- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Hmm, I never really believed the whole "racism running rampant" on Xbox Live, but of course that was before my boredom made me go back through my collection and grudgingly pull out Halo 2 the other night. Now that time has passed, I am of the opinion that 99% of people that play Halo 2 on Live must be in support of segregation.
Big Team Battle and Team Skirmish appear to be the worst affected. Because of my asian name on Live, it is assumed that I am of Asian decent, and most certainly must be living in Japan, or China, or Vietnam. Does this classification bother me? No. I don't really care. What irritates me is when I'm referred to as a "-blam!-" or "Nip", and other wondrous names that the lowest of the low-brow can come up with as they speak.
In one particular game of Assault, after I planted the bomb for my team, during the subsequent round, two of the opposing players informed me that the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were only baby steps, and the entirety of Japan should have been decimated.
I myself am Caucasian, and in no way have any Asian ancestors to the best of my knowledge. Still, this manner of behavior aggrivates me to no end. What is it about the anonymity of Xbox Live that makes people think that it gives them the right to say such idiotic things. I can give pretty good odds that in face-to-face conversations these people wouldn't have the 'balls' to say these things, mostly because it would result in them having to get their teeth surgically removed from their throat after the person finds out racist slurs are a sure-fire way to get an ass-kicking.
Anyways, I devised a method that seemed to at least aggrivate them in return. Inbetween rounds, I was flipping around in my music collection on my laptop, when I came across on old Anime Drama CD file I had a long time ago. For the uninformed, Drama CD's are basically a CD that has voice actors for a particular Anime series doing their lines for an episode. They're fun to listen to when your at work and bored.
So, this particular file has a certain Japanese actress who has the most annoyingly "cute" voice ever. She had a particular line that I knew would send shivers down even the most hardened of people's spines. When the match started in Halo 2, and I found that once again I was being coupled with some more "online racists", I quickly informed my teammates to mute me on their lists, and then removed my headset, laying it down by my laptop's speakers.
I searched for, and found, the particular section with this line, cropped it out and then set it on permanent repeat. Thus the opposing team was given an entire few game filled with,
"Abunai! Abunai! Abunai! Abunai!"
This had the dual effect of giving them an earful of stupid garbage, and also since I no longer had my headset on I was free from whatever retorts they were firing back at me.
Unfortunately I myself could only endure that line in the background for a couple more rounds before giving up and heading out.
Basically I've come to the conclusion that while voice networking in online games is a real life-saver at times, it's definitely also a curse.
From now on I'm going to stay away from the big online modes, and simply play the single player modes, and the other online modes where I'm only talking with one other person of my choosing. Like Splinter Cell co-op, or the upcoming Perfect Dark co-op.
Well, at least now I know I made the right decision to stop playing Halo 2 and other Xbox Live games way back at the start of the year. Saved me from having to endure so many examples of the human race's eventual downward spiral into anarchy and destruction.
Edit:
Now I'm wondering how my sister puts up with it. She's not only got the Asian GamerTag, but she's also a girl. That's gotta be a deadly combination.
[Edited on 11/4/2005]