Resident Evil 5 — New Character and Gameplay Detail

Erik Johnson writes "New details for Resident Evil 5 have been unveiled in the latest issue of 'Famitsu,' a Japanese video game magazine, including a familiar face returning to the hero role, some info on the enemy, and the revealing of a couple new characters."

As intended?

[enderjsv]

I wonder if the Ganados representing multiple races and the inclusion of a "dark-skinned" female character was always intended, or if it was just a reaction to the racism concerns.

Re:

[GweeDo]

There are no "Ganados" in RE5. They are the villagers in RE4.

Re:As intended?

[enderjsv]

Oops. You're right. Also, I should have used "were", not "was". I messed up that first post, didn't I? On the other hand, the ability to mess up twice in one sentence is kinda impressive, no?

Re:As intended?

[Robert1]

"The story takes place in Africa where Chris will face quite an epidemic. The enemies this time are not zombies or Ganados, they appear to represent multiple races which addresses the concern that all the enemies in the game would be of African descent"

This political correctness bullshit has got to stop. Why in the world would it be racist to think that the zombie-people you fight in Africa might be *gasp* Africans!

Conversely, in the last game why wasn't it considered racist when you went around systematically killing Spaniards?

By that logic every video game should just be a rainbow of enemies, all the time, regardless of the time period or location. We can't have a repeat of the blatant racism of Sid Meier's Gettysburg!, a game in which you command the wholesale slaughter of white Americans!

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[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"By that logic every video game should just be a rainbow of enemies..."

Yeah, but that's not the logic being used, here. The logic is: "If we do this, will a really noisy group make a bunch of noise?" The fact is there are groups of people out there that are sensitive to certain things. Some of those groups have strong reasons that recently came about for being sensitive to them. The problems aren't equal, so the proportion of offensiveness isn't equal.

I agree with you that PC has gone overboard, but the

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[FishAdmin]

The fact is there are groups of people out there that are sensitive to certain things. Some of those groups have strong reasons that recently came about for being sensitive to them. The problems aren't equal, so the proportion of offensiveness isn't equal.

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. For the record, IAAA (I am an American), so these views will be about my homeland, the USA, vs elsewhere. However, since my country seems to almost ENJOY being the very height of PC, I think my opinions are at least as valid as the next person. Disclaimer aside, I agree that this PC crap has gone waaaay to far. From black people being offended by every reference to the term "slave" to Christians being offended that anyone would choose a homosexual lifestyle over a hetero o

Re:As intended?

[apparently]

I agree that this PC crap has gone waaaay to far. From black people being offended by every reference to the term "slave" to Christians being offended that anyone would choose a homosexual lifestyle over a hetero one, we ALL need to stop being so freakin' sensitive!

Are you actually criticizing people for being sensitive to events that are only three generations removed from them? My great-grandmother was still alive when I was born (and for ten years after): three generations is within familial reach. Any African-American born in the middle-20th Century was only three generations removed from the abolishment of slavery, and you can't respect that perhaps some of those people are sensitive to the circumstances of their world?
Do we need to discuss that it took another 100 years from the abolishment of slavery for the civil rights movement to actually ratify African-Americans as 5/5 human that could sit, drink, and learn as they want?
Do we need to discuss that even 40 years out from the civil rights movement, racism is still a factor in our politics?
Your perspective is astonishingly lacking.

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[Posting=!Working]

The OP said "offended by EVERY reference to the word 'slave'" (caps are mine), it doesn't matter if you're talking about human bondage, sexual bondage, the setting on an IDE drive, or hard work (e.g. "slaving over a hot stove"), there are those who act offended if you use the word by any definition. Which is ridiculous, regardless of your perspective. We can't all carry thesauruses just to be PC. (I don't think there is another word for IDE slave, anyway.)

I'm Irish Catholic by descent, it wouldn't be very

Re:As intended?

[Das Modell]

Are you actually criticizing people for being sensitive to events that are only three generations removed from them?

Finland was attacked by the Soviet Union in the early 20th century, but you don't see me whining about it. Why would I? It happened way before my time, it has no effect on me and the people responsible for it are long gone.

Do we need to discuss that even 40 years out from the civil rights movement, racism is still a factor in our politics?

If white-on-black racism was still a real problem in the Western world, people wouldn't have to constantly make shit up, like this RE5 debacle.

I resent the way slavery is seen as a white invention that has never affected anyone except Africans. Slavery has existed forever, and in every corner of the world. There's still slavery in Africa, but I don't see anyone doing anything about it. I guess it's just too embarrasing to admit its existence since white people are not involved.

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[philspear]

I agree that this PC crap has gone waaaay to far.

It's really just a function of 1. Consumers having too much time and 2. Corporations and elected officials realizing that people were more likely to buy/vote in their favor if they didn't offend them.

Fortunately, that's also the only real upshot of PC. The two men you mentioned you wouldn't like to see making out aren't trying to pass laws forcing you to watch them any more than the man and woman you mentioned you don't want to see making out are. You're re

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[BigJClark]

I myself, am perpetually offended by the vast majority of bad guys, since the days of nintendo 8bit, being of caucasian.

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[journeymanmetal]

"For some reason, it's seen as less acceptable to kill starving Africans than it is to kill greasy mainland Europeans. Then again, both games were made in Japan, and we all know what a bunch of xenophobic dicks they are." (forgive me if I haven't got this word-for-word)

Um..

[PhysSurfer]

Fine, but then shouldn't the hero be African as well?

There may be a point here. There is possibly some racial colonization themes portrayed when the protagonist is of European descent and he goes around killing African zombies.

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[NonSequor]

Don't bother trying to communicate with them. They have their blinders on.

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[Das Modell]

Today's "racism," if you can call it that, is driven by two powerful forces of stupidity: black victimhood and white guilt. Of course in this case the developers are Japanese so we've only got black victimhood.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I never really thought of RE4 as racist, I just took it for what it was. I don't know anything about the setting of RE4 so I could not comment on whether the behaviors and settings were patterned after the actual population and location but it might as well have been made up anyway because there were no unaffected people in the game besides some of the main characters of the story, who were also made up. It just seemed like a cheesy action movie that was a lot of fun to play. Why is everyone upset about

Uh what?

[JMemmert]

I just read the article... and I am astonished just how little content can make up an article. So we have one returning character and two babes, one maybe playable, but we don't know. We have different enemies that are different from the different enemies we had before (and yes, I purposely overused the word "different" here). And we have rumors on how they'll die, decompose, all the while burbling and turning into slime. Could someone please explain to me how this is relevant news concerning a new computer game? No details, no specs, no screenshots, just some Japanese magazine having seen a soon-to-be-released trailer and another newsfeed picking up the story, summarizing ineptly what will become perfectly obvious from watching the trailer which you'll be able to watch soon yourself. And yes, I must be new here and all, but please... wake me up when there's NEWS to be had.

On the Wii?

[plague3106]

Will it come out for the Wii as well as 360 and PS3?

Re:

[iampiti]

Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says it will be released on xbox 360 and the ps3...so I guess it won't be coming out for the wii.
I think it's a pity, but Nintendo knew where they were getting when they decided to build a console with considerably less hardware power than Microsoft's and Sony's offerings.
I'm not bashing the wii: They are making innovative games and loads of money but it just (obviously) won't be getting the hardcore games that have complex graphics and gameplay being released for the other two consoles.

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[Das Modell]

Yes, but it's a GameCube port. Porting a modern 360/PS3 game to the Wii is different.

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[plague3106]

Ya, it's not looking good I agree. I just thought I'd ask since I haven't heard mention one way or the other.. that is, I can't find anywhere that said for sure "no, there won't be a Wii port."