Does the black hero exist?

[shadow skill]

From my collection (which tends towards games where you create your own hero) there's Barret from Final Fantasy 7, Xavier Stone from Guitar Hero 2, the Demoman from TF2 and Jade from Beyond Good and Evil. Eli and Alyx Vance aren't player characters, but they are heroes. Some of those might not meet your criteria because you choose to play them, but I think it's a little unfair to eliminate any game where you can play as a black character but don't have to, or any game where the black character is a real person and then claim that such characters don't exist. Obviously any main character that isn't a white male is underrepresented, but exceptions do exist, just not to the extent they should.

That is like going back in time to the 1920's and telling people then that it is fair to include movies where white actors painted their faces black and called it a day. If you do not qualify hings you end up having to conclude that these characitures are valid depctions,(in this case of a racial group.) which of course they are not. If I asked the question "Name a non 'jar-head' white hero..where the cahracters are human and not aliens etc "I could come up with at least four or five big name franchises rather easily. (Which probably fall into their own set of stereotypes to various degrees.) I never actually excluded games where the player has direct control over the avatar's appearance, I only excluded games where the appearance of the character is unknown as far as the game continuity is concerned or the character appears as a non black character if his or her appearance is known as far as the game's cannon is concerned. By the way if you read my original post nowhere did I say such a hero does not exist, I just asked IF such a hero did exist because I could not think of one outside of the caveats I excluded because they really are just chariatures rather than actual (though possibly flawed) representations of black people.

There is a point at which a character stops exhibiting certain stereotypes while remaining human (on some level at least) and becomes nothing more than a cartoon.

You know I have to give credit to Capcom for quite accurately depicting what Black people do tend to look like when they are from anywhere other than America. However I knew when I saw the first vids of the game that people would be a bit put off (In America) by the idea of a white man killing inexpicably violent Black people. Hell it would have been nice to see a woman in RE5 that was fairly normal let alone a black main character.

 

[Annom]

The team leader in crysis is black.

 

[modris]

Sorry, I interpreted "games that allow for user definition of the character model unless it is considered cannon for the player character to be black" to mean any game where the player decides what the character looks like unless there is some sort of canon where that character is black.

That is like going back in time to the 1920's and telling people then that it is fair to include movies where white actors painted their faces black and called it a day.

I could see that applying if I were saying that characters that are a ridiculous stereotypical depiction of black people are perfectly fine or white characters pretending to be black should count, but I wasn't saying that. What I was referring to is more like a movie where the race of the main character is not defined so that an actor of any race could get that part.

Also, excluding celebrity tie-ins because "they really are just chariatures rather than actual (though possibly flawed) representations of black people" is tricky because they really are depicting a black person. That person may act like a caricature, but they are still a real person.

 

[LordOmnit]

What I was referring to is more like a movie where the race of the main character is not defined so that an actor of any race could get that part.

Well, that was kind of excluded in the original post. Basically he was asking about a canonical black main character. If you can choose otherwise, then I don't see it (even if it is the standard or base) as being particularly canonical, because you can choose otherwise.

 

[Force Feedback Codpiece]

CJ from GTA:SA is a really cool character imo, probably the best of all GTAs.

Indigo Prophecy. One of the main characters was black. You know, if you notice that stuff.

Well, he was an Asian. Unless you mean the other guy.

 

[Archaeology Hat]

In fairness alot of shooters it doesnt really matter what the main-character looks like as you almost never see them, I seem to remember John Dalton from Unreal 2 was black, although that might just have been a mix of poor memory and dark gamma settings.

Then again I don't normally give alot of thought to what my character looks like in games where I can't define it.

 

[ShmenonPie]

I had forgotten about shadowman, Indigo Prophecy does not really count because Tyler is not the protagonist. GTA San Andreas falls under the extreme stereotype caveat.

Interesting. The policeman that tries to catch a man that's killed someone else, whether or not it was murder, is not the protagonist? Tyler is a protagonist, along with Carla and Lucas, they're all pretty much equal in terms of the game. And if a main playable character isn't a protagonist or antagonist, who or what are they?

 

[shadow skill]

Was Tyler the main focus of the story or was he a supporting character ShmenonPie? That is what I mean by protagonist, Indigo Prophecy centers around Lucas. It's like saying that the girl from Onimusha 2 was the heroine of the game when she was clearly a supporting character for Samanouske.

 

[Heroic One]

It's easier to avoid the "omg u r a racist" comments by just never bothering in the first place, I imagine.

 

[shadow skill]

It's easier to avoid the "omg u r a racist" comments by just never bothering in the first place, I imagine.

I honestly don't even think that enters into the equation to be honest with you. I think it boils down to a severe lack of imagination coupled with marketing teams who swear doing things like making the character non-white, female, gay etc will not sell. Hell just look at COD4 if the Russians still have people loyal to their government why in the hell are all the playable either American or British...wouldn't you think that the Russian government would want to kill Imran Zakhaev since he is leading a rebellion against them? Of course you can't really expect much in that respect when you realize that all of the guns in all of these types of games are exactly the same barring a few exceptions. But it does show a general lack of imagination on the part of the developers and marketing people.

 

[sukotsuto]

Garcian Smith of Killer7. Yes, Garcian Smith is the hero of Killer7. He's not a stereotypical depiction too, and he reeks of badassery once you've come up to a certain spoiler.

 

[hooliganyouth]

There was that 50 Cent game. *joke*

Maybe it's because I'm just a white guy who doesn't know anything but race doesn't really seem to matter to me in games. There seems to be a peculiar combination at play, i.e. Capcom characters don't have stereotypical Caucasian features. Some characters are clones - Agent 47. Most FPS just have the PC as some ass kicker with guns. I didn't realize that Jade from "Beyond Good and Evil" was black.

I guess I just view game characters as a bizarre melange of characteristics and influences that don't factor in race or political standing or any unnecessary nonsense like that. This also might be one of the reasons why I have no problem playing a female character.

I don't think about enemies either. Growing up in the 80s we had Libyans, Viet Cong, East Germans, Communists, Urban blight, and that vague could be English/German/Dutch "European" bad guy...oh yeah and sometimes there were South Africans. They were bad guys and needed their asses kicked. I had a point here but I lost it. Apologies.

 

[propertyofcobra]

Unreal Tournament, the "Hero" of the entire series, Malcolm, is black. Not mentioned yet, I think. And of course, we're gonna have to define "Black" here, if we want to move on. Eli Vance from HL2 is black, we all agree. But is Alyx black enough to be considered black, or is her only being "brown" not enough?

 

[shadow skill]

Good stuff for those of you who actually took the time to answer my question I had forgotten about some of the games mentioned and never realized that there were such characters in other games. Hooligan you bring up a good point that can be applied to the female in games thread, it probably is because you are white and male that you do not see these sorts of things at all. I even remember reading a post on a forum somewhere taking quotes from a developer who was talking about the research that went into making a game featuring Mexicans. It sounds all well and good until the guy is quoted as saying he went to various night clubs and sat around "gangster" types to see how they behaved and that the inclusion of some stereotypes was all in good fun.

He doesn't seem to realize the problem with any of that because he is not the one the stereotype is being applied to in the first place. (You can read the post here:http://forums.gameinformer.com/gi/board/message?board.id=ask_gi&message.id=70864) This is the same problem women have understanding that men are in fact sexualized in the media (part of the reason has to do with the fact that the male idea of beauty with respect to himself is pretty much the same as the one that women have for men.)My primary concern with this thread however is to find examples (Given the previously mentioned parameters.) of focal point characters (Who the story is seen through or otherwise revolves around as the player character.)that are black rather than talking about forms of institutional prejudice. I would rather go deeper into that issue in another more general thread.

I think that race language etc matters in so far as immersing players in games. If you really want the player to feel like he or she is in the game the player has to be able to identify with the avatar on the screen. If the avatar does not look like the player the immersion is damaged, just as lack of emotional attachment damages immersion in games. I thought it was really neat for Crytek to switch the language of the human enemies from English to Korean on the highest difficulty level in Crysis because such a thing is immersing and quite realistic without necessarily making the game impossible or being a cheap trick. In fact it is so simple that it is even more beautiful a feature.


It's details like this that get overlooked in games now which is kind of sad. Keep them coming people.

 

[BlueMoon]

The main character in The Suffering is black.

 

[GrowlersAtSea]

The US Census Bureau currently estimates that people of Hispanic or Latino origin in the US is actually greater than the number than those of African origin. But you don't see many of them in games either, the list of Latino protagonists is probably quite a bit shorter than than the sparse number of games people can name with black protagonists.

I assume it's for the same reason that the vast majority of main characters are males, it's to appeal to the target demographic and give them characters they can easily relate to.

Also, I cannot add any games to those mentioned...I thought about it though, and even took a look through my game library, there are a nice number of titles with supporting roles, like in Splinter Cell, Halo, and other games like that. But taking the lead is another story.

 

[Prons]

I don't think I can resist the urge to say "Bad Boyz II."

 

[gameloftguy]

The Paladin & Sorceress in Diablo 2 were black. If they weren't then they were extremely tan but I've not seen it said anywhere they were not black.

 

[Ex Omni]

Men of Valor