An XBOX Live friend told me about Brink. So I casually checked it out only to be heaved into a world of excitement. Not because it looks like a rapid fire action shooter with magnificent gameplay and excellently designed fighting environments (and even a story to contextualize the all-out violence), No.
I was excited because there's a Jamaican (Rastafarian to be specific) character! Braap! Braap! (that's Jamaican for 'Hurrah!'). The screenshot below shows the Shotta (that's Jamaican for 'gunman'), complete with dreadlocks and colour appropriate Rasta bandana, and what looks like a Reggae Boyz jersey (that's Jamaica's national football team).
But it gets even better. The part that got me jumping up and down in the impressive cinematic trailer, is when the Shotta fires off a rocket and you see scrawled on the shell casing, 'Jah lick them with thunder'. An oft used invocation by the Afrocentric Yardie (that's Jamaican for...'Jamaican') in reference to hated enemies. Now it's in standard English, for the non-Jamaicans, but I appreciate the effort and attention brought to Jamaican culture. More accurately it would read 'Jah lick dem wid tunda'.
This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but finally our penchant for violence is making it to the big times!
The obvious questions are; were there any Jamaicans directly involved in the project? What sparked the choice of character/s? And how can we take this fortuitous occurrence and learn from it? Truth be told, marketing a country can occur in a great many ways what with the multiplicity of portals from console games, mini-games, smart phone apps and even audio books. Whether unwittingly or not Jamaica's 'appearance' in this game does two things: 1. It brings attention to the Island 2. Develops an albeit indirect sense of pride in the locals. Of course the marketing need not be violence laden, but as they say, any publicity is good publicity - or can be spun thus.
Now in the end, the inclusion of this Jamaican character in the trailer seems to be a creative choice. The characters are highly customisable, so I don't know how the Jamaicaness figures into the game itself. But one can find the 'Dreadlocks' on the Brink homepage under the Archetype tab labelled 'The Warrior'. He has an uncanny resemblance to Reggae singer Junior Kelly, sans beard. Judge for yourself.
One might remember the spike in tourism New Zealand experienced as a spin-off of the amazing vistas featured in the Peter Jackson directed Ring trilogy. Then there was the paltry and thinly veiled extended ad for Australia in the self-titled movie starring Nicole Kidman.
Anyway, the question is, how can we get more depictions of Jamaica and more Jamaican talent in the right places? And with reference to that alleged football jersey, we can't forget the Worldwide love affair many had with our 1998 World Cup qualifying team. Our jersey ended up in a Pepsi ad and folks wanted to purchase our jerseys! I, for example am a Jamaican voice over artist eager to enter the gaming industry - I strongly encourage some rich Jamaican to pay my way in...somehow. I'm doing it for my country, of course.
Watch the trailer for Brink. It's pretty awesome. Coming this fall.
