Will GTA: SA be the first game you play with a black man as the main character?

MiamiVice.jpg


Off the top of my head, this is a 1986 title.
 
Holy crap, I just played Power Punch 2 for the first time, and that definately is Mike Tyson. I had never heard of this before, is there some lore surrounding it? When did they make the decision to change Tyson's name?
 
[quote name='evilmax17']Holy crap, I just played Power Punch 2 for the first time, and that definately is Mike Tyson. I had never heard of this before, is there some lore surrounding it? When did they make the decision to change Tyson's name?[/quote]

I think they changed it because they couldn't get license his image anymore
 
[quote name='evilmax17'][quote name='jaso'][quote name='nickmad']
Uh-oh guys — we seem to have offended the super-sensitive white kid.
Click to expand...

hahaha no im not offended....this topic is just ridiculous. trying to remember if you ever had a game with a black lead character.[/quote]

I can see how you might be viewing it as such, but as a minority I think it's a very poignant topic that's really opening people's eyes to the unspoken discrimination in video games.

Take San Andreas for example: The lead is a black "gangsta," not a lawyer or a business man.

It's actually pretty sad, and if I ever get my foot in the door of the industry it'll be something I strive to change.[/quote]

While I completely agree with you on videogame discrimination, it would be kind of silly to have a black (or white, or italian) lawyer as the main character of GTA, as the whole point of the game is to be a criminal.[/quote]

Sarcasm?

I think you may have missed my point. Putting a lawyer into the lead of GTA would be absurd (but the putting a lawyer in such a position would work against the norm, kind of like Christian Bale's character in American Psycho).
 
My character in Kotor is black and he's the baddest mo fo in the galaxy.

And to break the video game stereotype he's no gansta--I'm playing the light side.
 
Mind if I ask why this matters? I've never paid attention to the race of the main character, mostly because race means nothing to me. Isn't it time we moved beyond stuff like this?
 
[quote name='Death2Sanity']Mind if I ask why this matters? I've never paid attention to the race of the main character, mostly because race means nothing to me. Isn't it time we moved beyond stuff like this?[/quote]

Well the thing is that race SHOULDN'T matter, and we SHOULD have ALREADY moved beyond this. However, this contradicts the unfortunate reality of a good 80-90% of videogame characters being white.
 
[quote name='Death2Sanity']Mind if I ask why this matters? I've never paid attention to the race of the main character, mostly because race means nothing to me. Isn't it time we moved beyond stuff like this?[/quote]

I agree 100%. This shouldn't matter
 
[quote name='WarrenGekko'][quote name='Death2Sanity']Mind if I ask why this matters? I've never paid attention to the race of the main character, mostly because race means nothing to me. Isn't it time we moved beyond stuff like this?[/quote]

I agree 100%. This shouldn't matter[/quote]

I don't think the point of this thead is whether it matters or not, it's just interesting for those of us who have been gaming for 20+ years and how few black leads there have been. If we only had threads on stuff that mattered, this place would be a ghost town.
 
[quote name='jaso'][quote name='nickmad']
Uh-oh guys — we seem to have offended the super-sensitive white kid.
Click to expand...

hahaha no im not offended....this topic is just ridiculous. trying to remember if you ever had a game with a black lead character.[/quote]

I can see how you might be viewing it as such, but as a minority I think it's a very poignant topic that's really opening people's eyes to the unspoken discrimination in video games.

Take San Andreas for example: The lead is a black "gangsta," not a lawyer or a business man.

It's actually pretty sad, and if I ever get my foot in the door of the industry it'll be something I strive to change.[/quote]

In fairness, since when are video games made with lawyers or businessmen as the lead roles? I wouldn't play it.
 
Well, alot of games, RPG's mostly, let you pick character portraits or models. I usually pick the black ones, just because alot of them look cool. Games like the UT games, Ultima games, Deus Ex, etc. etc.

I think a huge reason why there aren't many black leads (other than that, as mentioned, the "average gamer" is a white male) is cause many games come from Japan. If you guys think racism is bad in the US, take a trip over to Japan... actually Asia in general. It's pretty damn fucked up.
 
[quote name='CheapyD']Sports game don't count!
They aren't characters, they are athletes![/quote]
Not even Mike Tysons Punchout for NES, he is the featured athlete
 
Also
Fight Night 2004- I dont remember there being too many white boxers in there, and if I remember correctly, Roy Jones Jr. is the featured character when it boots up.
 
[quote name='yeahokthenfu'][quote name='CheapyD']Sports game don't count!
They aren't characters, they are athletes![/quote]
Not even Mike Tysons Punchout for NES, he is the featured athlete[/quote]

You play as a white guy though.
 
[quote name='6669'][quote name='yeahokthenfu'][quote name='CheapyD']Sports game don't count!
They aren't characters, they are athletes![/quote]
Not even Mike Tysons Punchout for NES, he is the featured athlete[/quote]

You play as a white guy though.[/quote]
Yeah but he is the featured character, maybe I read this topic wrong my bust.
 
[quote name='coolcato'][quote name='jaso'][quote name='nickmad']
Uh-oh guys — we seem to have offended the super-sensitive white kid.
Click to expand...

hahaha no im not offended....this topic is just ridiculous. trying to remember if you ever had a game with a black lead character.[/quote]

I can see how you might be viewing it as such, but as a minority I think it's a very poignant topic that's really opening people's eyes to the unspoken discrimination in video games.

Take San Andreas for example: The lead is a black "gangsta," not a lawyer or a business man.

It's actually pretty sad, and if I ever get my foot in the door of the industry it'll be something I strive to change.[/quote]

In fairness, since when are video games made with lawyers or businessmen as the lead roles? I wouldn't play it.[/quote]

My point wasn't that I'd like to see a lawyer or business man in a video game. My point was that when minorities are depicted in video games, it's rarely in a positive role as evidenced by the gangsta in GTA San Andreas. Or, they're athletes as has been noted in a ton of the previous posts listing sports titles with black lead characters.
 
"My point was that when minorities are depicted in video games, it's rarely in a positive role as evidenced by the gangsta in GTA San Andreas."

That can equally apply to whites as well. how many evil guys in video games are white? tons.

The head honcho guy in Splinter Cell is black. Hes portrayed as a very intelliengent powerful guy. The fact is that people are people. Why bother looking at the race and saying oh well hes black he is the bad guy obviously - cause there are lots of evil white guys too.

What you should really do is make a list of which games portray black/mexicans/nonwhites /aliens in an evil way and which games portray them in a good way and then add them up to see if the hypothesis that all minorities are portrayed as evil still stands.
Aside from the gangsta type games, I would say they are portrayed in a positive light just from reading all the titles that list minorities as heroes.
 
I don't care about race in the least, but I'm not gonna waste time going into an idiotic debate on race in videogames. I'm just going to ANSWER THE QUESTION without a fuss.

Aside from Gauntlet and a few other old arcade games:
DeeJay (Street Fighter II)
Combo (Killer Instinct)

Oh, and Mr. Game & Watch, he was "black". ;)
 
I had a redguard character in Morrowind who looked rather black to me (he had corn rows as I recall). Oh, and the Punch Out 2 thing, I thought that the game was being released right around the time that Tyson was being brought up on spousal abuse charges if I am not mistaken. No one wanted anything to do with him at that point.
 
I've been watching this thread all afternoon and I finally realised how bad the title of it sounds.
Will GTA: SA be the first game you play with a black man as the main character?
Click to expand...

I know its an immature high school thing to laugh at but oh well.

To add to the thread though in a serious manner though... I actually made my character in KOTOR a black man. Yeah Yeah I was trying to make him look like Mace Windu (I know I'm not the only one!) but it should still count.
 
[quote name='coolcato']In fairness, since when are video games made with lawyers or businessmen as the lead roles? I wouldn't play it.[/quote]

Gyakuten Saiban
gya.jpg


Since 2001 apparently for the GBA, and for the record I'd play it if I could read japanese, it looks like a cool adventure game! As for Black characters in games, Yeah we're under represented but it's because we;re MINORITIES, when people create these games they only think about the race that's immediately obvious to them. White people will more often create a white player character because thats what they're used to. A racially homogenous society like Japan is mostly going to create japanese people (in some cases asians with blonde hair because it's facinating to them to see hair with color or same with eye color).

If sports games didnt feature real teams and players they'd probably still have black players making up most of the team because thats where we have a dominant presance. That's what people are used to seeing.
 
[quote name='Noodle Pirate!']"My point was that when minorities are depicted in video games, it's rarely in a positive role as evidenced by the gangsta in GTA San Andreas."

That can equally apply to whites as well. how many evil guys in video games are white? tons.

The head honcho guy in Splinter Cell is black. Hes portrayed as a very intelliengent powerful guy. The fact is that people are people. Why bother looking at the race and saying oh well hes black he is the bad guy obviously - cause there are lots of evil white guys too.

What you should really do is make a list of which games portray black/mexicans/nonwhites /aliens in an evil way and which games portray them in a good way and then add them up to see if the hypothesis that all minorities are portrayed as evil still stands.
Aside from the gangsta type games, I would say they are portrayed in a positive light just from reading all the titles that list minorities as heroes.[/quote]

Exactly. Well said
 
actually, i have a seperate PS2, controller and memory card i use only for games that feature "black" people. I dont want them mixing with any of my white characters from other games. Especially my lovely FFX-2 girls.



(i am totally joking about this, please do not ban me.)
 
[quote name='Noodle Pirate!']"My point was that when minorities are depicted in video games, it's rarely in a positive role as evidenced by the gangsta in GTA San Andreas."

That can equally apply to whites as well. how many evil guys in video games are white? tons.

The head honcho guy in Splinter Cell is black. Hes portrayed as a very intelliengent powerful guy. The fact is that people are people. Why bother looking at the race and saying oh well hes black he is the bad guy obviously - cause there are lots of evil white guys too.

What you should really do is make a list of which games portray black/mexicans/nonwhites /aliens in an evil way and which games portray them in a good way and then add them up to see if the hypothesis that all minorities are portrayed as evil still stands.
Aside from the gangsta type games, I would say they are portrayed in a positive light just from reading all the titles that list minorities as heroes.[/quote]


I didn't realize when I initially posted in this thread that my comments would be taken as they have. If you look back to my first response, and not just qoute my fourth or fifth and leave it at that, you might see where I'm coming from.

I wasn't the person who brought up the issue of race and lead characters in video games; I just posted in this thread and I felt like the point I was trying to make was clear.

I'm not a bitter minority; I think a great game is a great game regardless of who your lead character is. But I also never used the word "evil" when referencing how minorities have been used in the past. That was your word.

If you're not a minority, then it's understandable why maybe you can't relate to my point of view. You've been properly represented. The fact of the matter is, black, hispanics, asians, etc. are considered minorities in this country, but when looking at the sub-culture of video gamers I believe minorities are a majority and are unfairly represented in video games.

And yes, in Splinter Cell there was a black guy who worked behind the scenes that the gamer never gets to control and barely gets to see. Instead, the gamer is relegated to operating a 40-year-old white guy. Great example.
 
[quote name='jaso']Looking back on these posts, blacks are much better represented than Mexicans — can we get no love?

Seriously, who do we have... Tony Gonzalez in Madden?

And don't say Manny Calavera in Grim Fandago (great game BTW) because he wasn't anything — he was dead.[/quote]

haha, tell me about it. Things aren't just black and white you know. ;)
 
Hmm...let's see...wow. With the exception of Shadow Man and games that offer a choice of a black character (FPS, fighting games, etc.), GTA:SA is only the second I've played with a prominent black character.
 
[quote name='sblymnlcrymnl']
Anyway, the stereotypical gamer (most of us) is a white male. It doesn't make much sense to have anything other than that as a main character. [/quote]
Wow now thats just racist.
 
We are taught as children that in stories white is good and black is evil, just another way everyone is subliminaly racist.

Dynamite Cop
 
Personally speaking, I don't think the stereotypical gang-banger in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a monumental step forward for the civil rights movement.

I was a lot more impressed with the second unknown soldier in Capcom's Forgotten Worlds, and the gun-toting African Americans in Smash TV and its spin-off Total Carnage. Now THOSE are some black video game characters I can respect!

JR
 
[quote name='CouRageouS'][quote name='sblymnlcrymnl']
Anyway, the stereotypical gamer (most of us) is a white male. It doesn't make much sense to have anything other than that as a main character. [/quote]
Wow now thats just racist.[/quote]

I didn't mean to be racist, but it's easier for most people to get into a game when the main character looks like them. Might be another reason there aren't as many female gamers as well.
 
[quote name='sblymnlcrymnl'][quote name='CouRageouS'][quote name='sblymnlcrymnl']
Anyway, the stereotypical gamer (most of us) is a white male. It doesn't make much sense to have anything other than that as a main character. [/quote]
Wow now thats just racist.[/quote]

I didn't mean to be racist, but it's easier for most people to get into a game when the main character looks like them. Might be another reason there aren't as many female gamers as well.[/quote]

A racist AND a misogynist? Sheesh man, you're Satan-incarnate!

:twisted:

:rofl:
 
does anyone else find it funny that the only caucasian sounding voice that you can choose when creating your guy in def jam 2 is a clean-cut nerd? that's so messed up.


anyone got the link to that stealthyseal rap?
 
Thumper and Axel in Twisted Metal, but no game whose story line focused 100% only on a black character.
 
Lucky in KOF 94' and 98'. The "sterotypical" tall, black basketball player.

I'm surprised more people don't cosplay as him. What a character desgin.
 
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oh come on it is fucking hilarious. the beat just cracks me up.

all of the THPS game have black peoeple but there really is no main character(like a fighter)

hey Donky Kong is brown, does that count?
 
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