Trailer: Resident Evil 5 - The Horror, The Horror

bit slow on this one guys its been on capcoms and most other sites since saturday evening.

but this is my most wanted game of next year or well any year.

Yeah, but lacking in our biting commentary...

Cheers

Tim

Damn!

Tim does make a good point.

Too bad, no Wii-pointer aiming :(, that really made playing RE4Wii such a pleasure. Analog aiming will feel like a huge step backwards if you played RE4Wii.

I think this is a lot more controversial than the setting itself.

'The Dark Continent'

Is that the right word to use?

It doesn't matter how you word it.

If you call it the Light Contenant, what does that mean....that it has a lot of sunshine?

No point it mulling over this, and no, there is no racist intentions on Capcom's part.

As for the game, just by watching the video I know I'm gonna love playing it.

Well, firstly it's a phrase. Secondly, yup it's an accepted way to describe that contintnet. Thirdly, the phrase refers to "A former name for Africa, so used because its hinterland was largely unknown and therefore mysterious to Europeans until the 19th century. Henry M. Stanley was probably the first to use the term in his 1878 account Through the Dark Continent."

There's also a more recent reference in The Economist that you might like to check out.

I question the 'former' in the definition as it can still be used - in the same way as part of the United Kingdom is still referred to as 'The Black Country': "The Black Country gained its name in the mid nineteenth century due to the smoke from the many thousands of ironworking foundries and forges plus also the working of the shallow and 30ft thick coal seams".

At worst we could be accused of being a little archaic, but that's about as far as it goes.

Hope that helps

Cheers

Tim

Er, look lads. I think this site's great. I also respect a lot of your editorial decisions, but I think you can probably see why using a phrase such as the Dark Continent, which originated in the 1800's, should probably stay there - even though I have no doubt you didn't mean it in any offensive way.

Africa is no longer unmapped, and so it therefore has no relevance in modern language. The word 'negro' is rooted in the colour black, but I bet you wouldn't be willing to use that anywhere in your copy, and I don't think that other such phrases are any more acceptable, even if they're not as commonly used.

Just my two cents, it's you lot I'm thinking of.

Africa's history is still unmapped...Hell, being the craddle of humanity, it is the continent we know the least about in terms of historical knowledge. So it still can be called the Dark Continent in the unmapped context, but then in a historiographical sense.

I noticed you cannot call a person from Africa being African they hate that and refer to themselves being from a particular place in Africa weird.

Eh? 'They' hate it? What, all of them? Every single one? That's the kind of inane generalisation that is the/my definition of bigoted.

Tim

Hi schnide, thanks for the reasoned and reasonable approach on this one. As the wettest small 'l' liberal in the office (I've even been beaten up while protesting a National Front march) I seriously can't see why the phrase 'Dark Continent' is offensive unless the offence is looked for.

I'd also refer to the BBC's report on the new Paddington Bear book in which the bear "and his status as an immigrant from Darkest Peru" are discussed.

I then refer to the fact that Australia is called "Down Under" when it's neither - and it a Northern Hemisphercentric view.

I'm not being disingenuous here - I can be a right royal politically correct old farty (having asked a colleague not to use the phrase 'spaz out' around me just today for example - and see my response to the 'SS4's 'Africans are weird' post in this thread) - but I don't see it.

I imagine that what people might find offensive about the use of 'Dark Continent' is that it could possibly be seen as saying, "People of a darker skin colour than some other people inhabit that continent' - and that makes it bad. I think you've really got to reach for that one though.

It worries when there is an attempt to see 'isms' in every nook and cranny of language as this can lead people who wouldn't usually be hurt or offended then thinking that they should be.

Anyway, I'm happy to take a straw poll on the use of 'Dark Continent'... votes please.

Cheers

Tim

Aye.

Its bloody poetic language, innit? Romantic and whatnot...most of the people who are gonna be bothered by this are non-African busybodies.

Reminds me of the `The Simpson Movie`

Quimby "Go to Black Alert"

Lenny " Black alert!, Black is the worst colour (color) ever, Oh no offense Carl"

Carl " Its OK im used to it"

Kind of roundabout way, but the fact Dark-ness and Black is since the dawn of time what we have been told to fear and is evil, its a real shame that this is going to happen i fear that any person of a darker skin will have their attention drawn to this game though as already mentioned people who a more likely of a lighter skin colour pointing this out, also reminds me of the Southpark episode.

Token "you just dont get it!"

We should all accept that, that yes `we just dont get it` and leave it be, i feel those who ever raises this subject on negative grounds is the one who doth protest too much, the one who doesnt get it but belives they are doing the right thing by pointing out something that shouldnt be pointed out, racism shouldnt exsist now if we all accept we just dont get it!



...god i watch too much crap!