Video games are an international medium made, developed, and played all over the world, and often dominated competitively by nations like South Korea or culturally by influential hubs like Japan. However, that doesn’t mean the United States of America hasn’t also been extremely well-represented (or, at least, “extremely represented”) over the years… even if sometimes they had to call it “Eagleland” (and did we ever figure out where America is in Pokémon?).
Maybe the games are developed sincerely by American game designers infusing their work with patriotic verve. Or maybe it’s overseas creators looking to cash in, criticize, comment on, or simply explore the unique cultural imagery associated with what was for most of modernity’s living memory the world’s sole military, economic, and cultural superpower.
In any case, American iconography is almost as ubiquitous in video games as ninja, night elves, or microtransactions. So on the occasion of the annual July 4th holiday, the Game OverThinker here counts down his picks for the Top Ten Greatest Americans in Video Games. Not all of these greatest Americans are good guys, not all of them bad guys, not all of them even “made” in the U.S.A. — but all of them are unmistakably red, white, and blue (which is also the color of, like, twenty other countries’ flags — but you get the point.).
