Sure we've all had our fill of the RE5 racism merry-go-round, and all I really have to offer is that if a random person watches (not plays up to) a random point in the first four levels of RE5 I can see how they might find Arbitrary White Guy blowing away Arbitrary Black Population with Arbitrary Sweet Weapon a tad off-color.

Contextually we, the game-players know that all the people we blow away have been transformed against their wills and can never be saved. They're no different than a barrel full of anthrax. We know the story, we know what they're capable of and we know they are enemies. Blasting them to pieces in the absolute universe that is a video game is a nonissue to the player.

Viewers who see the game uninformed can, I would say understandably, come away with a different impression.

But whatever. Other people can take that torch and run. (and run and run...)

What I've found interesting as I've laid waste to an entire native (zombie) population in levels 3 and 4 is that when I'm playing the game I don't think about their skin color or even the fact that they are (were) human. They're just objects whose heads I'd like to make explode. Any way I can accomplish that will do. The goal is to make the music change back to calm music (which it does when you eliminate all the immediate threats). When I'm not playing I've thought about that population that I've laid to waste and thought "that's kind of fucked up."

You're a member of a small tribe in Africa. Dude comes to town, armed to the teeth. His motivations are unknown, but it's obvious he's going to steal all your treasures and go where he wants. Your buddy gets in his way and your buddy dies. Plagas or no, I see where all these tribesmen might be a tad upset with Chris Redfield. I wouldn't call Chris a racist for killing an entire tribe or two, but he is (i am) certainly an asshole and possibly psychotic.

So as Chris uncovers the obvious conspiracy to abuse the people of Africa to develop bio-weapons, the player runs a mini-parallel to the corruption going on. Chris, like the bad guys, has zero care for anything (other than Jill apparently) and will do whatever it takes to get what he wants/needs.

Getting into the thick of the racism argument's tricky and I don't have much interest in parsing it out, but I've been really pleased with how much Resident Evil 5 has made me think about my role as a player, the roles of the enemies and the general reality of games.