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ZOMBIES AND HEARTS OF DARKNESS

Cultural stereotypes, charged politics and a fraught colonial history make Africa a tricky setting for a video game. Brett McCallon describes his discomfort playing "Far Cry 2" and "Resident Evil 5" ...

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

As a rule, most games are set in one of three places: a generic modern military scenario; a generic fantasy world (think "Dungeons and Dragons"); or a generic science-fiction landscape replete with space marines. I was pleased, then, to learn that both "Far Cry 2" and "Resident Evil 5", two big releases from the last year, use the seldom-explored setting of Africa.

These games ventured into tricky territory, given Africa's long history of colonial exploitation. Their approaches seem uniquely informed by the cultures of the two developers—"Far Cry 2" (pictured below) is from Ubisoft in Montreal, while "Resident Evil 5" (pictured top) is by Capcom in Japan—and both make significant mistakes in attempting to balance the continent's exoticism with a sense of its fraught past. While playing each game, there were moments when I found myself profoundly uncomfortable. In one case, the experience was unsettling enough to cut my playtime short.

Games are not known for their subtlety, and the "Resident Evil" series is perhaps one of the least subtle of a crass lot. These games chronicle the battle between the sinister Umbrella Corporation, which periodically unleashes new varieties of zombie-creating viruses on an unsuspecting world, and various good-looking law enforcement types who oppose these efforts. Their plots are delivered with all of the tact and nuance that this rivalry merits. Clearly there were bound to be problems when this hamfisted, if well-regarded, series came to Africa.

The heroes' opposition to world takeover by the undead takes the form of shooting thousands of zombies, preferably in the head. Until now, the series' action consisted of white protagonists shooting mostly caucasian-ish zombies. When the first trailers of "RE5" debuted in 2008, many were shocked by scenes of white men pumping the skulls of rampaging black Africans with lead. "Wow, clearly no one black worked on this game," observed N'Gai Croal, a former Newsweek games columnist, at the time. He pointed out that the Japanese development team had managed to recreate the kind of racist imagery that was employed in the 1930s and 40s to depict blacks, and Africans specifically, as savages.

It bears noting that this "RE5" scenario is not unlike the previous game in the series, which opened in a spooky village in the Spanish countryside. The problem lay in Capcom's neglect of the complex and tragic history of the new African setting. "It would be like saying you were going to do some sort of zombie movie that appeared to be set in Europe in the 1940's with skinny, emaciated, Hasidic-looking people," said Croal. "If you put up that imagery people would be saying, 'Are you crazy?' Well, that's what this stuff looks like. This imagery has a history."

To their credit, Capcom seemed to have taken this criticism to heart. When the game was officially released earlier this year, its opening segment featured a veritable ethnic rainbow of zombie variety. This change deflected much of the pre-release grumbling, yet the fact remains that far more insensitive imagery awaits gamers later on in "RE5". Several levels in, players find themselves facing enemies deep in a swamp. And while the game is set in modern times, these enemies are wearing versions of traditional African costumes, including grass skirts, wooden masks, shields and spears. Spears. Clearly, the design team wanted to create an interesting variation on the standard, modern dress that enemies wear in preceding levels. But to any western gamer who has seen films like "Zulu" or the original "King Kong", the imagery is almost unbelievably racist.

I don't pretend to understand the attitude that the average Japanese game developer or gamer has to the legacy of western anti-African racism. But I do know that however unfortunate the imagery in the game was, it didn't make me stop playing. The game felt thoroughly Japanese, and I could rationalise it as the product of a culture that had a different history and different norms than my own.

"Far Cry 2", on the other hand, features a much more realistic and much more serious approach to its African setting. The player takes on the role of a mercenary who is tasked with assassinating "The Jackal", an arms merchant who has been supplying both sides of a civil war. In many ways it's an excellent game, and initially I found myself deeply interested in this setting and its denizens. But as I continued conducting missions for one or the other of the game's armed, warlord-led clans, I found myself increasingly upset about my place in this world.

Clearly, this was deliberate—the references to "Heart of Darkness" and "Apocalypse Now" are impossible to ignore. I feel certain that the design team set out to make players question their own humanity amid assassination assignments. Still, the experience was profoundly unnerving. My personal breaking point came when one of my fellow mercenaries, a man who was my character's best friend, asked me to (as I recall) help him hijack a shipment of medicine and sell it to the highest bidder. I hit "eject" and haven't gone back to the game since.

It's hard to explain why being asked to participate in a fictional theft (that was doomed to be hijacked by another fictional militia anyway) was the trigger that made me abandon "Far Cry 2". On the surface, it seems far less fraught than the shooting of natives in "Resident Evil 5". Perhaps the issue here is that "Far Cry 2" based its moral quagmire on regional problems that I feel culturally responsible for. I felt disconnected from the Japanese team's offensive choices, the product of attitudes that are very different from my own. But the western-developed game was asking me to recreate a form of exploitation that white westerners like me have been committing for centuries. For this I respect the game in many ways, but I'm not sure I'll ever care to play it again.

Picture credit:  Capcom, Ubisoft

(Brett McCallon is a writer based in New Orleans. He writes regularly about gaming for More Intelligent Life.)