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[Slash - Santiago Zapata]

[FARTRON]

Sir Charles


Sir Ken


Sir Michael


Sir Mr.

Oh and one last edit, you'll likely find a million of them here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_based_on_licensed_properties

[Alevice]

Also, the worst is when another race is a parallel to a race of people in the real world. I'm pretty sure Final Fantasy's Bangaa race is modelled after Jamaican people. Uh, what.

I think it is worse on Fallout 1, where Necropolis' Ghouls speak like Ghetto Niggas (NG = GN, lol).

[AdamAtomic]

@Fartron:

...that aren't basketball players (i.e. Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City, and Shaq Fu don't count) or rappers (no Def Jam: Vendetta).  Or really any characters that aren't based on people in real life (no Michael Jackson's Moonwalker).

[FARTRON]

Yeah, well I woulda posted superfly johnson if i could have found an aesthetically pleasing shot.  Anyway, I interpreted it more as a way to ward off a million Madden shots with different linebackers selected.  I was cherry picking for effect.


Better?

[xix]

Also, the worst is when another race is a parallel to a race of people in the real world. I'm pretty sure Final Fantasy's Bangaa race is modelled after Jamaican people. Uh, what.

I think it is worse on Fallout 1, where Necropolis' Ghouls speak like Ghetto Niggas (NG = GN, lol).

I'm not familiar with Fallout. Are the ghouls an entire race? The race thing is kind of important, really.

It's a total disrespect of the development of each race (not to mention the ignorance of the audience). The methods of speaking and aspects of culture aren't like mythologies that you can fuck around with. They are grounded in history, not fabricated as stories. Implanting Quexcoatl into Final Fantasy is much different than throwing in races of people.

Ugh. Ok that's my rant. I'm done.

[Anthony Flack]

I think it's pretty fucking ridiculous that half of the videogame world's ninjas are white guys.

White guys are the only ones who want to be ninjas these days...

It's a total disrespect of the development of each race (not to mention the ignorance of the audience). The methods of speaking and aspects of culture aren't like mythologies that you can fuck around with.

Perhaps this is a large part of it. There's a lot of baggage that comes with depicting a character of an ethnicity that isn't yours. Are you being culturally insensitive? Oh noes! Best to stick to what you know, in that case...?

As for black guys and the colour green, I wonder if it has something to do with the black character's historic role as "player 3". Green is such a player 3 sort of colour, don't you think? And are people saying that Jade is black because she is dressed in green? That's about the only thing about her that looks like a black person. But I guess she might be of mixed fictional racial origins? How much fictional black ancestry do you need before a cartoon character is considered to be black? Hmm.

[Guert]

This topic is kinda depressing. We need more veriety in our character designs! :D We've had enough stereotypical characters! And let's not do like in the movies and put every police chief black. It's so cliché... :D

 Now on the topic... Let's see...
How about that advergame MC Kids? The second kid was black.


There's also 2 characters from Super tennis, but they're the only one available on 20 characters


I'm not sure but is the guy from Splatterhouse black? Looks like it on the arcade anyway...
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=S&game_id=9728

Well, that's all I can add... Sad, only a second hand character, two generic characters and one walking monster murderer...

Take care!

[GP Lackey]

I think green is just a nice complementary colour to brown.

[FARTRON]

Anyone know of any anthropomorphised black people?  I seem to remember being convinced one of the Star Fox characters was meant to be black.  Do you get to be Jar Jar in any Phantom Menace games?

[guille]

Power Punch 2 (NES) a lame Punch Out rip-off, but you are a black boxer instead of a white one here.


Sonic Wings 3 (NeoGeo)


Gourmet Squadron Barayarou (SFC)


Total Carnage (SNES)


The Peace Keepers(SNES)

Geez, so few black people on games, I can understand why, but think about it, making a game starred by a black person would be TOTALLY INDIE, so have that in mind when making your next game.

[xix]

Minorities are misrepresented in all media, so I don't just blame videogames, but it seems as though game developers are the *worst* offenders.

Minorities represent about a third of the population. That means in a totally fair and normal world where race doesn't matter then a third of all games should star *the* leading character as a minority. This doesn't mean player two or three or an alternate. It means default.

Obviously this is ridiculous considering that there are disparities amongst different races and personal choices. The percent of Asians in uniform are markedly lower than the percent of Asians in the overall population. And the percent of blacks and Latinos in the armed forces are markedly higher than the percent of Blacks and Latinos not in the armed forces. These facts should also be taken into account when making games or any other kind of media. Games...  seem to just tack them on.

[Alevice]

'm not familiar with Fallout. Are the ghouls an entire race? The race thing is kind of important, really.

While they are not addressed as a race per se, they do have enough traits for being it.

The are basically three type of human-diverged races on the game:

Humans (the least exposed to the FEV virus and radiation)
Ghouls (humans heaviliy mutated by radiation and other things, discriminated by every fucker on earth - the only character with a seeming simpathy for them is the main char, if that)
Super Mutants (humans bathed in the FEV virus, remnisicient of nazis).

[Terry]

Geez, so few black people on games, I can understand why, but think about it, making a game starred by a black person would be TOTALLY INDIE, so have that in mind when making your next game.

Speaking of indie games with black leads:



The Arc Legacy (Demo)

[Terry]

OMG! I've just noticed something incredible!

[xix]

[vitaminNewB]

Whaaaaaaaa???  You didn't know?


Except he's light skinned ..... Sorta.


OK.  Just to be a dork.
(and because I have no clue where guillermo is pulling these games from!)

Re:  Green on Black

I thought it was interesting that some people noticed this.  Green is, of course, symbolic.  It symbolizes hopes and aspiration to unity, in african heritage specifically.  It's on the flag.  blah blah.  And of course it means other things in other cultures too.  But, to be honest, I think that some people add green on black just because that's the way it has been done in the past, and not necessarily from having an understanding of why.  If people don't know, I guess they don't know.  That's why there's so much speculation I guess.  But, for those who don't know, I think that's where research should come in.  People should ask questions.  Even if they're afraid of asking because of the possibility of offending someone.  Just be smart about it.

I guess it would be like the equivalent of a little kid running around with a Nazi swastika on their superman cape.  The little kid doesn't know what it means until they ask.  They just know that it "looks cool".  That might be extreme, but you get the point.

#19 brought up an interesting point in an earlier post.  Some of the minority, specifically black, characters coming out in games today are, to be honest, a bit stereotypical to the point where it's laughable and not laughable at the same time.  Imo. 

As for the comments made about other characters such as Jar Jar from Star Wars, just know that people are very good at misinterpreting things.  A lot.  Especially in "creative" fields.  Or just life in general.

Sooooo  ANYyyyyyyy frikn WAYyyyyyyyy.  MEH.   Let me stop my rantacious rambleationismamabobamajigz.  Excellent thread!  I was open-minded enough to read into the sarcasm up front. 

Awareness.  It's a very good thing.  And it's good that these topics are brought up whether any changes occur or not.  They really do help people have a broader mindset and think too. 


OK. BQ time!!

[guille]

The Arc Legacy (Demo)

This looks appealing (the game, not the black Mr. Clean dude) does this have real time action battles or turn based command battles? It says it's like Final Fantasy so I assume it's the latter. I don't wanna suck this dude's bandwidth in vain, though.

[Xion]

Off the topic of blacks/minorities in games:
I noticed that in many cartoons, the token black kid is either a "gangsta" or genius-nerd.

And for Jade being black, she looks more like an asian mix. I've seen those before though. And as everyone knows, on the scale of half-half race domination, blacks>mexican>asian>white. So if you're half asian, half white, you're asian. Half asian, half black, you're black. Mexican and black gets a bit fuzzy, though.

I noticed, though, that most of the games with blacks as playable characters, have other, white playable characters. I wanna see a big, mainstream, one-player game come out where the main character is black and whose behavior is racially ambiguous.

Oh, and speaking of minorities in games, whaddabout Injuns? Prey? That's all that comes to mind.

I'm sorry, I'm straying from the topic, but keeping with the Native American thing (or as I call them, N/A) Chinese, European, African, Japanese, American (post-colonization/destiny manifestation) and South American cultures have been presented as main themes in games before, but what about historical or culturally based games from the N/A point of view and belief?


Okay, back to black:
Green on black - I have no problem with this because green is my favorite color. And yellow so does not look good on us black folk.

Also: Black dude from Soul Calibur 3.

Also also: READY 2 RUMBLE!!! AFRO THUNDER!!!

[xix]

blacks>mexican>asian>white

I'm offended by the ignorance in this.