So the game takes place in the American South West and when creating my character my choices for race are: Caucasian, Asian, African American and Hispanic. You don't think you're missing something there? When people think of the South West these are the only 4 groups or even the top 4 groups people think of? Do you really think alot of people don't think of Native Americans when thinking of the South West? Going by the 2000 census over 50% of the people reporting as Native American lived in 10 states. Depending on your definition 4 of those states are in or part of the south west (Arizona, Texas, California and New Mexico).
Yes none of those states are Nevada and yes Native American is not a choice in Fallout 3. But this game is about the population coming back up from underground, not amassing as it is now and when you think Native Americans the eastern seaboard nor Washington DC really come to mind.
No I am not accusing Bethesda or Obsidian of being racists or racially insensitive. I'm sure when they did their regional research it was more about the geography then the racial makeup. Just saying that if you're going to sell the game based off of screenshots with characters dressed as cowboys (and a howdy partner face on the securebots) that Native American should have been a choice.

Okay, first off, they just took the same races as in Fallout 3. Second, the race mostly just decides your skin colour, and the hispanic choice seems to have more or less the right colour for a Native American character. Beyond that, what it's called is immaterial.

If its just about skin color, why not use a slider like they do later on in the process? They chose race, IF you're going to use race then the races should make sense. Kinda hard to say a race so representative of the area is immaterial.

@Zaggs: if you're using the PC version you can make a new race with the GECK

I live in Las Vegas. I am Australian.

Why the heck is there no Australian option?

U IS RACIST OBSIDIAN

/sarcasm

lol. I didn't say the race itself is immaterial; you don't need to go turning this into a racist issue. But the fact is there's very little difference between the "races" in the character creation except skin colour. Maybe a little bit in the eye shape for Asians, I dunno. Why didn't they use a slider? I don't know, ask them. But if you want to make a Native American character, either a) make the race in the GECK (if you're playing on the PC), or b ) choose Hispanic, make your character look like a Native American, and five minutes later realize that the name of the "race" you chose at character creation will never matter again.

Wouldn't that race need new dialog

the race options help you defin the look of your charecter, heritage has virtually nothing to do with the game. Besides, hispanics does represent this demographic (sort of) considering the current hispanic race is descended from the natives of the south and lower north america, as far up to nevada.

you can arrange the facial features of the charecter right after you choose race, and after that race doesn't pop up in the game ever again. its even left of your stats. the option of race when you are creating a face is more about choosing a style of facial features for your charecter than it is about the geneology of your charecter. also what was said about using geck to create custom races.

edit: @rusty gunn, race doesn;t affect the voice acting. you should note that in FO3 the voice of 'dad' was the same (caucasioun *sp* sounding voice, imo) no matter what race.

The races are there in character creation because Bethesda's character creator is based off of Facegen, which changes shapes of the head and features to find and blend baseline racial characteristics between faces.

Setting the race of your character just determines where all the sliders start off for creating the face.

This http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVkC0dhq180 basically explains why Bethesda character creation is like it is in exact detail, and you can see where race comes in just a couple minutes into the video.

just in my opinion the between a Native American and a Hispanic (at least in the tribes that far south) is a border, like the way the difference between a Norwegian and a German is a border. the language is different (because of some foreign conquers ), the foods are different, and the cultures diffrent, but the race (thats relay close to the same).