Jun 01
Set in Africa, the latest of the Resident Evil series has a new trailer. Resident Evil 5 comes to us full of even more controversial matter. So say the damn critics, I just say “Shut up and enjoy the trailer”.
May 29
[Editor's note: With two blockbuster games coming out this year featuring Africa as their playing field, only one has managed to get the racism stamp. In the other, Xper actually finds a way to dig up gender issues. Is there anything this guy won't politicize, and when will he stop talking in third person?]
It has been a known fact for a while, but it was made official when Brian Crecente at Kotaku was told that out of the nine different characters you can choose to play as in Far Cry 2, none of them will be female. There are, in fact, twelve characters, and those other three are the women you won’t be able to embody.
We try to break it down after the jump just why this presents a conundrum in the art of game design, and in the process question the very art we are trying to defend.
May 08
[Editor's Note: In the first part of our two part interview with Ragnhild Mogren, teacher at Stockholm University, we specifically discuss the Resident Evil 5 trailer, why historical baggage can never be divorced from certain imagery and ask what it means to live in the "global village".]
What do we see when we play videogames? What implications do games have on our society, and do games get a free pass because they’re “just games”?
Riding on the wave that is the Resident Evil 5 debacle about racism and culture understandings about mediums that we consume every day, we spoke to Ragnhild Mogren, teacher at the educational programme Multimedia Education - Technology at Stockholm university, about these issues to figure out why not just gamers, but our entire society, should care about what games are portraying and contributing to our culture.
What does a person with no understanding of the Resident Evil franchise, as a game series, think about this piece of film? When asked about what feelings and emotions that comes up just from the trailer alone, Mogren’s response is quite clear.
- If I should interpret this trailer from a hermeneutic perspective, that my previous understanding and knowledge plays a huge part in what I actually see here, then this piece of film is very racist.
Her arguments echo the words of N’Gai Croal and his MTV Multiplayer blog interview, that there are images in this trailer that are perfectly sound to be concerned about.
- This trailer says to me that the black people here are portrayed as Neanderthals, quite frankly. This white figure, on the other hand, is very good looking in terms of the norms and rules of what a good looking man is supposed to look like in our society, even if it’s completely unrealistic. The trailer shows political power in that it presents a sense of historical colonial suppression.
Apr 08
10 new screens were recently released by Capcom. We still don’t know everything about El Fuerte, but all the screen shots featuring the new SF character look good. The following 10 screens feature him fighting in Africa and Brazil.
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