Serious Spoiler Warning for Enchanted Arms and Indigo Prophecy, slight one for MGS2 and Fear Effect 2 I'm afraid.

When I consider what games I wish to buy, I go online and look at certain sites like gamespot for their reviews, over time I have found a set of sites I trust more then others. I have learnt that discussions in forums are worth finding, from there I would have discovered GTA4 was not like the Second Coming amd, thanks to the many posters who backed the game, I was persuaded to try Enchanted Arms. So I ordered it and while waiting for it to arrive, I looked for other reliable game sites to add to my list for checking reviews for games I want. It was during this search that I came across one or two reviews accusing Enchanted Arms of being homophobic or negative stereotyping of gays which surprised me. Was this something the others had missed or an overreaction to certain things within the game? With the need to be seen as PC, overreaction was possible but something that might cause outrage if involving a Black character could slip by if it involved a gay person instead.

Having already paid for the game anyway and with so few complaints, I decided to play it and see. I would turn it off if it did get homophobic, write something blasting Ubisoft and the game itself then feel sad about the world if it was true. Within five seconds, I had a good guess at what the accusations were based on, a character by the name of Makoto who it quickly emerges is indeed gay Now even if he was straight and seen kissing five separate ladies during the game, some would consider him gay anyway due to way he was dressed, talked and seemingly wore makeup. It is a sadly regular occurrence in certain Dynasty Warrior sites that once in awhile, somebody will complain koei made Zhang He gay despite the fact koei's Zhang He shows no romantic interest in any man, simply because Zhang He dresses and acts flamboyantly. I don't know why dressing and acting in such a way makes one gay but it has become something of an image some people stick to. I don't think Makoto's love of cooking, his catty personality or his bright clothing would have helped stop people deciding he was gay even if he had been straight.

It certainly didn't help Ubisoft when Makoto's efforts to win his love interest early on come across as immature, a little creepy and slightly fanboyish. Yet speak to the other students, mostly female, who fancy the same man and they are exactly the same, so if anyone should be insulted by the handling of love at that early point, it is University students. As for the stereotype, quite simply every main or side character is based on a stereotype, the strong vigilant warrior, the fiery girl, the moron of a main character, the pampered ruler and so on, I can think of possibly two characters that are not stereotypes. While the game does superbly to make most of them interesting, Makoto is only one of a stereotype, he is also an entertaining character who helps liven up the tutorial and could be quite funny, few could deny his bravery when it mattered.

There were one or two moments far later on when Raigar, the stoic knight of the group, is teased as being gay due to his not being seen eyeing up the ladies. At the end of it they always reassure Raigar that if was gay they would accept it which could be read as someone who knows they said something wrong and then gone "some of my friends are..." or "only kidding". However given there is a huge moral message running through the game, this does seem to be a misconceived attempt to deliver a "we should all accept homosexuals" message then any desperate covering up of something horrible.

Were the reviewers wrong? I think they were slightly overcautious but I admire them for warning it's readers about such a possibility, one of the sites I now often read their reviews as I know they will warn of any such issues. Said site was also one of the few I found to discuss the fascism allegations in their review for Resident Evil 5 and whether said allegations were fair or not. I understand why reviewers, when they decide it isn't racist in the final play-through don't bring back such controversy, Capcom may well be happier for allegations to be forgotten rather forcibly disproved.

Ubisoft did leave themselves open to accusations with their handling of Makoto and to an extent, the jokes about Raigar yet I would rather praise them for at least trying. They went for a gay character, made him entertaining and a fairly important part of the story, he wasn't a token homosexual to fill a quota, they also tried to make a positive message about homosexuality. Yes it would be nice to see a non flamboyant gay character I suppose, so it wouldn't be accused of stereotype, Tommy in Indigo Prophecy comes to mind, but at least Ubisoft did something. Aside from Tommy and Makoto, how many non straight characters can anyone think of? The bisexual Vamp on MGS2 which is more a passing reference then a plot twist and according to gamespot's excellent Great Loves feature awhile back, Fear Effect 2's Hana and Rain. A quick search for gay game characters tended to provide me with "possibly gay ones like Tidus of Final Fantsy X (no, I don't get out one either) or Voldo of Soul Caliber which is rather sad indictment of what some people count as gay In RPG's I have played, I have never had a chance to kiss or date one of my character own gender which seems an odd, surely games about creating your own characters should allow for a character to be anything other then straight?

I'm not going to sit here and demand game companies include more homosexuals or bisexuals, the writers should be allowed freedom and to write what they are comfortable with. Forcing a character the writers don't want or forcing a token character isn't helpful to the game, I would rather they became more comfortable with writing in homosexual relations and indeed wanted to because they felt could make something great out of it. It may take awhile before new writers coming in willing and able to write about different kinds of relationships. Even then, companies will have an eye on the games selling, which will require gamers to be accepting and comfortable with playing a main character who happens to be gap. In England things are more accepting then they were, at least openly, but still you can here homophobic chants at football grounds (and no football player in England has claimed to be gay for some time), while anti gay jokes still are allowed when racist or xenophobic ones would be banned, there is certainly work to be done. There is also visible minority online who have issues with those different then themselves, it isn't just Zhang He whose sexuality has been questioned, anyone odd like Voldo or unpopular (Tidus, Raiden) will end up being called gay if I was considering making a gay game, I would be rather concerned by all this. Hopefully time will heal most of those issues and our children won't be reading discussions about lack of black or gay characters but I just wish to say well done to those who have taken the plunge and made characters who will upset the bigots.