'You get caught up in what CJ is doing and you want to see what happens next.' 'Gamers see great characters, not color,' says Alex Kakoyiannis, managing partner from Navigame, a company that helps marketers reach video gamers.īesides, 'the story is compelling,' says Jeff Gerstmann, senior editor of the game review site. You also can kill police officers, bludgeon pedestrians and commit all the mayhem that drew howls from critics angered by 'Vice City.'ĭoes the fact that you are doing those things as a black man matter? 'Even though there's a lead black character, which is in some sense progress, that lead character is in a violent, urban environment, which is typical of non-lead characters in other games, engaging in gang activity, drug activity, running from police,' says Nina Huntemann, a Suffolk University assistant professor who studies race and gender in video games and other media.Īs CJ, you can stray from the path of the main story and play games-within-the-game, as in 2002's 'Grand Theft Auto: Vice City,' whose non-linear format drew raves from gamers and led it to become the all-time sales champ with 10 million units sold. 'San Andreas' is progress - with an asterisk. But black gamers like me certainly are aware of it, just as female gamers notice that most video game heroes are male. It also could open a wider discussion of race in video games.ĬJ's skin color is not something that most people will even think about. Predicted to be a top seller, 'San Andreas' could help cut through the notion that the white male gaming audience doesn't want to slip into the skin of a non-white character.

Last year's 'True Crime: Streets of L.A.' had an Asian male lead other titles have included minority athletes, police officers, good guys and bad guys, but no game this big has featured a black male as the central figure.

Like Hollywood, video games have few minority male dramatic leads. If you think he's black, you're right Rockstar Games, the makers of 'San Andreas,' takes the unusual step of making a video game with a black male as the lead character. In the new video game 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,' you can help CJ find his mother's killer, resurrect his neighborhood and revive his gang. Many of his gangbanging friends have been killed his former gang has become a laughingstock and his neighborhood is infested with crack cocaine. It's five years later: He learns that his mother has been killed, and he has to come home.ĬJ returns to a world he barely recognizes. In 1987, Carl Johnson fled West Coast gang life, moving to an East Coast metropolis to get a fresh start.

Gta san andreas c.j