Poll: Female Shepard vs Male Shepard - Mass Effect Series

[fix-the-spade]

Femshep, because Jennifer Hales's voice, oh my.

Also, way back in the first game I went Femshep on a whim and that lady stuck it out through three games, persistent saves have a lot to answer for.

 

[Tono Makt]

Two Male sheps. I don't really get why male shep's voice acting is seen as so bad. It's not the greatest VA I've ever heard, but you'd swear the man was just farting into the microphone for all his lines, based on how much negativity he gets.

I have a female shep, as sticking with my usual "3rd playthrough do all the stuff you didn't the first two times", which also means she's full renegade, no romance, and tech based (In theory; In practise, pistols rule the day with her). The female VA is pretty good with renegade, I'll give her that, but I just don't like her paragon voice as much. It's not bad, but her renegade lines just seem to be delivered better. Then again, I haven't gotten my FemShep out of ME1 yet, so maybe she'll do better in 2.

Taken by itself, MaleShep VA is good enough for a game like Mass Effect. But when you compare it to the VA of FemShep, that's where it sounds like dog farts. It's not fair to Mark Meer, but that's probably the biggest reason people prefer FemShep over MaleShep.

For me, FemShep all the way. 100% FemShep. I enjoy the idea of a kick ass woman saving the galaxy and not a single person in the galaxy bats an eye that she's a girl. This is probably the biggest reason I've fallen in love with the Mass Effect series, and why I enjoy games like Skyrim as well; they treat playing a female protagonist exactly the same way they treat playing a male protagonist. I think it's a good step in the right direction for games, away from the idea that Hero's in Action Games are Men.

 

[miketehmage]

On my first playthrough I play Male shep and try to make decisions how I think I would.

On my second playthrough I go full renegade femshep

 

[___________________]

The female has better voice acting.

 

[MetalDooley]

I played through the first Mass Effect as both a male and female because I'd heard there was massive differences in the VA quality and to be honest I couldn't tell you why femsheps VA gets such high praise and malesheps gets so much criticism.They were both decent and nothing more if you ask me.I stuck with my maleshep for 2 & 3.Thought Mark Meer did a pretty good job overall

 

[AuronFtw]

I enjoy the idea of a kick ass woman saving the galaxy and not a single person in the galaxy bats an eye that she's a girl. This is probably the biggest reason I've fallen in love with the Mass Effect series, and why I enjoy games like Skyrim as well; they treat playing a female protagonist exactly the same way they treat playing a male protagonist. I think it's a good step in the right direction for games, away from the idea that Hero's in Action Games are Men.

While I agree with the sentiment, I would posit that they're only like this because the games are shallow. Skyrim is hardly even a RPG anymore with very little character-specific dialog, and ME had a bigger focus on the universe building and immersion efforts than on making separate responses for every npc in case someone runs through with femshep. You'd think at least some of the female characters would have some more personable female-to-female dialog that the males would "miss out" on, but it doesn't happen; it's all token and sterile.

So yeah, I agree that it's better than, say, Metroid Other M's approach, but I think it's mostly like that because of lack of effort and not really by design.

 

[The_Scrivener]

As an aside, I hate that maleshep/femshep are now official terms. When I hear "shep" I think of a big white hairy dog that runs around in a big field/yard in the 50s.

 

[Skeleon]

There's only one true Commander Sheppard and I'm pretty sure he's male.

Spoiler

 

[In Search of Username]

Female Shepard. Mark Meer < Jennifer Hale. In terms of the romances it's a bit more mixed - I prefer Kaidan to Ashley, but in the second, my favourite romance is Jack, then Tali, then Thane as a distant third. And in the third game I pretty much like Samantha and Steve about as much so, meh. I tend to just base it on the voice actor I prefer since the romance stuff is kind of mixed, so yeah, female.

 

[Jynthor]

I personally really disliked FemShep because of the voice acting.

Jennifer Hale only rally does two voices: strong, gruff female warrior, with a penchant for talking really low when shit gets real, and happy, flirtatious sweetheart. FemShep flips between both in the same conversation sometimes, giving me the impression that she's got bipolar disorder. That, and she sounds bored doing the lines, as she sighs with each and every word, especially when she's trying to sound gruff. MaleShep is more consistent, able to be gruff and tough, while still being able to tackle the more sombre moments well all with the same voice direction. Meer seems to be having fun with the role, while the same cannot be said for Hale, who delivers the same performance as she does in every role she's ever been in.

Also, you can create a more unique MS than FS. I've made 3 MS and 1 FS thus far, and my brother 1 each, and the MS all look distinct and different from one another, but the FS share the facial structures and features to the point where you'd think them sisters. Even the ones I found online looked similar, so it's not just a case of my brother and I having similar tastes.

That, and the final moment with Anderson feels thematically way better with MS, as there's a father-son-esque relationship between them. FS's scene just doesn't feel as good.

Pretty much this, however I'm playing Mass Effect 1 again(for like the fifteenth time...) as FemShep and I notice the whole sighing gruff thing Hale does is mostly from ME2/3, in ME1 she just talks normally most of the time.

 

[Zeldias]

Preferred Male Shep because the way he delivered the Renegade lines were hilarious. While FemShep generally sounded better, sometimes the lines sounded too...Husky? Smoky is the word I want to use. It's not that it sounded bad, just kind of strained, like she was thinking "make this sound cool." She did deliver that line about having blue babies fantastically, though, as well as a lot of other lines.

Just for my money, in ME, nothing beats how ManShep delivers some of those Renegade lines.

 

[sc1arr1]

I played through the trilogy first as male Shepard and then later went back and did it again as female Shepard. I love both but I have to give it up to Jennifer Hale on this one. :O

 

[Harrowdown]

First played with FemShep, purely because I was getting a little bored of male leads in every game. Tried playing a second character as male afterwards, but the voice acting turned me off. I always think of Shepherd as female by default, now.

 

[King of Asgaard]

I personally really disliked FemShep because of the voice acting.

Jennifer Hale only rally does two voices: strong, gruff female warrior, with a penchant for talking really low when shit gets real, and happy, flirtatious sweetheart. FemShep flips between both in the same conversation sometimes, giving me the impression that she's got bipolar disorder. That, and she sounds bored doing the lines, as she sighs with each and every word, especially when she's trying to sound gruff. MaleShep is more consistent, able to be gruff and tough, while still being able to tackle the more sombre moments well all with the same voice direction. Meer seems to be having fun with the role, while the same cannot be said for Hale, who delivers the same performance as she does in every role she's ever been in.

Also, you can create a more unique MS than FS. I've made 3 MS and 1 FS thus far, and my brother 1 each, and the MS all look distinct and different from one another, but the FS share the facial structures and features to the point where you'd think them sisters. Even the ones I found online looked similar, so it's not just a case of my brother and I having similar tastes.

That, and the final moment with Anderson feels thematically way better with MS, as there's a father-son-esque relationship between them. FS's scene just doesn't feel as good.

Pretty much this, however I'm playing Mass Effect 1 again(for like the fifteenth time...) as FemShep and I notice the whole sighing gruff thing Hale does is mostly from ME2/3, in ME1 she just talks normally most of the time.

Very true.
It's like the voice acting director missed the point of what made Hale's FemShep tolerable in ME1, and told her "Eh, just be gruff and sigh and shit, that'll sell, right?"
I think that's my biggest problem with FS; it's not a female character doing things in her own way, but a female character trying to be a man as much as possible, which we don't need, because MaleShep exists for that.

 

[Morti]

Too many male characters already, any chance I get to increase the female % of my cast in a game, I take it

 

[bug_of_war]

Fuckin' badass soldier half paragon, half renegade male shep. I'm a dude, he's a dude, it's easier to connect with a protagonist of my own gender (and Miranda's ass is sweet). I also think the voice actor is more diverse than the female shep, all I ever here from her is that whole bored housewife tone, and her angry/renegade voice isn't threatening at all, it's more or less just whispering while teeth are gritted. One final note, she doesn't sound very commanding.

 

[Tono Makt]

I enjoy the idea of a kick ass woman saving the galaxy and not a single person in the galaxy bats an eye that she's a girl. This is probably the biggest reason I've fallen in love with the Mass Effect series, and why I enjoy games like Skyrim as well; they treat playing a female protagonist exactly the same way they treat playing a male protagonist. I think it's a good step in the right direction for games, away from the idea that Hero's in Action Games are Men.

While I agree with the sentiment, I would posit that they're only like this because the games are shallow. Skyrim is hardly even a RPG anymore with very little character-specific dialog, and ME had a bigger focus on the universe building and immersion efforts than on making separate responses for every npc in case someone runs through with femshep. You'd think at least some of the female characters would have some more personable female-to-female dialog that the males would "miss out" on, but it doesn't happen; it's all token and sterile.

So yeah, I agree that it's better than, say, Metroid Other M's approach, but I think it's mostly like that because of lack of effort and not really by design.

Overall, I agree with your sentiments. Just a few minor quibbles about the idea that there was a lack of effort and a lack of design, and that the games are shallow. I think it would be more difficult to make it sterile, to make it exactly the same for both a male and a female protagonist because of our natural instinct to write something more specific when writing for a specific gender. We talk to people of each gender differently without realizing it, so consciously examining everything for hints of gender specific bias and then directing voice actors to keep gender specific tones from their responses would not be an easy thing to do. It's certainly easier than writing and voice acting every response two ways (or more; reacting to a Paragon FemShep would be different than reacting to a Renegade FemShep or a Neutral FemShep), it does save on memory (you might have to double or triple the amount of space in the game for saving dialogue options) and probably cuts down greatly on bugs (Bugs? In my Skyrim? Surely you jest!) but I wouldn't call it lazy or say there was no design involved.

As for shallow, I think I understand what you're saying with it but my quibble is that I think the term "shallow" has too many negative connotations, and the games don't deserve most of them. Perhaps saying they're "painted with broad strokes" or "archetypal" might get across the same idea but without the inherent negativity that comes with the word "shallow". Both get across the idea that the character is trying to be something larger than a normal being and so there will be a lack of the fine details we find in normal beings, and while both do have some negative connotations, to my mind the negative connotations of "painted with broad strokes" and "archetypal" actually apply to the protagonists in series like Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls and Fallout.

It would be nice to have some dialogue that is Female or Male specific, beyond the potential love interests. I've often thought that it would be an interesting thing to try to do with Mass Effect for a MaleShep to get along better with the Krogan and Turians (both are extremely male centric in the games, to the point of there being what, 1 living Female Krogan and two Female Turians from the Omega and Citadel DLC's for ME3?) via needing lower Paragon/Renegade scores to unlock Paragon/Renegade options, and having a FemShep have the same response from the Asari and Salarians. (Asari being an all "Female" race is somewhat shallow of a reason, I'll admit. The Salarians have always struck me as being Matriarchal though the evidence for that is more circumstantial than factual.) I've also thought about making actual gameplay changes, like giving MaleShep high base Health and Melee damage while giving FemShep the same squad bonus that Miranda gets and making her literally smaller, so she is more able to utilize cover. Little things like that which make playing a MaleShep a far different experience than playing a FemShep.

But just being able to play a Male or Female Shepard (or Dragonborn, or Wasteland Saviour) I think is a good baby step. It's not exempt from criticism but I'm willing to be less harsh if it encourages other developers to take the same step in the future.

 

[Ticklefist]

Both with a slight edge to Sheploo.

 

[Jacco]

Whenever I have an option in a game, I always choose a female character.

Also, let's be honest. Jennifer Hale's voice is fucking SEXY.