For the record, I am not easily offended. If someone tells a crude joke or does something that other people may find offensive, I usually just laugh or shrug it off. Life is too short to be offended by everything, right?
But sometimes, there is a rare case when something just rubs me the wrong way. I don’t usually know exactlywhyit rubs me the wrong way, but every once and a while I find myself being a little offended by something that I usually wouldn’t even think twice about.
Up until now, this has never happened in a videogame. But just recently, as I was replaying classic adventure gameSpace Quest IV, something strange happened.
Something in the game actually offended me.
For anyone that is not familiar with the series, theSpace Questgames are an incredible series of graphic adventure games released in the ‘80s and ‘90s by legendary developer Sierra. The games follow the wacky adventures of main character Roger Wilco as he travels around space, visiting numerous planets and meeting interesting (and rather amusing) characters.
The series is known for its off-beat sense of humor and surprisingly solid adventure gaming.
InSpace Quest IV, Roger Wilco actually travels through time, which adds a whole new layer to the clever storytelling and gameplay. At one point in the game, Roger is walking through an intergalactic mall and must use a found card to take out some money from an ATM. The card once belonged to a woman, and, unfortunately, the ATM uses a face-recognition security system.
Roger needs a disguise.
The disguise he decides to buy is a woman’s dress, complete with high heel shoes and a blonde wig.
When he goes to the counter to purchase his new outfit, the robotic clerk looks him up and down, and, in a completely condescending tone, says:
“That’ll be 60 buckazoids, sicko.”
And, if you choose not to pay:
“Stop wasting my time. You sickos are all the same. Now, pay up.”
Sicko.
That word is what rubbed me the wrong way.
Why would Roger Wilco be a “sicko”? He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He wasn’t spying on people trying on clothes in the dressing rooms. He wasn’t saying creepy things about some of the products in the store.
He was just buying a woman’s outfit.
Sure, Roger is a man, and a man buying and wearing a woman’s outfit may not be something the clerk sees every day … but that doesn’t make him asicko. That doesn’t make him a sicko by any means. If anything, that makes him interesting and rather awesome.
The seemingly harmless joke was obviously supposed to be “OMG! LOOK! A MAN WANTS TO DRESS LIKE A WOMAN! THAT IS SO WEIRD!” I get it. And that is a joke that maybe could have worked with some clever writing.
Butsicko? That specific choice of wordreallyseemed uncalled for, and, frankly, a little offensive.
I could easily go into a diatribe about whether the writers ofSpace Quest IVare homophobic and wanted to insert their views into a “joke” at one point in the game.
But I am not going to do that.
Not only would that be unfair, it isn’t even how I feel.
I am such a fan of theSpace Questgames and an admirer of its creators (Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy) that I really don’t believe the “sicko” reference was anything other than a bad joke falling flat.
But the worddidmake me react enough to write this, so I guess that says …something.
Debating the meaning of all this is not the point of this article, though. I am not here to argue whether my reaction to this is right, wrong, or completely overdramatic (my guess is a little of all three). I wrote this because I am genuinely curious if this has happened to anyone else.
Have you ever been offended by something in a videogame? Has there ever been a joke, a character, or a throwaway reference that just rubbed you the wrong way?
