Ice T’s “True Gamer” Status Made a Sneaky Cameo on Law & Order: SVU Season 27
After Law & Order: Special Victims Unit‘s Season 27 premiere showed Sgt. Fin Tutuola playing video games while recovering in the hospital, longtime fans had to smile, because that was pure Ice T shining through.
The SVU fan-favorite and rap icon has long been vocal about his passion for video gaming, and he reflected that in his on-screen alter ego in the funniest way. After SVU Detectives Terry Bruno (Kevin Kane) and Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano) visited him in the hospital, Fin chastised them for showing up empty-handed.
“Want me to order a pizza?” Bruno asked.
“Give me a PlayStation,” Fin groaned before explaining what happened to him. Later in the episode, Benson visited Fin in his private hospital room and found him glued to a racing game.
“Wow,” Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) said, impressed with Fin’s setup. “Best vacation ever?”
“My depth perception is still messed up, but I’m starting to enjoy the challenge,” Fin told her, pausing the game to catch up with his cherished Captain.
Ice T isn’t just a casual player; he’s a committed gamer who’s built a decades-long relationship with the gaming community, boasting many late-night sessions with his Call of Duty crew and voice acting credits in some of the industry’s biggest titles.
Ice T has been a gamer for years: “We grew up with it”
Ice T explored his love for video gaming in an interview with Game Informer, where he explained that growing up in the ’80s led him to fall in love with hip-hop and video games around the same time, setting the stage for a multi-decade hobby for the rapper.
“What people don’t understand is that the video game industry broke right alongside the hip-hop industry. Video games, hip-hop, skateboards; all that kind of broke during the ’80s. I had everything – the Ataris, the Segas. We grew up with it…”
“A lot of musicians spend their days on tour buses,” Ice T continued. “If you’ve ever been on a tour bus, there’s nothing much to do. In the back of the tour bus, they’ll have a video game system. You start to learn to play the games… You get hooked.”
Some of the first gaming systems Ice T would play include the Atari, the original Nintendo, and many classic video arcade games. “I had the actual video arcade games in my house,” Ice T revealed. “I had the first Mortal Kombat, the first Virtua Fighter, the first NBA Jam.”
Ice T revealed the first video game that got him “hooked”
While Ice T has been playing video games for decades, he credits Resident Evil and Call of Duty for taking his passion for gaming to the next level.
“Call of Duty, the way it’s set up, you can actually get better,” Ice T told Game Informer while chatting about the game’s learning curve. “The game that really got me hooked was Resident Evil back in the day. I was always into Mortal Kombat and s— like that, but once I got into Resident Evil, I really got hooked – survival horror, all that s—.”
Nowadays, Ice T is a proud member of the online COD group S.M.G. (Sex Money Guns), alongside rappers like Warren G, Lord Jamar, and Xzibit. But Ice T reveals that one of his favorite people to play with is his son, Tracy Marrow Jr.
“My son plays [COD]. My son lives in L.A., and we get to bond,” Ice T explained. “I wouldn’t be on the phone with him all day, but I can be on the game with him for five hours. It’s really cool.”
Ice T is a “true gamer”
On top of being an avid player, Ice T’s love for video games has led him to land voice roles in several iconic video game franchises. In 2004, Ice T played Madd Dogg in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, later voicing characters in games like Scarface: The World Is Yours, and Gears of War 3. In 2019, Ice T played Balex in the smash release Borderlands 3, and he also voiced Mac in the 2023 release Payday 3.
Ice T has never been one to back down from proving his gamer credibility, and it turns out, his SVU gaming session wasn’t the first time he’s snuck a console into the hospital room. In 2015, Ice T took to social media to share a photo from when his wife Coco Austin was giving birth to their daughter, Chanel. In the photo, Ice T keeps busy with a little game to calm his nerves.
“To prove that I’m a true gamer..” Ice T shared on X (formerly Twitter). “This is a pic of me playing Fallout 4 in the Delivery Room. Waiting on Chanel.” (And peep that game-loving username: @FINALLEVEL.)
While catching up with a fan in April 2023, Ice T revealed that some of his recent favorite playthroughs included Titanfall 2, Watch Dogs, and Dead Rising 2. “Gaming is cool for me because it relaxes me,” Ice T explained. “Because it takes my mind off my problems, it makes me think about the characters.”
Whether he’s solving cases or racking up killstreaks, Ice T proves that being a gamer is a lifestyle.