Bayonetta might need a backpack for all those guns

Well, Sheva from RE5 would be one.

That is, Sheva is not white. Not that she looks Asian.

Rinoa from FF8 looks Asian to me. I assume you're not counting fighting game characters in this survey.

@Chuck: Also noticed that.

Off the top of my head I can't think of any black female leads, and only few black male leads at that.

Hmm...

Bayonetta sounds British. And the more appropriate term is "caucasian" or "white", since "American" is a nationality.

But...wasn't the lead for Beyond Good and Evil an Asian woman?

@comic

I thought shiva too but I think he means a lead, lead. Shiva was controllable though so...

I guess it counts.

Faith from Mirror's Edge immediately springs to mind.

Maybe it's just me, but, generally speaking, racism only seems to be found by those actively looking for it.

@ducttapeBigSexy

I would hesitate to oversimplify it in that way. The other side of the coin is that it's easy to not notice racism (or any form of prejudice) when you aren't on the receiving end.

In terms of female protagonists in games, I would say that what's in operation here is not racism so much as what we perceive as the operative beauty standard of society. In general, people want to play a game with appealing-looking characters. So in general, game designers like to make beautiful protagonists (especially for women--men can be ugly so long as that ugliness reflects toughness). And in general, there's a kind of Caucasian standard for beauty that is pervasive in our culture, to the point that even an African woman (Sheva in RE5) is depicted with fairly Caucasian features in order to give her a Halle Berry-style beauty.

How racism shapes this standard of beauty is a difficult question. It's noteworthy that you're not going to find many female protagonists who look like they are older than 25, or are overweight, or have large noses, or are bald, or don't have huge stonking bosoms. None of those are race-based factors, yet they are reflective of the standard of beauty. And while I think you will gradually see a broader depiction of racial diversity in video game characters, you may be in for a long wait before you get a homely-looking grandmother taking the lead in a video game.

Its still weird though when I hear Japanese characters speak english in games even though they look caucasian. Hmm, maybe because they usually have a strong American accent like in Devil May Cry, Bayonetta feels right at home with that english accent though, that sexy english woman's voice, I'd bang her so hard.

@dood: One reason I want the game, I mean...er...what? Hahahaha...

We are all sick, perverted men.

At least we have healthy minds.

Jade from Beyond Good and Evil says hello.

Are you kidding? Witches being hot has been around since at least the 60s. I take it you've never seen Bewitched before. Or how about that one movie, what's it called, The Craft?

Dangit, that was a reply to NevilleThegame's comment about there not being any non-white videogame leads.

Blasted comment system...