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I just watched this video on Joystiq and I gotta say that as a gamer this has been an issue that has always interested me. This is a great presentation from DICE. If you are interested in the scope of gaming and all aspects of the industry – this is highly recommended viewing.

After watching, I started to think about the games that I’ve played that featured characters of color aside from Japanese and Caucasian ones.

Now, in terms of ethnic heroes or playable characters off the top my head that I think that are actually cool in terms of narrative the game provides, the list is criminally short: Prince of Persia, Dom, Tommy (Prey), Sgt. Johnson,  and Turok. But there was one recent SEGA title that might surprise you:

Rebellion’s Aliens Versus Predator.  I bet you didn’t see that one coming (video may contain spoilers).  Yeah, the UK developer decided to make the “Rookie” a Black Marine and the secondary character Tequila was Hispanic. Two of the most unrepresented communities in games compared to the US census and they fit into the AVP universe nicely.

I like that Rebellion and SEGA chose to do it because they could’ve easily chosen to make the Rookie look like every other Caucasian marine in video games.

It’s not force fed either – never do the characters call attention to their skin color, they simply are colored. Unlike many “ethnic” comic book characters who call attention to their race in awful ways, the Rookie just is…nothing more or less but he occupies the spot of lead protagonist.

Granted, the Rookie barely talks but most main characters in FPS titles barely utter a sentence, it just nice to see some of the expanded demographic demonstrated in the game and that a “colored body” can be a vessel for the game player without falling into stereotype or be questioned in the role. It just worked.

Perhaps the team took their inspiration from Predator 2 but at any rate they did it.

It might not seem to be a big deal to most people but imagine if the only characters that look like you are the ones at the end of the sight of your gun or not present at all. That is the situation I often face while playing many modern warfare games. As a child, I would have to explain to other kids why I looked like their enemies in their games. It was always very awkward.

Media represents a huge portion of our world view. Outside of the Prince of Persia I can’t think of another main character that shares my outward skin color. You know what? As a life long gamer, it was nice to have that representation at least once.

Game play aside, AVP at least represents something different in genre that is filled with clone characters. Kudos to the people who made those design decisions.

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