Resident Evil 5

Game is set in Africa and all the zombies are, logically enough, black. I'd prefer to believe that this is a reasonable design choice at a time of post-political correctness. Yet it can't be helped that the zombified residents of an African village look and behave pretty much exactly like the extras from Birth of a Nation. So after pointing my shotgun into the face of the one hundredth consecutive jiga boo the little twinges of transgression start to add up.

The really unfortunate thing is that the designers have done nothing to counter possible accusations of latent racism. The characters with speaking roles are all white, save one minor soldier who is clearly African-American. Your female partner, Sheva, is supposedly African but evidently of a more Mediterranean stock than the local sub-Saharan natives. There are no non-zombie locals. No children either (save one menaced white girl) or other humanizing suggestions of culture.

In a series that has also been criticized for its condescending attitude toward gender roles (see article, which applauds the "female gendered space" of Super Metroid) Capcom is not doing itself any favors by pleading ignorance with respect to racial sensitivities.

As usual the Japanese have stolen an American cultural item and gotten it all wrong. (Where did they get their ideas about Brooklyn plumbers?) Typically the results are more amusing. I object to the zombie being used in this way, contrary to its nobler purpose.