Gay characters in video games?

[Lace Neil Singer]

OK, for the people who never heard of the Streets of Rage franchise, this is basically about differences between the western version, Streets of Rage 3 and the Japanese version, Bare Knuckle 3.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streets...al_differences

While translating this game from Japanese to North American and European audiences, Sega of America altered it significantly. The most notable changes were that the miniboss character Ash was removed because he was a stereotypical gay man (replaced with generic thugs in the western versions), females were given more modest clothing (by switching "dominatrix" outfits with jacket and jeans pants, short jeans clothing with longer outfits, even though Blaze's outfit remains unchanged), and the costume colors were changed. Axel is dressed like Adam, Blaze's clothes were changed from red to silver, and Skate wears red and blue instead of red and yellow. Sega stated that these were changed to create "gender-neutral colors". The voice-effects were also changed, with most noticeably Axel's catchphrase of "Grand Upper" for his semi-special move being replaced with "Bare Knuckle".

Here's a video clip depicting Ash: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaBQ1Nyt130

Just wondering, are there any better, less offensive representations of gay characters in video games? And for Smiley et all; are you offended by Ash? The character was removed cuz the American distributors thought that the gay community would be offended.

[AFPheonix]

That's weird, other game developers leave openly gay characters in their games. See Makoto in Enchanted Arms for example.

The female dress thing is odd, too. There's a lot of other games with near-naked chicks in them, too. Odd that Sega would all of a sudden get puckered about that sort of thing.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Especially since in the first two games, there was Miss Whiplash style baddies that no-one really cared about, so I really don't know why they suddenly got a bug up their butt just on SoR 3. O_o

Have you got a video clip or pic of that guy? I never heard of that game. XD

[Wingates_Hellsing]

I'm hunting for a clip of Burnie from GTA4, another in the long list of stereotypical GTA characters.

Damn my computer and it's slow browsing!

[AFPheonix]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U7xwTsmXtY

It's a 360 game. It was ok, but the voice acting was absolutely abysmal, especially the english actors. I kept it in Japanese with subtitles, that was the only way I could keep from ripping my ears off.

[Bloodsoul]

There's Hard Gay from... some game. Well, I think he was based on a Japanese comedian, anyway?

Eagle from Street Fighter is considered gay, even gaining some Freddie Mercury-inspired lines in the Capcom VS SNK series (though I heard these were removed from the American release). If I recall correctly, even Zangief of the same series was said to have been gay, as well.

Yeah, I'm basing this off a really bad memory (so please take this with a grain of salt), but I heard that the Japanese stereotype was hugely muscled, oiled men in teeny, tiny briefs.

[lupo pazzesco]

Not the first time an American company tweaked things to be "better suited" for their audience. They do it a lot with anime and manga, when translating from Japanese to English for American audiences, specifically. Didn't realize they did it with video games, but it doesn't surprise me in the least.

[MystyGlyttyr]

Benimaru Nikaido from King of Fighters. If he's not supposed to be gay then I'm not supposed to be female. But he was always my favorite character, and so, as a little girl of about 11, my 16-year-old brother would let me hang out with him and his friends when they were playing King of Fighters...because of the sheer unbridled comedy (for him) that would occur.

Long version short, not only would his friends all lose to his baby sister (he was the only one who could beat me with regularity), they would lose to his baby sister who was, in their words, "playing as the flaming homo!" *snicker* Ah, teenage boys.

Still, even though Benimaru is very stereotypically, er...yeah...his character is also a good, caring friend to his teammates and several times over the course of the series crosses up from being a sidekick to the leader of the heroes himself. Though I think I was the only one who ever got the joke that "even his powers were shocking".

[smileyeagle1021]

i kinda wish they had left Ash in... personally, I'd like to be able to beat the crap out of him myself
On a more relevant note, I didn't see anything that offensive in the character... video game characters (especially in those types of games) are supposed to be over the top and outragous. And I've never actually played a game with a character that is openly gay... though I have had suspicions on some (and read fanfic for the same )
I prefer to get my gay characters from books, thank you very much (David Feintuch still gets my vote for best ability to write gay/bi characters, as well as straight but questioning)

[Lace Neil Singer]

You could always get hold of Bare Knuckle 3 and do that; I never owned it, but a friend of my brothers' had it. XD

Apparently too, after you beat him, you can unlock Ash as a playable character. XD

[BroomJockey]

Birdo from Super Mario Bros. 2 was a transvestite, there's downloadable content for GTA IV called "The Ballad of Gay Tony," and you could be a lesbian in Mass Effect. That's about the limit of my knowledge of anything "alternative" in video games. I think the problem is they're still felt to be very much a "child's" form of entertainment, so as both gay culture moves mainstream, and people stop thinking Murder-Death-Rally 5 is okay for little Timmy, we'll probably see more.

[smileyeagle1021]

I just remembered another game with gay characters, Fable has them... and supposedly so does KOTOR (I think)

[anriana]

Fall Out 3 has a nice lesbian couple who run a store.


I want to see games continue on with what Mass Effect did - you can play a male or female character and you can choose to flirt with/be sexual with male or female characters. That way everyone wins. People who want to be GLB characters can be, males who want to can have lesbian sex, and people who think it's icky don't have to do it and will still buy the game.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Sorry for being a spaz, but what does KOTOR stand for?

I always assumed that Vega was gay in Streetfighter 2 rather than Zangief. Guess I was wrong. I used to play as him a lot; it was hilarious to beat my brothers and their friends with him cuz like me, they thought he was the token gay character. XD

[lordlundar]

Sorry for being a spaz, but what does KOTOR stand for?

Knigts of the Old Republic, a Star Wars RPG style game by BioWare.

And it wasn't built in to be a gay character (the character will have a romance with an opposing gender key character as you play) but there is mods available which allow you to access the romance path you aren't supposed to usually.