BioWare: Gamers Prefer a Manly Shepard

[VelvetHorror]

Complete Paragon, full ship enhancement, loyalty of all my members, and saved every person of my crew. And yes, I pissed off the Illusive Man. I've only played a female Shepard for an hour, and I didn't really like it, probably because I tried starting a new game right after finishing it so I was getting a bit bored with it.

What really surprised me was that I looked to my crew for specialization for when I assigned them tasks during the final mission. I didn't just give the task to a random person. I had Mordin take the crew back to the ship because I figure he could examine the crewmates to see if they were alright. When we needed to split the team, I put Garrus in charge of the other team because I felt he had more experience being a leader than other members of the team. When I needed someone to hold up a barrier, I chose Jack because of her immense amount of power. When I needed someone to hack a door, I chose Legion because I can't think of someone who would be better at hacking a machine than a machine.

I grew close to all of my teammates and actually even trusted them even though they are just poorly programmed AIs. I started the game already knowing a bulk of who the characters were and I only liked a couple, and I really didn't like Jack. But by the time I finished the game, I felt sorry for the traumatic past Jack went through and grew to love all of the characters for who they were.

Except Zaeed. I never really liked him and his loyalty mission just made me dislike him even more. He just seems like a sad excuse for a human being.

And I boned Miranda. Too bad Liara wasn't in your squad in ME2. <3

 

[Lordmarkus]

My first playthrough was the same as Andy's and I romanced Tali, as a MaleShep, cheating on Liara because she was no longer the adorkable person who I loved in the first game after all the time she's spent plotting vengeance on The Shadow Broker.

For my second I made a FemiShep and did the opposite: didn't upgrade my ship fully, lost Mordin, Jack, Tali, Legion and Thane, chose the Renegade ending and generally played her as a psychotically damaged, incompetent leader. Who totally got herself a fine piece of Jacob.

Edit: Oh and my MaleShep was an Adept, and my FemiShep was an Infiltrator.

Psychotic and incopetent leader? Heavy risk. But the priiiiiize...

Sorry I had to. Uhm, First, custom male infiltrator paragon, romanced Tali, cheating on Liara, get my whole crew alive even the unnecesary ones, saves the base, goes back and cheats on Tali with Liara. Don't you just love videogame escapism?

Second, custom female soldier paragon, the crew lived but not the faceless ones, made an enemy of Cerberus and romanced Garrus, who by the way was a total let down.

I stopped playing my "scary black man" vanguard but will get back to him when I'm particularly bored. Looks like both Mass Effect games only have a fun length of two playthroughs.

 

[Wandrecanada]

If you have a default character that is male and you live in a society where masculine is the dominant gender it's not interesting data at all. It's inertia. That said the rest of the data is still kinda neato.

PS: Full disclosure I had two female Sheps and one male in the first game and used all three characters in the sequel. I assume I prefer the female voice of Shep because she was my first. Inertia... *sigh*

 

[Zannah]

I had my ship upgraded, lost Tali, hit on Garrus, and the elusive man is probably going to send me chocolate

 

[infinity_turtles]

I wonder if Soldier is most popular because it's the strongest class? I mean, I know that when I was prepping saves in the first Mass Effect I always went soldier, just because it was the quickest way get through combat to prep my save. Soldier may have been the last class I tried, and the one I found least enjoyable, but statistically I played Soldier at least three times as many times as all the other classes combined.

 

['The Eel']

Female Shepard with default appearance, paragon, used Jack and Mordin mostly, didnt really care much at all about anyone else other than Garrus and Legion. Played as a Sentinel (tech armor FTW). Got everyone out alive and destroyed the base.

 

[Xaositect]

Hales performances is too monotone and fake sounding. Hale cannot pull that type of voice off. It sounds ridiculous.

Meer likewise sounds boring at times, but he can inject anger and other emotions without it sounding fake. Hale should stick with the more softly voiced characters in future, but her performance as Shepard is unbearable at times with how fake it sounds.

 

[TheAmazingHobo]

I pity all those fools who have failed to recognize the majesty that is FemShep.

MaleShep sounds like he got recently lobotomized.


Edit:

Hales performances is too monotone and fake sounding. Hale cannot pull that type of voice off. It sounds ridiculous.

I think its really funny how subjective voice acting is, seeing how my opinion is the EXACT opposite. Which is why it is so great to offer players the choice.

 

[JediMB]

Agreed. I always have trouble creating male characters, and sometimes I just wondered if maybe creating your opposite gender is just more difficult. But thankfully I like the default male Shepard's face so I didn't have a problem playing with him for my male runthroughs.

Personally I find myself incapable of creating a decent-looking male Shepard or non-dwarven male Warden.

And I'm a guy.

I see plenty of good-looking ones created by other people, though.

So, yeah, I just play female most of the time.

 

[Dr. Paine]

and how many players let that guy out of the thing.

Oh, I sure did.

DatAss Effect.

I think this qualifies you for an internet, sir/ma'am.

I think that is the one real complaint I have about ME2... and probably half the reason I don't use Miranda that often, despite the fact I find her a good character otherwise.

Stupid fanservice getting in the way of my game...

 

[Mamawoopie]

I wish i could play a male Shep...but his voice is so bland after playing female Shep. :<

 

[Somebloke]

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

 

[teknoarcanist]

I wonder if maybe the greater percentage of female gamers (and people who made fem sheps) did so without playing on Live? I know among MY circle of friends that's certainly true.

 

[JeanLuc761]

Pfft, as far as I'm concerned Female Shepard is cannon Shepard. How could you play as a male when that voice actor is so terrible? Jenifer Hale does a great job of bringing Shepard alive.

My response to this is as such. I play as MaleShep because I vastly prefer Mark Meer's voice acting over Jennifer Hale's. Hale definitely has more experience and arguably more talent, but her voice never once sounded natural as Shepard. Everything about the "toughness" sounds artificial and she often misplaces some voice inflection which leads to bizarre sounding lines.

Conversely, I know Meer plays probably 1/5 of his lines too flat for the situation, I never had a problem with it. His voice sounds natural, and he's demonstrated that he's capable of some perfectly fine acting (see: Conrad Verner in ME2, Miranda's Loyalty Mission, Tali Romance, almost all the speeches).

Really, it comes down to preference. As someone who's played both MaleShep and FemShep, MaleShep is my preferred.

 

[_Janny_]

Woah, looks like the escapists are pretty divided when it comes to voice acting. I'm actually curious whether the majority prefer FemShep or MaleShep's voice.

I had my ship upgraded, lost Tali, hit on Garrus, and the elusive man is probably going to send me chocolate

Replace Tali with Miranda and you got pretty much what I did. I saved the base mostly because Garrus commented that it was a good idea.

 

[Newbonomicon]

I like FemShep's voice acting at least a little more than MaleShep's, but I could never stomach the romance options. With Garrus it seems like it's just about the physical aspect, and Thane and Jacob are annoying in any context. On the other side, Miranda is ten times worse than Garrus, and Jack's a *****, but there's just something about the Tali romance that evokes a much more personal connection. It's probably got something to do with me as a player being asexual. In ME1 Liara felt similar, but I think the writers got it better with Tali.

As for soldier being the most played class, it's because it's easier. No question about that.

 

[kinky257]

What bothered me most about the ending was that destroying the collectors base was seen to be a paragon choice. I mean my renegade shep would of loved to of blown it up to show the Illusive man who's boss, after being pushed around by him all game.

 

[Spacewolf]

ive neverfully upgraded my ship because of the medical unit that doesnt do anything except heal some cool scars i mean if i could of used it on garrus the fine but nope only for you

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I generally play as a woman.

 

[Wes1180]

Male Shephard, Vanguard I believe, everyone loved me and still does due to them living and I believe I'm gonna get a planet or something from the Illusive Man for christmas, I dunno though it might be something else