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VIDEO GAMES — Dances with aliens |
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Written by asap
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Wednesday, 26 July 2006 |
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On the surface, “Prey” might sound like any ol’ first-person shooter game. The goal is to endlessly blast away evil aliens on a spaceship using a wide array of weaponry. Look a little closer, though, and you’ll see “Prey” is doing something no other game has before. It’s redefining the role of American Indians in this emerging medium.
Players assume the role of Tommy, a modern-day Cherokee mechanic living on an Oklahoma reservation. He curses. He listens to rock and roll. He drinks beers. He wears a leather jacket — not a headdress. And he uses a wrench to beat down bullies — not a tomahawk.
Unlike the seemingly superficial central characters in shoot-’em-up games such as “Doom” and “Quake,” the hero in 2K Games’ “Prey” — which is available for both PC and Xbox 360 — has a backstory.
“We didn’t want a space marine, a generic faceless dude,” says Chris Rhinehart, project lead for the game and co-founder of Human Head Studios. “We wanted someone with a history, someone players could kind of identify with because he’s in kind of a crappy situation and he wants to get out of his situation and better himself.”
The situation is Tommy’s indifference about his culture. He wants to leave the reservation, which he does once those aliens arrive.
In video games, American Indians have long been portrayed as either worthy adversaries for gun totin’ cowboys (see “Gun” and “Mad Dog McCree”) or superhuman warriors with mystical fightin’ abilities (see Julia Chang in “Tekken” and Nightwolf in “Mortal Kombat”). There’s been no “Windtalkers” or “Dances with Wolves” in the gaming world.
That’s because, even moreso than film, video games rely heavily on the battle between good and evil. That gray area in-between is rarely explored when it’s simply Mario vs. Donkey Kong or Pac-Man vs. Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde or Lara Croft vs. men.
Typically, American Indian culture is only given an objective take in historial-based games, such as the Apple II classic “The Oregon Trail” and the upcoming real-time strategy expansion pack “Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs.”
 “There’s so, so, so many stereotypes about Native Americans,” says Carmen Davis, president of the Association for American Indian Development. “The bigger picture is this is a group of people who are underrepresented in mainstream society. Media and entertainment often feed into the stereotypes about practicing mysticism, owning casinos and beating on drums. It’s amazing in today’s society how many misconceptions there still are.”
Last year, AAID took issue with what they perceived as a misrepresentation of American Indian history and culture in Activision’s “Gun,” a wild West action game that required players to hunt down — and scalp — Apache Indians in certain missions. Davis hasn’t played “Prey” herself, but she also hasn’t heard any complaints about the game.
 That ire is what inspired Rhinehart and his team to carefully craft a compelling tale about an American Indian in an out-of-this-world sci-fi realm. For the voices of two of the three main roles — Tommy and his girlfriend Jen — Rhinehart cast Michael Greyeyes and Crystle Lightning, two actors of Plains Cree descent. Caucasian actor John William Galt voices Tommy’s grandfather.
“We didn’t want ’Prey’ to be this stereotype or making fun of the culture in any way,” says Rhinehart. “We wanted it to be serious and authentic. We did a lot of research. We avoided really bad stereotypes.”
Still, “Prey” is a work rooted in fiction.
Aliens use outlandish weapons. Tommy has a metaphysical bird as his spirit guide throughout the game. And he learns how to “spirit walk” from his grandfather, an ability that Rhinehart says was inspired by the Apache seer Geronimo. With the press of a button, players can leave Tommy’s body to move through fire and forcefields and harness the power of an astral bow and arrow.
It is just a game, after all.
———
Derrik J. Lang is an asap reporter based in New York. | Only registered users can write comments.
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