Resident Evil 5 in race storm

Set in a fictional African country, the latest in the critically-acclaimed Resident Evil series is sparking racial controversy over its choice of enemies.

No stranger to controversy, the often-gory Resident Evil games made their best-selling reputation by pitting players against hordes of undead zombies. Recent episodes in the series have adopted somewhat more modern premises, and the fifth game eschews zombies altogether, leaving the apple-pie hero to gun down armies of impoverished, often tribal-appearing African villagers. It's not surprising that it's raised some eyebrows.

Two of those eyebrows belonged to N'Gai Croal. Formerly of Newsweek and one of the video games industry's most respected journalists, he commented after first seeing a Resident Evil 5 trailer: "Wow, clearly no one black worked on this game." It's not an unreasonable assumption: the video games industry is notoriously dominated by white and Asian males, and black protagonists are a comparatively rare sight.

The game doesn't confront the race issue head-on: the protagonist, Chris Redfield, has a black, female sidekick, and the plot reveals the villagers are victims, exploited by a biochemical terrorist group which infected them with mind-control drugs. But there's little Chris can do about it except gun them down.

Is it racist? Taken purely in isolation, the sight of a white male gunning down hordes of semi-mindless African opponents is certainly provocative. And although only a few reviews have sneaked out so far, they largely brush off the racism allegations: it's scoring very well. Even the BBFC, the group responsible for issuing age certifications in Britain, publicly declared the controversy a non-issue.

Other commentators have been less charitable. One lurid preview slammed the game as playing "so blatantly into the old cliches of the dangerous dark continent and the primitive lust of its inhabitants that you'd swear the game was written in the 1920s". Others focused on a scene that shows a white woman being dragged off by multiple black men.

Resident Evil's designer, Jun Takeuchi, told MTV in an interview that he was suprised at the reaction many observers had to the game, and commented that racial issues are viewed differently in his native Japan compared to Western countries. (Incidentally, he also confirmed that several of Resident Evil 5's development team are black.)

So...maybe, maybe not. But the critics are certainly impressed -- "For my money, fun is fun, and RE5 has near infinite ammo in that department," said IGN in this review -- so it may well be wise to make up your own mind.

source : http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/resident-evil-5-in-race-storm/1295905