Image via Complex Original
Video games are a source of a lot of things like entertainment and education. Unfortunately, racism tends to raise it's head as well. We're not just talking about the 13 year old bigots who spew slurs over Xbox Live but actual video games that have crossed the line. Here are 10 video games that have jaw-dropping racist overtones.
Spanish For Everyone
Platform: Nintendo DS
Year: 2007
The gamebegins with your Mexican friend stealing your Nintendo DS and fleeing south of the border. In order to get it back, you have to go to Mexico and find him. Not only does your friend turn out to be a stereotypical thief but out of nowhere, a horny Mexican woman appears who promises to teach you many things, with Spanish being one of them.
Pokemon: Red & Blue
Platform: Game Boy
Year: 2006
Anyone remember Jynx? The big, blond-haired, big-lipped, black pokemon stunt sambo? The character didn't do too much social damage overseas but once it got to American shores, it had to get a Poke-makeover to the purple-skinned creature we see now.
The Street Fighter Franchise
Platform: Arcade, various home gaming systems
Year: 1987
It's a game we all know and love dearly but in the interest of keeping it all the way 100, it's one hell of a racist game. Dalsim the yoga practicing Indian, Blanka the savage Brazilian, Balrog the big, beastly black guy and T. Hawk the Native American all make up the beginning of a really bad walked-into-a-bar joke.
Donkey Kong
Platform: Arcade, Atari 7800, Intellivision, Commodore 64
Year: 1981
*Prepares for the flames* Bring it. Mario is awesome, but he's also a huge stereotype. Big funny mustache, plumber, short and fat, likes money, and he jumps on "Goombas". Not to mention the fact that Donkey Kong kidnapping the princess smacks of some ol' Joseph Conrad-type shit. Just because it was in a movie doesn't make it okay!
Punch Out!!
Platform: Arcade, NES, Wii
Year: 1984
Another game that we love to death but have to call out for its racist content. Bald Bull, the hulkish and scary black man, Great Tiger the turban rocking Indian guy who wears a Bengal tiger skin and Aran Ryan (which sounds a lot like Aryan), the angry Irishman. As if that wasn't enough, who could forget your trainer Doc with his bugged out eyes.
Freaky Flyers
Platform: Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox
Year: 2003
We're fans of the title—cartoonish aerial racing games are awesome—but there was something about it that just... wasn't right. We can't quite put our finger on—wait, maybe it's because almost every character is a walking stereotype. Sammy Wasabi, a buck-toothed Japanese engineer who flies the Kamikaze Express? Sheik Abdul, an Arab oil gazillionaire who flies a magic carpet? Island Jack, a "native"? Really? THIS is why Americans can't have shit!
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Platform: Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC, Mac OS X
Year: 2002
From protagonist Tommy Vercetti's one-time pal Lance Vance proclaiming his want for his brother's "white lady" to the controversy of blowing away Cubans and Haitians, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City had no drought of racist moments. Sparking a public outrage from the Cuban and Hatian community in Florida, Rockstar had to issue an aplogetic press release to calm things down. That of course didn't stop the developers from putting in a "Kill the cholos" mission in San Andreas where you had to put holes through Mexican gangmembers.
Cluster's Revenge
Platform: Atari 2600
Year: 1982
You play as General Custer, who—in the nude (and fully erect)—dodges arrows to get to a Native American women named "Revenge"... and then rapes her. Which we guess is a decent political allegory, but then shouldn't you play the woman named Revenge and proceed to savagely castrate Custer? Just saying.
Border Patrol
Platform: Browser-based
Year: 2002
With some of these games you have to read between the Confederate Flag stripes lines to suss out the racial connotations, but Border Patrol is, to use the clinical phrase, straight-up racist! The point-and-click shooter lets you—nay, compels you to—kill Mexicans trying to cross the border. We checked out the leaderboards, and not surprisingly, Lou Dobbs is running that shit.
Ethnic Cleansing
Platform: PC
Year: 2002
Developed by Resistance Records (as in "resistance to signing anyone who isn't a Neo-Nazi or a White supremacist band"), the game lets you play as a Klansman or skinhead in the quest to kill Latinos, Blacks, and Jews. Offensive? Clearly. But the fact that the game doesn't have "White Power-ups," in some extremely conflicting way, makes us think that they missed an opportunity.
