1527 réponses à ce sujet

[Madi]

The big elephant in the room here that no one wants to talk about is the fact that Jacob is black. Now before you start getting ultra defensive and start accusing me of reverse racism I’d like to point out that I’m biracial and have no racial biases of any kind.  Secondly I’m not saying the reason that Jacob  is such a  massively unpopular is because the people who don’t like Jacob are inherently racist. However that doesn’t mean that the fact that Jacob is black isn’t a factor. In fact I would say it’s a significant factor.

I think it’s probably largely subconscious. Jacob is a relatively basic character with nothing incredibly interesting about him although still a much more solid, well rounded character than you’ll find in most games. The issue is I think that most white gamers just find it difficult to relate to black characters. I think that’s one of the main reasons why black characters are so rare in video games and actual black protagonists are nearly nonexistent in video games.Especially non- stereotypical characters (i.e. C.J. from GTA)  Can you honestly tell me that if Jacob was a suave white guy he’d be this unpopular? Just look at Kaden who Jacob is commonly compared to.  Most people seem to agree that he isn’t much more if at all more interesting a character than Jacob yet he’s still infinitely more popular than Jacob. Once again that doesn’t mean that you’re a racist but I just think it clearly shows that race plays a factor in a lot of things, whether subconscious or otherwise. Although I think the fact that he bears a strong resemblance to Kanye West didn’t really help either. I don’t really get why his look was changed so dramatically from Mass Effect Galaxy. It’s like he’s a completely different person.

http://masseffect.bi.../market/galaxy/

Modifié par Madi, 12 avril 2010 - 07:30 .

[Onyx Jaguar]

Jacob is the most popular character right now

Heavy risk...

EDIT:  On all seriousness a lot of people find him fine its just that many do not find him interesting enough as the other characters, and that for Female players his encounters and romance are off putting.  I don't think race is  an issue.  Kaiden is not a white guy for example.

Modifié par Onyx Jaguar, 12 avril 2010 - 07:21 .

[Collider]

Can you honestly tell me that if Jacob was a

suave white guy he’d be this unpopular?

Uh, Jacob isn't sauve so that's not a fair comparison. That's like asking if an interesting white person would be better received than a boring black guy. Of course, the former is interesting, the latter is boring. It has nothing to do with race. he just does not stand out in ME2 crew. I actually like Jacob, but a lot of his romance is rightfully criticized.

[Azint]

I like Jacob, I think he is a very nice and honest man. I just like the other characters much more, and after hearing much about his romance...

I am not sure I would like to pursue that.

[ILALQ]

Madi wrote...
Jacob is a relatively basic
character with nothing incredibly interesting about him..."

You said it right there. Honestly, he could have been one of the best characters in the game had be been fleshed out more. The ball got dropped on Jacob - multiple times. He's boring (for the most part), has a TERRIBLE romance, and no reason to interact with him is ever really given. It also doesn't help that my femshep seems like she wants to jump him every time she says a word to him.  He has potential though, and hopefully he won't be so flat if he returns in ME3.

Modifié par ILALQ, 12 avril 2010 - 07:30 .

[Daralii]

He's a decent enough person, just bland and poorly written. As someone here once said, every character should have a hook, for Jacob, it's that he's nice. That's it. While you could mention his history as a Corsair and saving the Council, we don't learn any more about those beyond that they happened.

Modifié par Daralii, 12 avril 2010 - 07:29 .

[Lemonwizard]

Jacob has a bland background, a loyalty mission showcasing such character development as "being morally outraged at something which is an obvious moral outrage", the absolute worst romance dialogue in any game I've ever played, and is also in the middle of a game which is bursting at the seams with really cool and interesting characters.





Why would he NOT be the least popular?

[Nu-Nu]

You'll find he is a good drinking buddy, but he sucks as a Love interest, "the priiizzee"as he calls Shepard when he romances her is really disrespectful. He is the least romantic li out of them all and that is why I don't like him. You'll find the way he talks to femshepard is why most people dislike him.



And I like Captain Anderson and wish Jacob was more like him.



So you fail.

[Weiser_Cain]

Elephant in the room? No, criticism of Jacob inevitably drives off the cliff (with Geena Davis riding shotgun) into racism within like, two posts of the start of any given topic.And that's if, IF the topics isn't racist from the start.

[WarChicken78]

I'm quite sure, the skin color is one of the last things making Jacob unpopular.

The primary thing making him unpopular is for sure his cheesy and horrible LI-Dialog, but there are several more factors:

He's nothing special. While every other character is special in some way, he's not. He's just the average soldier dude.

His combat abilities are limited. He isn't a bad squaddie, and he's somewhat useful when there's lots of melee enemies around, but in most scenarios, he's not very useful due to the short range of his main weapon. If there are enemies with shields, he's completely useless, because both his weapons are only effective against armor.

I think those are the causes, he's unpopular, and not the coilor of his skin.

Modifié par WarChicken78, 12 avril 2010 - 07:39 .

[Bucky_McLachlan]

Oh shut up OP. Jacob is the Kaiden Alenko of ME2.

The only way that race factored into any of this is EA/Bioware's total misfire trying to attract as many demographics to their game as possible.

Modifié par Bucky_McLachlan, 12 avril 2010 - 08:55 .

[cos1ne]

I think the developers were too worried about offending people that they reverted to making Jacob the bland "Superman" character. In that he has no flaws and people can't relate to him. Also he really seems to turn femShep on with dem abs. So the only non-boring aspect of him is cheezy 70's pornstar.

[Daralii]

Bucky_McLachlan wrote...

Oh shut up OP. Jacob is the Kaiden Alenko of ME2.

The only factor way that race factored into any of this is EA/Bioware's total misfire trying to attract as many demographics to their game as possible.

Granted, Kaiden had something resembling a personality. Jacob only has cheesy dialog.


Also, the priiiiiize.

[FlammableSlinky]

- among the most bad ass crew in the universe he is an anoying boy scout even by paragon shepards standards. He is like a security guard among elite ops.

- he has dialog complaining about almost half the people you pickup along the way

- I find the most interesting thing about him is the thing he had with Meranda. I bet she got board of his whining.

- I didnt like Kadian in the first game as well, the plain human among kickass aliens.



It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with writing and character.

[Speakeasy13]

I disagree. In fact, I think Jacob would be even more unpopular if he were white. Jacob is different than Alenko, in the sense that Alenko is more of a ladies man, he's a sensitive soul, and ladies can relate to him. Even macho guys who hate him as a result cannot argue that Alenko is a distinct personality. He's any thing BUT basic. And he fills his niche quite nicely. I don't think black people should be offended because we like Jacob the least; you should be offended because Bioware decided to create such a character that is so stereotypically black as seen from white people's perspective.

Jacob, on the other hand, only has ONE thing as a differentiator: that he's black. And that ethnic card actually works to his favor. If a white guy acts the same way he does, he'd just come across a chauvinistic white trash (and many of us do feel that way about Ashley). But since he's black, we're more inclined to forgive him of not being suave and diplomatic at times.

PS: just so you know, I'm Asian and live in Hong Kong. I'm not neccessarily against cheesy stereotypes as long as they're tastefully done (look at Kasumi), but Jacob is just... I'd feel sorry for all the black people out there but at least they have Anderson.

Modifié par Speakeasy13, 12 avril 2010 - 07:57 .

[hakeroid]

Nu-Nu wrote...

You'll find he is a good drinking buddy, but he sucks as a Love interest, "the priiizzee"as he calls Shepard when he romances her is really disrespectful. He is the least romantic li out of them all and that is why I don't like him. You'll find the way he talks to femshepard is why most people dislike him.

And I like Captain Anderson and wish Jacob was more like him.

So you fail.

exactly my thoughts. my femshep is not anyones 'priiiize',
besides even earlier in game he tells he isn't good enough for Miranda, that she needs someone better than him...
excuse me - what makes him think that he's good enough for my Shepard?!
other characters are just better written and... more respectfull for femsheps.
but that 's just my opinion, no need to spread it around....

Modifié par hakeroid, 12 avril 2010 - 07:57 .

[Mehow_pwn]

Well... we could say his not any speasial.... I loved his random quotes while useing biotics such as "Gravity is a mean motherhumper/****er"

But otherwise I also hate the kaido from mass effect 1

Modifié par Mehow_pwn, 12 avril 2010 - 07:57 .

[tanarri23]

I like Jacob, he's a bit like Ashley of ME2 and he's my Shepard's bud.

But I admit, getting to that cool "spilling some drinks on the Citadel if we survive" friendship part was not easy. It's not because he's black. It's because I usually play femShep and her interaction with Jacob feels like borderline sexual harassment. Her predatory behaviour starts the moment they're on the Normandy, way too early for her to get to know Jacob as anything more than a Cerberus agent and/or an obviously hot piece of ass, she does it regardless of what the player actually wants or doesn't want to do with Jacob, and for the bigger part of the game Jacob seems quite uncomfortable with it.

Modifié par tanarri23, 12 avril 2010 - 08:00 .

[Nu-Nu]

hakeroid wrote...

Nu-Nu wrote...

You'll find he is a good drinking buddy, but he sucks as a Love interest, "the priiizzee"as he calls Shepard when he romances her is really disrespectful. He is the least romantic li out of them all and that is why I don't like him. You'll find the way he talks to femshepard is why most people dislike him.

And I like Captain Anderson and wish Jacob was more like him.

So you fail.

exactly my thoughts. my femshep is not anyones 'priiiize',
besides even earlier in game he tells he isn't good enough for Miranda, that she needs someone better than him...
excuse me - what makes him think that he's good enough for my Shepard?!
other characters are just better written and... more respectfull for femsheps.
but that 's just my opinion, no need to spread it around....

Yeah, the whole I'm not good enough for miranda but do you want to get it on thing is horrible. Makes femshepard feel like trash.

[Sesshomaru47]

tanarri23 wrote...

I like Jacob, he's a bit like Ashley of ME2 and he's my Shepard's bud.

But I admit, getting to that cool "spilling some drinks on the Citadel if we survive" friendship part was not easy. It's not because he's black. It's because I usually play femShep and her interaction with Jacob feels like borderline sexual harassment. Her predatory behaviour starts the moment they're on the Normandy, way too early for her to get to know Jacob as anything more than a Cerberus agent and/or an obviously hot piece of ass, she does it regardless of what the player actually wants or doesn't want to do with Jacob, and for the bigger part of the game Jacob seems quite uncomfortable with it.

He's a standoffish kind of guy regardless of gender. However the reasons you list are why I don't like him. What is she doing cracking onto him when I haven't even said she can? That really bugs me, hence I don't like him. His whole romance is cheesy too. I've read better Mills & Boon.
But if you are John Shepard he's an ok guy, even if he does act like there's a stick up his backside. All of this has nothing to do with colour.

[Dougdh]

Jacob's a good buddy. That is all.

[Zulu_DFA]

Jacob's black-ness was over-emphasized. It was like his every dialogue line started with: "Look, I'm black, and..." Was it BioWare's part in Affirmative Action program? If so, it was a bad idea.

Take Anderson: he is black, and everyone knows his VO is black. So everyone gets the message, even if it's not there. But it is not stamped on Anderson's forehead. It's just so and that's it.

Personally, the most annoyong thing about Jacob for me was his skin-tight fashion show outfit, but it's a general problem with most of ME2 characters.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 12 avril 2010 - 08:45 .

[Onyx Jaguar]

Yeah I always took great issue with Jacob's whole "space it" comment. I mean we worked that hard to get that **** on the ship and he wants to space it? Moron.

[Shelondias]

Skin color, seriously?

Jacob was a cool guy and I liked him-but he's still not high on the list of favorite supporting characters.

Samesh Bhatia had a more compelling presentation