The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has weighed in on Resident Evil 5 and finds no evidence of racism, reports Eurogamer.

Complaints of racial insensitivity in RE5 have cropped up periodically ever since a trailer for the game was released at E3 2007. Most recently, Eurogamer's report on a pre-release look at RE5 code renewed concerns about possible racism in the game.

But the BBFC's Sue Clark dismissed the racial angle in a scene fretted about by Eurogamer:

It's the bit where you see "a white blonde woman being dragged off, screaming, by black men", as our preview put it... [BBFC's] Clark responded, "In the version [of the scene] submitted to the BBFC there is only one man pulling the blonde woman in from the balcony, and I can't say the skimpiness of her dress impressed itself on me. The single man is not black either.

"As the whole game is set in Africa it is hardly surprising that some of the characters are black, just like the fact that some of the characters in an earlier version were Spanish as the game was set in Spain," Clark continued.

"We do take racism very seriously, but in this case there is no issue around racism."

Odd that both Eurogamer and Kikizo reported it was black men doing the dragging, but presumably we were given an earlier version of the code than the one submitted to the BBFC.

The Speaker of the New York City Council is expected to denounce a controversial Japanese rape simulation game this morning on the steps of City Hall in Manhattan.

Councilwoman Christine Quinn (middle left) will hold a news conference in protest of RapeLay at 11:00 A.M. As GamePolitics has reported, the hentai game was recently removed from product listings on Amazon.com where a re-seller had been offering it for sale.

Quinn will be joined by the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault. A press release announcing the event includes the following description:

A teenage video "game" simulating brutal gang rape and other horrifying sexual violence — just pulled by Amazon.com — will be the subject of a news conference hosted by [Quinn]... who will call on all U.S. video distributors to refuse its distribution or sale...

 

The "game" is now available in the U.S. market...

We should point out that RapeLay, while despicable, is not a product of the U.S. video game industry and is not rated by the ESRB.

UPDATE: Newsday has the first mainstream media coverage of today's press conference:

Amazon and eBay have already banned the sale of the game... but New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said Monday that the game is available on other Web sites...

UPDATE 2: The photo at left is from the news conference. Speaker Quinn is in the middle. At left, holding artwork from RapeLay, is  Harriett Lessel, Executive Director of The New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault. Of the game, Lessel said:

Video games of this nature are beyond appalling, and people of good conscience need to speak out against them. Sexual violence is a major problem in America and video games like this send the exact wrong message to young people. It tells boys it’s okay to sexually assault girls, and it tells girls they are worthless. The New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault is hopeful that American distributors will reject this game and the aberrant behavior it promotes.

Government censors in Singapore have cleared Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned, despite the game's well-publicized snippet of male nudity.

The Straits Times reports that Singapore's Media Development Authority reviewed the game:

Mr Ernest Khoo, head of video games and media content at MDA, said that whether full-frontal male nudity is allowed depends on the context in which it occurs.

In this expansion pack, he said, the depiction is 'non-sexual and can hence fall within the M18 rating', which is also the rating given to the original GTA IV. He added that with the M18 rating, only those 18 years old and above will be buying the game and its expansion pack.

Going by the video game classification system MDA introduced last year, games for online download do not need to be sent for classification before sale here.

Okaying GTA IV L&D is another indication that Singapore has loosened its approach to game content since briefly banning Mass Effect in 2007.

Just when you thought the RapeLay mini-scandal was over...

Kevin McCullough, the conservative blogger who in 2008 lit the fuse that would eventually detonate as pop psychologist Cooper Lawrence's misguided attack on Xbox 360 hit Mass Effect, is back.

In a piece for the conservative Townhall blog, McCullough draws similarities between the despicable RapeLay PC game and President Obama's just-signed stimulus package.

You can't make this stuff up. Here's what McCullough, who eventually backed off of his incorrect allegations against Mass Effect, wrote regarding RapeLay and the stimulus package:

This week Amazon.com after many complaints finally decided to ban a virtual reality game called "Rapelay." Defenders of the game say it's not real rape because it only occurs between computer animations. There are no genuine side effects. And it won't impact reality.

Sort of like what liberals sound like when it comes to our money. The money we work increasingly harder to earn. And with one uber-partisan vote they take away. Taken faster than the speed of light or at least in shorter than being allowed to read the legislation that does so.

In the game Rapelay, reviewers have stated that the player must first sexually assault a mother character and her two daughters before being allowed to then "pick" their next series of victims.

In the Congress of Washington DC liberals have seen to it that our mothers and daughters will have less money in the home budget working for their protection and welfare.

In the game Rapelay the reviews indicate that the rapist can even convince one of the animated computer characters that they like what's happening to them.

In Washington DC liberals in Congress sent their lapdog "Mr. President" out to the masses to do the same thing...

 

I've tried to be as tasteful as possible in explaining this comparison, and due to the passion of the natural man that was not an easy thing to do!
 

Class act, that Kevin McCullough...

Via: N'Gai Croal

According to Edge Online, the Australian Board of Classification is "under heavy fire from critics" over the MA15+ rating granted to GTA IV expansion The Lost and Damned.

EO describes the situation Down Under:

Critics say that the strong similarities between GTAIV and The Lost and Damned add-on casts light on the disparity at the Australian classification group,‭ ‬a body which had initially refused classification for a number of high profile games such as Silent Hill:‭ ‬Homecoming and Fallout‭ ‬3.

Yet the Board's handling of the matter may be advocated by the fact that its GTA IV‭ ‬information page clearly shows that the title hasn't ever been refused classification.‭ ‬Rockstar had censored the content before showing it to the classification board,‭ ‬and the game was granted submission on its first attempt.‭

When I ponder the things that I'd like to see in video games someday, a fully nekkid Congressman is not high on the list.

Nonetheless, Kotaku reports that a cut scene in GTA IV: The Lost and Damned, scheduled to release tomorrow, features a male character displayed with full frontal nudity:

[Congressman] Stubbs, in his first meeting with lead character Johnny Klebbitz, is receiving a massage at the private gentleman's club Jousters when we meet him. The Congressman, dressed in nothing but a towel, quickly becomes pretty comfortable with his new biker friend, choosing to deliver his monologue in the buff...

The ESRB rating for the game—which is "M" for Mature—does make mention of the gratuitous digital d*ck on display, noting that the game has "Nudity" in its content. The original Grand Theft Auto IV is listed as having only "Partial nudity."

As GamePolitics reported this week, online retailer Amazon.com has blocked sales of RapeLay, a Japanese hentai game being offered on Amazon by an affiliated re-seller.

While many were upset by news of the game, some felt that Amazon's decision amounted to censorship.

What do you think?

Register your opinion in the GP poll at left.

In what is likely the first of many mainstream media outlets to weigh in on the topic, a blogger for The Atlantic seems convinced that the upcoming Resident Evil 5 contains racist imagery.

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

Seriously, I have no idea what the frack Capcom was thinking, when they went ahead with Resident Evil 5...

 

the whole "it's only a game" defense--which people always raise--is so lame... if we're going to allow video games to enter into the world of adults, if we don't want to looked upon as boys in the bodies of men, then we have to be serious... You can't ask people to at once respect the creativity of gaming, and then tell them they can't critique it.

The debate as to whether the upcoming Resident Evil 5 contains racist imagery has raged ever since Capcom released a controversial trailer for the game at E3 2007.

Eurogamer, which has a detailed hands-on preview of RE5, reports that there is additional room for concern over images in the retail version:

There's also the spectre of the old racism debate, hovering the background. That debate is only going to get louder and more urgent once the game is released...

One of the first things you see... is a gang of African men brutally beating something in a sack. Animal or human, it's never revealed, but these... are ordinary Africans... Since the Majini are not undead corpses... it makes the line between the infected monsters and African civilians uncomfortably vague. Where Africans are concerned, the game seems to be suggesting, bloodthirsty savagery just comes with the territory...

Later on, there's a cut-scene of a white blonde woman being dragged off, screaming, by black men... If this has any relevance to the story it's not apparent in the first three chapters, and it plays so blatantly into the old clichés of the dangerous "dark continent" and the primitive lust of its inhabitants that you'd swear the game was written in the 1920s...

 

All it will take is for one mainstream media outlet to show the heroic Chris Redfield stamping on the face of a black woman, splattering her skull, and the controversy over Manhunt 2 will seem quaint by comparison. If we're going to accept this sort of imagery in games then questions are going be asked, these questions will have merit, and we're going to need a more convincing answer than "lol it's just a game."

Resident Evil 5 will be released on March 13th.

Earlier this week GamePolitics reported on an Indiana mother's complaint that her daughter's Baby Pals game for the Nintendo DS uttered the phrase "Islam is the light."

We asked Crave Entertainment, which publishes Baby Pals, to comment on the claims, which mirror a similar controversy involving a Fisher-Price doll last autumn.

We've just received a response from Crave's Marketing Director, Doug Panter:

In creating the Nintendo DS game “Baby Pals”, the game developer Brain Toys / InXile used sounds files to simulate the life like baby noises and babbling.  The sounds are publicly available for license.  It is a recording of a 5 month old baby babbling non-intelligible phrases.  In over 200 hours of testing the product, no recognizable English words or phrases were discernable.  

The sound in question of this babble may sound like the words night, right or light, but it is only coincidence as the baby recorded was too young to pronounce these words let alone a whole grammatically correct phrase.

We at Crave Entertainment and InXile regret that there was any misinterpretation of the baby noises and in no way have intentionally put any words or phrases into the baby sounds.

We hope this eases any concerns and fans continue to enjoy playing the game.

GP: Crave's explanation that it licensed the baby talk sound file helps make sense of how "Islam is the Light" plagued the Little Mommy Cuddle and Coo doll as well. Fisher-Price probably licensed the same audio.

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has had little to say about video games since joining the 2007 fight against Manhunt 2.

But the Boston-based group has named a popular video game as a finalist in the voting for its first annual TOADY (Toys Oppressive And Destructive to Young Children) Award.

So, which game has drawn CCFC's wrath? Grand Theft Auto IV? Left 4 Dead? Saints Row 2? Blitz: The League II?

Actually, none of the above. The CCFC has targeted LEGO Batman. Here's what the watchdog group says about the E10-rated game on its website:

How do you turn the ultimate creative toy into a symbol of commercialized childhood?  Begin by partnering with media companies to sell that toy in branded kits designed for recreating movies like Star Wars, rather than creative construction. 

 

Then, dispense with hands-on building altogether by turning your toy into a video game so that instead of deciding what to build next, children choose which cyber weapons to use to beat up their opponent. 

 

Finally, ignore the fact it was rated suitable for ages 10 & up and partner with McDonald’s for a Happy Meal toy giveaway to simultaneously promote the video game, junk food, and the violent Dark Knight movie series to preschoolers.

A strategy game which challenges players to create and manage a private prison empire has outraged some observers.

Of ValuSoft's Prison Tycoon 4: Supermax, the Criminal Justice blog writes:

[Building] a private prison? Who would want to spend free time building an elaborate cage, allowing gang wars, drugs and racial violence to fester in an attempt to earn more money? This is the fourth version of the game, so apparently someone is playing it.

I guess there's a video game version of nearly everything one can imagine. But the existence of this game... highlights the disturbing prevalence of prisons in our society. This game takes for granted that prisons are everywhere and that they are simply a tool for profit. That's a sad place to be.

The architecturally-oriented BldgBlog couches its dismay in sarcasm:

The description of Prison Tycoon 4: SuperMax... urges players to experiment in the architectural framing and administrative implementation of prison life.

 

"Build a profitable privately run prison from the ground up... Grow your facility to SuperMax capabilities, housing the most dangerous and diabolical criminals on earth – all for the bottom line."

 

Putting moral limits on our imaginations temporarily aside, perhaps we could even conceive of Prison Tycoon 5: Guantánamo Bay, or Prison Tycoon 6: Austrian Basement Edition. Prison Tycoon 7: Gulag. Prison Tycoon 8: Escape from Abu Ghraib...

Prison Photography takes a more blunt view:

Prison Tycoon is less gratuitous than Grand Theft Auto and the like. But I don’t know if this is any comfort. To manipulate a virtual prison population with “friendly interaction and fighting between inmates dependent upon mood and gang affiliation” and to rely on “guards [who] will subdue aggressive prisoners, medical staff to treat injuries, chaplains administer to prisoner’s spiritual needs and therapists talk to prisoners to lift their spirits” seems a bit too sinister and calculated for an evening of gaming...

Really, why does this game exist? I suppose it is just completing the loop - the gamer, as a God of Pixels, can create criminals in his other games and then manipulate them in this one.

America's Army, the increasingly controversial computer game/military recruitment tool, is getting a makeover.

A press release issued yesterday by the Army announced that America's Army 3 will be launched later this year. Executive producer Michael Bode commented on the upcoming revision:

In AA3 we've taken all of the best features in AA2, incorporated feedback from the AA community and added the latest technology to develop a high-tech game that can be customized by the player to create a much more detailed interactive experience.

 

One of our key design philosophies is to make the game easily accessible to a new player, while at the same time keeping a deeper layer of complexity for the more advanced players to discover and take advantage of.

Col. Casey Wardynski, who created the original America's Army in 2002 and continues to serve as director of the project, added:

With AA3, we're taking military gaming to an all new level where every detail counts. We want our America's Army 3 players to have a greater understanding of the Army and its values. Our Soldiers are aspirational figures and our players are able to virtually experience many aspects of a Soldier's life from their training, to their missions, to the way the Army has influenced their lives.

As with previous editions, America's Army 3 is expected to be rated T (13 and older) by the ESRB. The new version will be based on the Unreal Engine 3.

It's hardly a surprise, but the British Board of Film Classification has officially rated Sega's upcoming Madworld with an 18 certificate.

The BBFC noted that Madworld "contains very strong, stylised, bloody violence."

No edits to the game were required. As GamePolitcs reported last August, Sega was said to be working closely with the BBFC to avoid a ban such as was imposed on Rockstar's controversial Manhunt 2 in 2007.

A British family values group, Mediawatch-UK, has called for a ban on the bloody Wii title.

Madworld is scheduled to launch on March 31st in the U.K. Here in the United States, Madworld is set for March 10th release. The ESRB has not yet issued a rating.

UPDATE: Edge is reporting that Madworld has also been cleared for sale in Australia.

The controversy over the United States Army's use of video games to woo potential recruits rages on...

On Friday Reuters served up a detailed report on a new, $12 million recruiting facility opened by the Army at a Philadelphia shopping mall:

The U.S. Army Experience Center at the Franklin Mills shopping mall in northeast Philadelphia has 60 personal computers loaded with military videogames, 19 Xbox 360 video game controllers and a series of interactive screens describing military bases and career options in great detail.

Potential recruits can hang out on couches and listen to rock music that fills the space.

The center is the first of its kind and opened in August as part of a two-year experiment. So far, it has signed up 33 full-time soldiers and five reservists -- roughly matching the performance of five traditional recruiting centers it replaced.

However, Iraq war vet Jesse Hamilton criticized the operation:

[The Army Experience Center is] very deceiving and very far from realistic. You can't simulate the loss when you see people getting killed. It's not very likely you are going to get into a firefight. The only way to simulate the heat is holding a blow dryer to your face.

GP: This is a tough call. While games like Call of Duty 4 tend to glamorize combat, the Army obviously needs recruits and young men have always been its core recruitment demographic. What do you think, GP readers?

On his Sessler's Soapbox segment, G4's Adam Sessler discusses video game violence.

Apparently the issue surfaced around the G4 offices after Sessler ran some video from the upcoming Madworld which depicted a character being killed by having a burning tire placed over its head.

Such killings were at one time common during apartheid-related violence in South Africa.

GamePolitics readers will likely recall the controversy surrounding Beer Pong, a downloadable game for the Wii. Following objections by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenhal (D) and others, publisher JV Games renamed the game Pong Toss.

Adding to our holiday card collection, JV has issued a slightly tongue-in-cheek reminder of the Beer Pong flap with a non-alcoholic card that features sparkling cider.

Is it okay to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay?

Is it okay to torture an emotionless animated character in The Torture Game?

Is it okay to carry out a World of Warcraft quest that requires the player to torture a prisoner?

boingboing reports on the controversy generated by one Richard Bartle, himself the inventor of the MUD genre. It seems that Bartle recently came across a mission in WoW's Wrath of the Lich King expansion that gave him pause:

Basically, you have to take some kind of cow poke and zap a prisoner until he talks.

I'm not at all happy with this. I was expecting for there to be some way to tell the guy who gave you the quest that no, actually I don't want to torture a prisoner, but there didn't seem to be any way to do that. Worse, the quest is part of a chain you need to complete to gain access to the Nexus, which is the first instance you encounter (if you start on the west of the continent, as I did). So, either you play along and zap the guy, or you don't get to go to the Nexus.

I did zap him, pretty well in disbelief — I thought that surely the quest-giver would step in and stop it at some point? It didn't happen, though. Unless there's some kind of awful consequence further down the line, it would seem that Blizzard's designers are OK with breaking the Geneva convention.

GP: Kotaku reports that the quest at issue is The Art of Persuasion. The in-game instructions for the quest are as follows:

It is fortunate you're here, <race>.

You see, the Kirin Tor code of conduct frowns upon our taking certain 'extreme' measures - even in desperate times such as these. You, however, as an outsider, are not bound by such restrictions and could take any steps necessary in the retrieval of information.

Do what you must. We need to know where Lady Evanor is being held at once! I'll just busy myself organizing these shelves here. Oh, and here, perhaps you'll find this old thing [torture device] useful....

What's in a name?

App Store approval, perhaps.

Pocket Gamer UK reports that Drug Lords, a drug dealing sim for the iPhone, has been renamed Underworld by its developer, a-steroids.

The move is apparently by way of not alarming the folks who run the App Store. From Pocket Gamer:

a-steroids contacted us to announce the game has finally been submitted to the App Store. Assuming approval, you should be able to start hawking your illicit narcotics sometime in December. But, in order to grease the wheels, the game has undergone rebranding. So, like a GTA hot car respray, it's goodnight Drug Lords, good morning Underworld. The name is less controversial and certainly more App Store friendly.

The game sets you up a small-time drug pusher, selling your stash on the local street corner to other players, and even makes use of the iPhone's GPS functionality, meaning you'll be wheelin' and dealing from your realworld local street corner... the map screen now includes data on pushers in your local vicinity...

a-steroids notes on its website that the game will be free. But, when it comes to drug dealing, isn't the first one always free?

Earlier this week, animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) took a bite out of Majesco’s Cooking Mama: World Kitchen. 

To make its point, PETA offered Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals, a parody which features a blood-thirsty Mama coaching the player through slicing and dicing a Thanksgiving turkey (already dead, despite the title).

PETA apparently took issue with the new Wii title's meat-heavy menu, calling the game "so heavy on dishes that are made from dead animals that the only things missing are the blood and gore...”

Not surprisingly, Majesco disagrees with that view. Yesterday the game publisher issued a response to PETA:

[Of 51 total recipes] Cooking Mama World Kitchen includes more than 25 vegetarian-friendly recipes including delicious breakfast, dinner, dessert and snack options.  And, while Mama is not a vegetarian, she fully supports the humane treatment of animals, particularly for her canine protégé Max who makes his doggie debut in World Kitchen.

While a press release is not as awesome as responding with a parody flash game of its own, Majesco still had a bit of fun by including a quote from Mama herself:

I would never put rat in my Ratatouille. Like any accomplished cook, I create my recipes to appeal to a broad range of tastes and preferences. My only goal is to ensure you leave the table well fed.

-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen is an omnivore…

 

A great deal of blood has been spilled in the name of religion over the centuries, and the maker of a new board game hopes that parodying religious violence will bring him Earthly rewards.

USA Today reports that Playing Gods: The Board Game of Divine Domination is billed as "the world's first satirical board game of religious warfare," and includes playing pieces such as Jesus wielding a cross and a chain gun-toting Buddha (see pic).

Playing Gods was launched at DragonCon in September. The game's creator, Ben Radford, told USA Today:

Much of the world's violence is rooted in religion... [I wanted to] make more social commentary... [and] pierce the pretensions of extremist religious zealotry with humor...

 

[The game is] not anti-religion. It's anti-zealot, anti-people who kill for their beliefs, whatever those are.

Not surprisingly, Playing Gods is not without its critics. Prof. Carl Raschke, who teaches religious studies at the
University of Denver commented:

[The game] has no basis in historical reality and doesn't actually represent any religion. It just appeals to people who hate religion to begin with — the hip subculture of militant popular atheists. These people are fanatics, for the most part, themselves. Their thinking is rigid and hostile and not much different from jihadists who don't use their minds or study what they are dealing with. They start from their own dogmatic perspective.

 

Of course it is [offensive]. But it sounds too stupid to go far.

In an FAQ on the Playing Gods website, designer Radford denies that the $39.99 game is anti-religious:

The game is not anti-anything, except anti-boredom. Players can inject as much – or as little – real religion into the game as they wish. Players may pit Zeus against Cthulhu and Eric Clapton for control over the world, or pit Jesus against a Muslim figurehead. It's all up to you. I hope the game is taken in the spirit in which it was offered.

Kotaku reports that a Fallout 3 side quest involving the possible detonation of an unexploded nuclear bomb has been edited out of the Japanese version of the best-selling game.

Developer Bethesda has made changes to the Japanese Fallout 3. The side-quest The Power of the Atom has been changed. Non-playable-character Mr. Burke has been taken out of this side-quest, removing the option of detonating the nuclear bomb.

 

That's not all, the name of a weapon was changed as it was deemed "inappropriate" for Japan. Smart money says the weapon is mini-nuke launcher "Fat Man" for obvious reasons. The online reaction from the Japanese users seems to be largely disappointment to these edits. Fallout 3 goes on sale in Japan this December.

Japan, of course, is the only nation to have been attacked with a nuclear weapon to date, so cultural sensitivities to the issue are understandable. The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki at the end of World War II was nicknamed "Fat Man."

British tabloid the Daily Star gets itself worked into a tizzy over an amateur online offering, The Suicide Bomber Game.

The free online game, which can easily be accessed by children, shows graphic images of body parts being splattered across the town. Yesterday, it was branded “sick, callous and upsetting” by the Bali Bombing Victims Group, who want it removed from the internet.

One member, Susanna Miller, who lost her brother Dan in the 2002 attacks which killed 202 people, said: “It’s callous, inappropriate, irresponsible and deeply offensive. I find it disturbing... I appeal to any sites featuring this game to remove it. It’s completely sick."

While Ms. Miller's sentiments are completely understandable, it's cheap journalism to call up someone who lost a relative to a suicide bomb and then ask them how they feel about a suicide bombing game. Apparently, that's how the Daily Star rolls.

Kudos to Conservative MP John Whitting­dale (left) who keeps things in perspective. It would have been very easy for Whittingdale to turn the Daily Sun's question about this obscure little title into a highly-publicized whinge encompassing video games in general. Whittingdale told the tabloid:

I find this game tasteless but I don’t think it will necessarily start turning people into suicide bombers. But those whose lives have been affected by suicide bombings I imagine would find it upsetting.

An Australian businessman who once was caught up in the legal battle over the Kazaa file-sharing network has launched a controversial, ad-driven war game.

As reported by the Syndey Morning Herald, Kevin Bermeister is the money man behind Rising Eagle - Gaza. The game pits Israel's elite Golani Brigade against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Players can fight on either side.

Bermeister, who is Jewish, told the newspaper that he wanted to "throw out a challenge to Iran." Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed to destroy Israel.

People will get to know each other in a competitive battleground environment, get to text each other, speak to each other, connect with each other and figure out that they're human beings and they can get on with each other...

 

Just like Ahmadinejad is throwing out a challenge to Israel, I think this game throws out a challenge to Iran. Clearly the intent is that the Israeli Defence Force is the futuristic fighting force that is capable of overcoming anything thrown at it, and the challenge is for anyone to come and take a shot.

Rising Eagle has been developed in Israel. Developer Yaron Dotan also spoke to the SMH:

Dotan, 34, was delighted at the suggestion that his game, which includes billboard-size photographs of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad looking like a monkey [see pic at left], might cause offence to Iranians. He describes the Iranian soldiers as "the Waffen SS of today".

"I want this to upset people. I hope it causes the biggest shitstorm in history," he said.

Most gamers will recall the race controversy sparked by the Resident Evil 5 trailer released at E3 2007. Set in Africa,  the trailer showed a white protagonist mowing down hordes of black zombie villagers.

As the long-awaited game draws closer to its March, 2009 U.S. launch, CVG serves up an interview with Capcom's Masachika Kawata, an RE5 producer who says his team had no racial agenda in the game design:

We chose Africa [as RE5's setting] because we're extending the storyline logically. Following the tradition of the Resident Evil franchise, you'll remember from Code Veronica - the Progenitor virus comes from Africa so we wanted to go back to the root of where the virus originated.

 

For the people who think it's racist... well, we can't please everyone. We're in the entertainment business - we're not here to state our political opinion or anything like that. It's unfortunate that some people felt that way.

We've gone where the story has taken us...

Via: Edge Online

A man who rides Washington, D.C.'s Metro underground rail system has written to the Washington Post to complain about poster ads for Fallout 3 which appear in the Metro Center station.

Joseph Anzalone criticizes the ads as well as Metro management for accepting them:

In one ad, the Washington Monument and the American flags surrounding it stand ravaged, as if hit by missiles. In another, the Capitol dome is partially caved in, while the rest of the building and the city behind it lie in ruins.

The people of our city do not need a daily reminder that Washington is a prime target for an attack. We do not need a daily reminder of what our worst fears look like. Since any First Amendment objection would be irrelevant (the ads do not present a true viewpoint or political message and would therefore not be protected), there is no reason for these ads to be part of our daily panorama.

The ads should be removed, and the appropriate office at Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority should be directed to exercise better judgment regarding what can be displayed in our transportation system.

GP: Whether the ads are in poor taste is a matter of opinion, but Anzalone gets his constitutional argument wrong. The First Amendment protects more than "true viewpoints" and "political messages". That's why they call it free speech.

Citing "cultural sensitivities," GamingIndians reports that Fallout 3 won't go on sale as scheduled next week in India.

By way of explanation GamingIndians cites a terse statement from Microsoft India, which is - or was - handling Fallout 3 distribution there:

Microsoft constantly endeavors to bring the best games to Indian consumers in sync with their international release. However, in light of cultural sensitivities in India, we have made the business decision to not bring Fallout 3 into the country.

Only the Xbox 360 version was planned for the Indian market.

GP: It's a bit of a mystery, but if I were a betting man, I'd speculate that Fallout 3's post-nuclear apocalypse theme has something to do with the decision.

After all, India has been in a stare-down with neighboring Pakistan for decades. Both sides are nuked up and as recently as 2002, almost went to war.

Via: Destructoid

In the wake of Friday's surprising news that the release of Little Big Planet would be delayed following the discovery of two verses from the Qur'an in one of the game's soundtrack songs, SCEE has issued a press release regarding the updated launch schedule for its terroritories:

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is pleased to confirm that LittleBigPlanet will start to appear in stores no later than the week commencing Monday 3rd November in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Australia and New Zealand, on a country by country basis. We appreciate all the enthusiasm surrounding this much anticipated title and we would like to thank PlayStation fans for their support and understanding.

Green Party candidate Peter Myers, running for Congress in California's 15th District, has come out in opposition to the Pentagon's use of the America's Army: Virtual Army Experience simulator in recruiting efforts.

As GamePolitics has previously reported, Virtual Army Experience sparked protests from anti-war groups at several stops during a summer tour of county fairs and air shows.

On his campaign blog, Myers writes:

This report from CNN shows you what some of your hundreds of billions of dollars of tax dollars pay for when they go to the Pentagon. The military's recruitment process for future wars is slick and neatly packaged, and you and I pay for it every day.

My opponents won't take the initiative to rein in this type of wasteful spending that creates an American culture more militant than ever before. Only I have chosen to stand up against these disturbing military recruitment practices; a vote for anyone else is a vote for more disappointment.

In late August, following protests, the Army agreed to restrict participants to those 17 and older. However, the CNN report referenced by Myers clearly shows a 13-year-old boy in line for the exhibit and having his personal data being collected (see pic). It's unknown when the CNN footage was shot.

The more familiar America's Army PC and console games have been criticized by some peace groups for allegedly violating U.N. protocols barring military recruitment of children.

The Green Party's Myers is running against incumbent Mike Honda (D). Myers candidacy is a long shot.

Dead Space, EA's survival-horror game set in space, is launching today.

As GamePolitics has reported in the past, the game may or may not have been banned in Japan, Germany, China and South Korea (take your pick, since EA has chosen not to clarify this issue).

We note the following line from today's press release (full text after the jump):

The game has won over 11 awards...

So, 12 then? In that case, may I suggest that "a dozen awards" would sound more impressive? If the number is 13 or 14, "more than a dozen" would sound even better. 11 is just such an odd point to make that demarcation. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but I tend to do that more than 4 times per day.

GP: In regard to Dead Space, the whole was it or wasn't it banned situation was odd, to say the least. While my suspicion was - and is - that the undocumented "bannings" were hype, the game seems to be scoring well in reviews. GameSpot, for instance, gave the 360 version a 9.0, and EA lists glowing reviews from Game Informer and GamePro in its press release.