the United States will inaugurate its first black president, Barack Obama. In honor of this watershed moment in American history, I thought we should pay tribute to another African-American trailblazer: the first black video game character. After exhaustive research, I believe I’ve found him.

Thirty years ago (1979), the first obviously black video game character appeared in Basketball, programmed by Alan Miller for the Atari 800 home computer. That same year, a black basketball player also appeared in Atari Basketball in the arcade. Which came first is, at present, uncertain, but the 800 version had a distinguishing characteristic: it was in color. Interestingly, the arcade game only rendered its graphics in black and white, so the Atari 800’s black basketball star — let’s call him John Q. Basketball — broke the color barrier in more ways than one." [source]



Now, essentially, the character in question is more or less a small mass of brown pixels. Also, we could celebrate the entry of the first purple video game character.. whatever demographic that is supposed to represent. There is another article over at Microscopiq that discusses some characters in length, listing such characters as Akuji the Heartless (a mighty voodoo priest and warrior....?) and Michael Jackson from Moonwalker. There are some redeeming characters, like Jade from the classic Beyond Good and Evil, and well... that's it, not counting Shaq from his own game, and I use that loosely, 'Shaq Fu' and even Michael Jordan's own videogame Chaos in the Windy City.

I wonder why these are they examples for Black leading characters. I mean sure, Fiddy's got a game where he fights terrorists to obtain his coveted jewelry, or a crystal skull, or whatever.. but come on... Honestly... Why are these the examples that we have? In most cases, because games with Black protagonists don't seem to be very often writen with that cultural background in mind. But what is the cultural background for a Black character in games these days? In games where you can create the aspects of your character, like for RPGs for example, the cultural significance is ignored for the sake of a general background related to the period or actions the protagonists may have taken before the onset of the game's beginning. Is it important for these cultural ideas to be addressed? Or is the everyman or everywoman more important? I'm not sure. I do know that given the option of creating my own character is far more appealing because I can control some aspect of the narrative. I'm made Black Jedi's pre-Sam Jackson's Mace Windu, and I've wielded swords and spells like an ebony Merlin in the World of Warcraft.

I guess I just wonder when it isn't an everyman, or that I have to construct something to make me identify with a character that is not so much the loud sidekick that yells random ish for no reason while he sacrifices himself with a grenade in one hand and cigar in the other, meanwhile, the main characters run off to save the day and 'never forget the sacrifce of Sgt. Jerome 'Pain and Maim Train' Joseph Jenkins'.

I hope people don't think I'm all militant and what not. I mean, the same point could be made for anybody - Asian, Hispanic, Black, wtf-ever. I just don't like getting sidekicks that sound like they stepped off Soul Plane onto the battlefield to face the Locust horde.