Ethnic Cleansing is a 2002 First-Person Shooter developed and published by Resistance Records, a record label owned by the white supremacist/neo-Nazi group National Alliance. Without even seeing it, one can probably make an educated guess as to its content just from that description, and not be that far off.
In this game, you play as a Nazi skinhead or a Klansman who goes on a rampage through the ghetto and the subway, murdering black Gangbangers (who make monkey and ape noises), Latinos (who are dressed like banditos and say "I need to take a siesta" when shot), and Jews (who are dressed like Hasidim incarnate and shout "oy vey!" when shot). Boss battles include fights against the "Big Nig" (yes, he's actually called that) and Ariel Sharon
, who leads a plot for Jewish world domination.
Yeah. It's that kind of game. It indulges in over-the-top racial stereotypes as a means of spreading the message of its developers... which is really the only thing noteworthy about it, as much of its gameplay content is rather rough around the edges, to say the least.
In 2003, Resistance Records released a Spiritual Successor called White Law, in which one plays as a white cop who goes postal after multiculturalism turns his city into a Gangsterland. They followed this up with ZOG's Nightmare 1 and 2 note , in which you "take America back" from Jewish domination.
For the tabletop equivalent (in terms of both content and quality), see Racial Holy War. For other games created by White supremacists and Neo-Nazis where you must exterminate the "lesser races", albeit in a greater scale, see KZ Manager. There is also 'Member the Alamo?, a game with similar far right themes but tries to hide them in a...bizarre manner.
Tropes:
- Artificial Stupidity: The AI for enemies isn't programmed beyond "just stand out in the open, move very slightly and shoot". The enemies make almost no effort to avoid your shots at all.
- Author Tract: Whites good, non-whites and Jews evil, Heil Hitler.
- Big Bad: Ariel Sharon is the closest thing the game has to one.
- Blatant Lies: The stock audio of apes in the first game is advertised as having been "recorded live using real negroes."
- Captain Ersatz/Historical Hero Upgrade: Or their version of it—one of the selectable player characters is White Will, who resembles the Oklahoma City Bomber.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: While pretty much every other first person shooter on PC uses the standard WASD keys for movement by the early 2000s, Ethnic Cleansing inexplicably use the SZXC keys for movement by default. And the keyboard configuration menu often fails to work.
- Easter Egg: A speech by National Alliance founder William Luther Pierce is hidden in the first level.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: This being a white supremacist game, being equal opportunity is what makes them evil in the first place; a poster seen in the second level reads "Diversity — it's good for Jews!" The developers then made White Law, which is an Author Tract railing against multiculturalism and race-mixing.
- Evil Plan: Ariel Sharon has one. It involves diversity.
- Excuse Plot: Due to the ambiguity of the only major plot element, it pretty much comes off as one.
- Failed Future Forecast: Whatever the Evil Plan of the first game was, it was set to be executed in 2010.
- Game-Breaking Bug: So many of them.
- The most notorious one: in the first game, the second level pretty much works or doesn't work at the game's mercy.
- ZOG's Nightmare has one that prevents you from changing your weapon. Your first gun has tens of thousands of bullets, so it's no big deal, but if you were holding another weapon, run out of ammo, and have picked up every single ammo box in the level, you're in trouble since you need to kill all enemies to progress past the second level.
- Gangbangers: Fought in the first level of Ethnic Cleansing.
- Gangsterland: Kapitol City in White Law is portrayed as a city corrupted by diversity stuffed full of violent gangsters.
- Greedy Jew: This game is made by white nationalists, so it's no surprise that Jews are portrayed as malevolent manipulators with goals of world domination.
- Humiliation Conga: Allegedly, the plans wrecked by Sharon's death date back at least two millennia.
- Invincible Minor Minion: The Mexican enemies aren't kidding when they say "I need to take a siesta." They are actually sleeping, not dead, and will come back to life shortly after. Somehow, they are still considered an "inferior" race despite being literally immortal.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: In ZOG's Nightmare.
- The Moral Substitute: As seen in Louis Theroux's documentary "Louis and the Nazis", the white supremacist family he interviewed only allows their kids to play Ethnic Cleansing and other racist games.
- Noodle Implements: Diversity is frequently used as a tool of evil through means the game never explains it.
- Noodle Incident: Ariel Sharon's plan, the game's main plot point. All they ever tell us is that it involves diversity and took thousands of years to set up.
- N-Word Privileges: Flagrantly averted. The N-word is thrown around very freely and by anyone—it's even the chorus of the BGM.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: Seeing that the game was created by white nationalists, playing as a skinhead or Klansman mass murdering non-whites is depicted as a good thing.
- Sensory Abuse: The fourth level of ZOG's Nightmare consists entirely of white Stars of David on a black background. The walls, floors, ceilings, and enemies are all covered with the same texture, making it painful to look at.
- Straw Character: Every ethnic group. If the game considers it an enemy, then it'll no doubt be nothing more than a violent racial/religious stereotype existing only for the player to gun down.
- A Winner Is You: Defeating Ariel Sharon causes him to utter a five-second line about how you have destroyed "thousands of years of work." Then you enter a room in which you can choose to restart the game or go back to the main menu.
- Wish-Fulfillment: Better believe it. Gunning down minorities and being seen as heroic for it is the wet dream of every Neo-Nazi ever.
- Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide": Of the "admitting it proudly" variety. At no point is the player's bloody rampage against minorities treated as anything other than glorious and heroic.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: The setting of White Law is called "Kapitol City".
