Open Thread: The Street Fighter Paradox

This is kind of an experimental post. Instead of laying down all my opinions at once, I’m going to let you guys comment on a question and then post my impressions later.

Do you find the Street Fighter characters offensive? Why?

Just so we’re on the same page, let’s inventory:

The World Warriors

Ryu: Japanese karate guy.

Ken: American karate guy.

Honda: Japanese sumo guy.

Blanka: Brazilian beast-guy.

Dhalsim: Indian stretchy yoga guy. With skulls around his neck.

Guile: All-American military guy with awesome hair.

Chun-Li: Chinese kung-fu girl.

Zangief: Spandex-clad Russian bear-wrestler guy.

The Bosses

Balrog: African American boxer guy inspired by Mike Tyson.

Vega: Spanish bullfighter ninja guy.

Sagat: Muay Thai guy.

Bison: Mysterious evil guy.

The New Challengers

Cammy: Underage British girl.

Fei Long: Bruce Lee.

Dee Jay: Jamaican kickboxer guy inspired by Billy Blanks of Tae-Bo fame.

Thunder Hawk: Native American wrestler guy.

Looking forward to your responses!

pat m.

Why I Missed The Boat on Muslim Massacre

Because, well, it wasn’t that interesting.

Guy from Something Awful forums designs ridiculous game that’s basically a classic arcade game in racist dressing. Don’t be a Liberal Pussy, Kill All Muslims. (I’m not looking forward to seeing what kind of Google hits that one pulls up.)

People get offended, as, well, they should.

Guy tries to talk it off for a while, then eventually apologizes-but-not-really, saying it was just supposed to be satire all along. Except it wasn’t clever, which makes it pretty poor satire, unless it was being clever by not being clever, which makes it satire again, but anyone who thinks that is stupid.

I really don’t think I can run with this as News any further. So instead I’m going to spend the next ten minutes thinking of awesome race-related remakes of old video games.

Gentrification Command: Think Missile Command, except this time it’s white people aiming at your neighborhood, because it’s still “ethnic”, but now there’s a Peet’s on the corner and a fair-trade, organic taco truck in the parking lot by the liquor store. So you shoot ‘em. Hey, you do what you gotta do.

Iraq-Man: Replace Pac-Man with Bush, dots with cash, power pills with oil, and the ghosts with Obama, innocent Iraqi civilians, and the Increasingly Sickly American Economy. Oh, and this time, the power pills don’t come back.

Leisure Suit Lee: Make Larry Laffer of Leisure Suit Larry fame into an Asian guy. The game is still about meeting women, it’s just inexplicably much, much harder.

Street Fighter II’ Black Power Edition: This time, the black guy punches the white guy in the intro shot.

Go ahead and post yours in the comments!

Also, if anyone’s interested in Japanese pro wrestling (puroresu) check out my piece at GiantRealm and leave me a nice comment.

pat m.

The Dilemma of the Unemployed Game Journalist

Well, I’m back in the US. Back in the San Francisco Bay Area, to be specific.

If I were to write a review of being back in the US in Game|Life, the ending would look something like this:

Wired Girlfriend is here, food is cheaper and Mexican food is readily available, rent is free for the next month and a half or so, people speak English.

Tired Now instead of being a “visiting researcher” I’m just “unemployed”.

Which brings me to the dilemma mentioned in the title. As of this writing, my current hardware collection consists of:

One (1) PlayStation 2 with busted-up PSOne Dual Shock controller (heavily used)

One (1) Nintendo DS (Coral Pink)

One (1) MacBook

As you can see, I’m hardly up to date. If I want to be writing about race and games, I’ll probably need access to the latest-and-greatest – with the exception of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars or whatever it’s called for the Nintendo DS, I’m quickly learning that if I want to stay viable in the whole games-journalism thing, I’m going to need some newer gear.

So: now that the dust has settled a bit, do I go for the Xbox 360 for the PS3?

Comment away, dear readers: I need your feedback!