile away.
I'm squandering that chance right now by doing this when everyone in my house is in bed. But I and my wife felt that a little defense of RE5 and RDR was in order, after I slammed both of them pretty hard.
I guess I got caught up in the fury and fervor of those Cracked articles. They were really incendiary, and that's what Cracked does well. But I took it and I allowed the invective to get under my skin.
One thing I'm not good at is being accusatory. So when I dip my hand into it I always pull back one less finger.
And now, I'm gonna start talking about race relations, and I really hope I don't put my foot in my mouth.
I'm about to take a class called Race and The Law at UW for fall quarter. I hope that after that's done and I have a renewed concept of race, I can read what I'm about to write and still agree with myself.
Now, with RE5, the white-on-black ultra-violence is shocking. There's no getting around that. But blood and gore as a genre and as a gameplay mechanic in an of itself is not the issue. The failure of the game is in the writing.
I'm sure Capcom have arguments for writing the game they did, and I'd love to hear them.
I suppose they just really wanted it to place the story in Africa. Not a bad idea on the surface. I wonder what it was like in the writers' room when they were thinking of moving the story from Spain (in RE4) to Africa, contemplating the creation of a game full of hordes of African zombies being slaughtered by an attractive, white American dude.
Now let me inject here that the game is awesome. I point to one fact in defense of this argument:
As of last month, RE5 sold 4.73m copies.
I've played it all the way thru, almost twice, and I've spent easily three times that amount of time on online multiplayer and The Mercenaries.
I still hold that they should have made the main character black.
I could see S.T.A.R.S. sending in a black man in the same capacity as Chris and Sheva. I could see said character sort of losing their mind, having to slaughter so many fellow black people. And then said hypothetical character starts acting like a zombie, like on 28 Days Later, from both the personal anguish at so much undead murder, and at the irony of all the black-on-black violence (given what black people have been through in history), and make said character's hatred for The Umbrella Corporation that much stronger, make it personal for him, give him a real reason to go in there, all savage, guns blazing, and burn it all down, it would have been fucking great!
The zombies in the game aren't all black, but most of them are. Some are Middle Eastern-looking--which, given the current political climate, isn't insensitive at all, right?
None of them are white, but they made plenty of white zombies in RE 1-4 and Code: Veronica and all that shit. They were all fodder for handgun and shotgun and flamethrower and acid round slaughter.
And I say this lovingly. All those zombies hold a place in my heart.
It's not like Capcom is claiming to be racist, or not racist--they're doing what an educated person would do--not talk about it. For racism to go away, it needs to be a non-issue. People need to stop talking about it.
To NOT make a horde of black zombies to be the counterpoint to all the white zombies they made, they'd look like caucasian-haters.
Now they're equal-opportunity zombie creators and slaughterers.
I still think they should have made the main character black or Middle Eastern. They would have had to sacrifice canon storyline development by putting Chris and Jill on the back burner, but they could have avoided looking like they hate black people.
I believe they don't, but the implication is there. I mean, they made Chris Redfield, the main character, an overly muscled, gelled-hair model-looking guy, and sexy to the nines.
.jpg)
I mean, come on.
There are others who have noticed this, and have put it into better words than I. Years ago.
I'm way late on the ball, as always.
Look here for further commentary by Dan Whitehead via Eurogamer. Of particular note is this graf:
One of the first things you see in the game, seconds after taking control of Chris Redfield, is a gang of African men brutally beating something in a sack. Animal or human, it's never revealed, but these are not infected Majini. There are no red bloodshot eyes. These are ordinary Africans, who stop and stare at you menacingly as you approach. Since the Majini are not undead corpses, and are capable of driving vehicles, handling weapons and even using guns, it makes the line between the infected monsters and African civilians uncomfortably vague. Where Africans are concerned, the game seems to be suggesting, bloodthirsty savagery just comes with the territory.You could say all this is old news, especially cause that article is from early 2009, but RE6 is not out yet. I'm interested to see what they'll do--looks like no race-baiting as of yet.
Speaking of which, here's a quote from this article by Jim Sterling via Destructoid, which I think is poignant:
Also, we're already complaining that it's in China, and that the president is white. Please don't let this become another racism thing, were idiots say something dumb and then we say Resident Evil 4 was set in Spain and nobody complained. For the love of all that is sexy. Don't do it. You have the power to end this. Say NO to movement and racism arguments in Resident Evil 6. It never ends well.
∏ ∏ ∏
... now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do a duo round or five of Mercenaries: Reunion. Those have the most zombies.
I've taken to turning the music down to zero and letting my Spotify playlist play out. Much better soundtrack.
Oh yeah, they lose half a point for the sucky soundtrack.
3.5 out of 5
Uhhhg ... they make up for it with the option to turn the music off, and the online multiplayer action ....
Okay, 4 out of 5 it stays.
RE5, folks. For the kids.
Red Dead Redemption, on the other hand, is BEAUTIFUL. I mean, have you taken your horse thru the river's edge, in the middle of the daytime, and just stared at the stream and the waterfall? Have you noticed the effort they put in making the landscapes lush and lovely?
Aside from that, it's got good voice acting, humor, a real cowboy feel (as far as my '10s ass knows), horses, and it's a sandbox-style playworld like Rockstar does well. All points in its favor.
And I didn't get the woman-hating vibe during my play experience. It just never occurred to me.
But women are really brutalized in the game, it's true. You can be riding your horse along a road and there will be two men dragging a woman off to a tree to hang her for who-knows-what.
It's pretty brutal, and involves a lot of killing. Murder fills the game. So maybe woman-hatred takes a back seat to all the killing, yeah? That's what people should be complaining about, if anything.
If you're okay with depictions of killing and not depictions of misogyny or racism, isn't there something wrong with you?
The game is beautiful, the storyline is well-written, the characters of John, his wife and son are engaging engaging, and the way THE DLC UNDEAD NIGHTMARE ENDS--DID YOU SEE THAT SHIT?
Awesome.
4.5 out of 5 for Red Dead Redemption from my end.
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