For better or for worse, the gaming industry has changed over the past couple of years. There are a couple of video game characters that seemed fine back in the day but would be too controversial if they were introduced today. Here we are going to look into some of those characters.
Cortana – Halo Franchise
Cortana is an iconic character from the Halo franchise. She is even the digital assistant for Windows 10. Back in the day, she was pretty much naked and that was fine at the time. The reason that Bungie provided made little sense but people did not think much of it back then. If Cortana was naked in a newer Halo game then that would be very controversial indeed.
It is worth mentioning that when Cortana went rogue in Halo 5, 343 Industries, the new developer that worked on the game, put some clothes on Cortana.
Dhalsim – Street Fighter
Dhalsim is a thin Indian fighter that is able to stretch his limbs due to his mastery of yoga. He can even breathe fire. While you can get yoga lessons pretty much anywhere, he is still a collection of ethnic exaggeration. If he was introduced today, he would be seen differently.
Duke Nukem
If you are a 90s kid then you might have played Duke Nukem Forever. You might remember it as a great game due to nostalgia but if you played it today, you might not find it all that interesting. Duke Nukem is a macho alpha male character and he is saving a bunch of pretty girls.
Lo Wang – Shadow Warrior
Lo Wang is like the Asian version of Duke but much worse. Even his name is a racist pun. The game is sexualized and there are plenty of jokes about the male form, so to speak. The game was remade in 2013 and even though the voice acting of Lo Wang was done by a white guy, it was much better and toned down as compared to the original.
Princess Peach – Super Princess Peach
In Super Princess Peach, Princess Peach goes to save Mario, rather than the other way around. She can run, jump and climb. She can also change her emotional state at will. Which is rather interesting. Doing so changes the physical properties of the world around her. The game implies that she is PMSing. While the game never states that, it is clearly implied. I do not think that this would bode well with players in 2019.
Let us know what you think about these controversial characters and which one you think is the worst of them all.
