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_of_Rage_3#Regional_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". :p

[smileyeagle1021]

i kinda wish they had left Ash in... personally, I'd like to be able to beat the crap out of him myself :p
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 :p )
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. :o 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.

[Arcade Man D]

(and read fanfic for the same :p )

If you read the fanfic, all male characters in all media are gay. :P





Anyway, The Sims 3 allows gay/lesbian marriage, as well as straight, and allows them to adopt children (obviously no chance to have a baby through same-sex relations).

[anriana]

Anyway, The Sims 3 allows gay/lesbian marriage, as well as straight, and allows them to adopt children (obviously no chance to have a baby through same-sex relations).


In Sims 2 you could use bool prop for same-sex babies, but not in 3.

[Lace Neil Singer]

You wait; one day the Sims will allow mpreg. XD

[Arcade Man D]

You wait; one day the Sims will allow mpreg. XD

You are a thoroughly strange person. I blame all the fanfics. :P

[anriana]

You wait; one day the Sims will allow mpreg. XD

Not sure if this is a serious post, but Sims 2 did allow mpreg with alien abductions. In fact, one of the Maxis male characters starts out pregnant and with a telescope rigged for another pregnancy inducing abduction.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Correction; I was strange long before the internet became available. :D

[violetyoshi]

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.

You mean like this in regards to Pokemon?

"Onigiri has been called numerous things when 4Kids had the rights to the show, including donuts, eclairs, popcorn balls, sandwiches (which was painted over during the Advanced Battle-era episodes), and suprisingly, in one Kanto-era episode, rice balls." - tvtropes.com

[Lace Neil Singer]

I'd add Silver the Hedgehog to the list of gay video game characters but... well, can't think of a reason. That character always seemed uber gay to me for some reason. XD

[Flyndaran]

Flaming is not gay. While many gays are naturally or intentionally flaming, many straights are just as flamboyant girlfriend.
My girlfriend call's me the most gay straight man she has ever met, outside of one guy in highschool. He used the line, "I've never felt this way about a girl before." to get assloads of ass. :)

[joe hx]

He used the line, "I've never felt this way about a girl before." to get assloads of ass.

wasn't there a song that went something like "i wish i was gay so i could get chicks"?

and after some research: it was the bloodhound gang

[Flyndaran]

wasn't there a song that went something like "i wish i was gay so i could get chicks"?

and after some research: it was the bloodhound gang

I'm sure it only works on the dumb ones. But as we all know, dumb abounds.

[BroomJockey]

I'm sure it only works on the dumb ones.

In the song, he IS talking about using it on super models :D

[Arcade Man D]

You wait; one day the Sims will allow mpreg. XD

Actually, there is now a mod for it (on modthesims2.com) that allows m/m and f/f couples to "try for baby", instead of just WooHooing.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Ha. I knew it. XD

[MystyGlyttyr]

My Jeff Hardy Sim has had like 20 babies... :o

[Lace Neil Singer]

By different people? Slut. XD

[violetyoshi]

My Jeff Hardy Sim has had like 20 babies... :o

Reminds me of when I would raise Chaos in Sonic Adventure. You'd get 20 Chaos and they'd all want your attention at the same time! It was so difficult too, cause they all were so cute, they do like this little dance where they raise their arms up like "Pick me up!"

Well, I had no idea really what they were saying, cause they left the Chao's dialogue in Japanese, which was kind of interesting. Particularly when you go to the Chao kindergarten in Sonic Adventure 2, and the Chaos are all singing a Japanese children's song.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Am I the only person who got irritated by those damn Chaos? XD

Offtopic slightly, but I once had an irate Silver fangirl have a go at me cuz I was slagging Silver off (one of my fave pasttimes, don't you know) and accusing me of hating every single new character in the Sonic universe. Not true at all. XD I just don't like him. And I think he looks like a fairy.

Anyway, I have some great flash movies about Sonic you might like; they're just comedy parodies, but they are funny and if you want them, I can PM you the links.

[Hyena Dandy]

nd 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.

As part of the mentioned "et al"

I wouldn't be offended at all. So there's a stereotypical gay guy. Doesn't mean that the game is saying all gay people are like that.

[Lace Neil Singer]

He could be unlocked as a playable character, too; and was actually quite deadly what with the bitch slap, according to my friend. Only problem with him was that you couldn't use his throw in levels with holes in the floor, cuz he stepped back to throw, and you could end up falling down one.

[Stormraven]

To the OP, Jade Empire provided same-sex relationship arcs for both male and female - though the NPCs in question were both Bi.

There's an old game, called 'FEAR Effect', I think. The main character is a lesbian in a relationship.

I found this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay,_lesbian,_bisexual,_and_transgender_characters _in_video_and_computer_games)article on Wikipedia.

[gremcint]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_(Final_Fight)

Originally conceived as a female thug in Final Fight and part of the game's anatagonist group, Mad Gear, concerns about reactions from North American audiences to fighting women resulted in the character being changed to a newhalf.

you also get to kill a feminazi lesbian in jagged alliance 2.

ultima 7 lets you be gay.

and then there's starfox of course:
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=223
this may frighten some younger viewers.

[gunsage]

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.

Yeah, God Hand. :p In all seriousness, though, I don't know of too many good gay characters in videogames in that they're not utterly stereotypical. About the only good one I can think of is Trevor from Phantasmagoria 2 and even then, he's still fairly typical.

[Flyndaran]

I still say that there are far more gay video game characters than left-handed ones.

[gremcint]

I still say that there are far more gay video game characters than left-handed ones.

Link from Zelda (except in twilight princess).
Ultima Underworld: your choice.


Here's the thing, there are tons of characters in games that never have any romance at all, any number of them could be gay and we just don't know because there is no giant neon sign, what the issue is is the number of characters confirmed to be gay end up being a stereotype rather than a regular person.

[DesignFox]

Link from Zelda (except in twilight princess).
<snip>.

*nitpick* Actually, if you play Twilight Princess on the Gamecube he is lefthanded as per tradition. It is only on the Wii that he is right handed to support the whole action thing (with most people being right handed and all).

:D

I now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion.

[gremcint]

*nitpick* Actually, if you play Twilight Princess on the Gamecube he is lefthanded as per tradition. It is only on the Wii that he is right handed to support the whole action thing (with most people being right handed and all).

:D

I now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion.

Actually the really funny thing is, rather than redo the character programming or whatever they flipped the entire game on a mirror image. Whatever was to the left before is now to the right and so on.

[Skunkle]

I find this new Streets of Rage character (per the clip) outrageously cliche, what with his weak-kneed stance, effeminate mannerisms, his "Tom of Finland" looks and clothing/hat, and his flamboyant colors. I don't find him offensive, just bizarre.