Poll: Question for all the Mass Effect players out there

[hermes]

Male, and my first playthroughs was default MaleShep. I did it mostly because I had a hard time seeing the trailers and promotional material without thinking "I don't know who this guy is", and because the customization tools in ME 1 and 2 were awful...

I am currently trying to play all the games again, but with FemShep. I think her performance is better at parts and worst at others, and I greatly prefer the love interests of the male counterpart.

Because my first was MaleShep, I have a soft spot for Meer. Besides, how can you not love a guy that lends himself for this?:

 

[PG]

As an aside from all this; Does anyone have any thoughts on what the best class is for beating ME2 on Insanity? 'Cause i've been wondering about doing a run like that.

I've always been told you can't go wrong with soldier. It's been awhile since I've played 2, but I remember that Adrenaline Rush + that big ass gun you get on the collector ship just tore anything to pieces.

I would go with engineer. The barriers and shields can be a real pain on insanity.

 

[Erttheking]

I played as Male Shep because I'm boring as sin. I always pick default race, gender and class when it comes to these games. I played as an Imperial in Skyrim FFS. I was going to go back and play through the series again as FemShep...then the ending happened and murdered my desire to touch the games again.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

So a friend walked in while I was playing Mass Effect the other day and asked why I was playing as a female (I'm a guy). It's actually because the male voice actor just doesn't sound right to me, but it got me thinking about the issue of representation and "playing yourself" in games. So, I thought I'd ask what everyone else thinks: do you play your own gender? Why or why not?

Personally, Mark Meers voice is now always going to be a staple of Mass Effect for me. "I'm Mark Meer, and this... is the best voice in the Citadel!"

I went with the male shep, and I tried my very, very best to make an ingame representation of myself. I played the game and made decisions as humanly close to how I felt I would react, and immersed myself wholly into the game, and adored the experience.

Thats not to say that there are not games that I dont make my toons female, though. I have both in Diablo 3, for example. My primary is a female Demon Hunter. I find her look more appealing, than the male DH, so I chose her. There certainly isnt anything wrong with any of the choices. Its up to you, and you should do what makes you happy! After all, isnt that what gaming is supposed to be about?

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Male, and my first playthroughs was default MaleShep. I did it mostly because I had a hard time seeing the trailers and promotional material without thinking "I don't know who this guy is", and because the customization tools in ME 1 and 2 were awful...

I am currently trying to play all the games again, but with FemShep. I think her performance is better at parts and worst at others, and I greatly prefer the love interests of the male counterpart.

Because my first was MaleShep, I have a soft spot for Meer. Besides, how can you not love a guy that lends himself for this:

THAT IS AWESOME!!!!!! Yeah, he also dressed up in N7 gear and shows up at 'Cons. Often! I believe he lead the Mass Effect cosplayers in the march before Dragoncon this year, to boot! I love this dude!

 

[AnarchistFish]

Always play as a male cos I try to make my character represent me as best as possible.

Only exception is when I'm playing online on Halo or something cos I love the idea of dumb little teabaggers getting wound up cos they think they're getting wooped by a girl.

 

[goldenblack]

Male; did Paragon ManShep on my first run-through for all the games, with a Renegade FemShep follow-up for the first two (was going to do it for the third, but the ending killed that motivation). I thought both actors were fine (Hale was better, but Meer was generally quite solid) though probably had a bit more fun with the Renegade roleplay on FemShep.

That said, tend to split time between genders on games where it's an option fairly evenly. For games where the PC is an actual character of some sort (such as ME), generally pretty ambivalent on gender and will go with whatever I feel or have heard gives the better story. If the game is good, will probably do multiple playthroughs anyway to get the different perspectives. For games where the PC is just a blank avatar (say Elder Scrolls), do go female somewhat more often, just for the cliche "if I have to stare at a butt/listen to grunts for XX hours, might as well be female".

As an aside from all this; Does anyone have any thoughts on what the best class is for beating ME2 on Insanity? 'Cause i've been wondering about doing a run like that.

Did it with both Vanguard and Infiltrator, but the Infiltrator run was much easier. Very rarely had an issue with any part of either 2 or 3 on Insanity as Infiltrator; sniping with the better cover mechanics over what 1 had felt almost abusive, especially with the cloak for easy repositioning.

 

[Mithcha]

Male, play as female. Virtually everytime there's an option to choose and it has voices I pick female, female VA's just sound better most of the time. Men...I dunno they just sound dull, trying too hard almost. Mark Meer is perfect in supporting roles, he does a few magnificent performances in ME outside of Shepard, but for me he can't carry the game. Hale can.

 

[Johnny Thunder]

I play mostely as male but I've done a few female playthroughs.

Concerning the voices; while I prefer the females preformance -the acting, the emotion and all that- I do not like her voice inherently, I think it's too deep. Hearing Laura Bailey's voice in ME3 makes me often feel like it should have been her to do female Shepard.

As for male Shepard, I think he's doing fine, but I don't really care. I'm just glad that it wasn't Nolan North...

 

[Klaw117]

I plan to play Mass Effect as a male, and I'm a male. If a game has a male protagonist or allows you to choose you gender, I like to imagine myself as the protagonist. For games that have a female protagonist, I still try to make her adopt my personality but otherwise, I'll just sit back and enjoy the story. If I play for a second time, then I'll mix it up by deliberately changing the gender.

 

[runequester]

I'm a dude and I tend to play females more often than males, but it depends on what idea I get in my head and how much the game lets me customize things.

If it's an old school RPG with a party of characters, I'll go about half and half.

Mass effect, I think Hale's portrayal was much better in general, though a lot of the funnier lines work well with Meer's deadpan delivery..

 

[Yozozo]

This poll is missing the obvious option! I played each game as both male and female Shepard, both paragon and renegade, and as all 6 main classes.

Yes, I beat ME1 and ME2 24 times (actually more, but I don't remember exactly how many).

I've beaten ME3 once.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I tried playing MaleShep in ME1, but I was so disinterested in the voice actor's performance that I switched to FemShep in ME2.

 

[clinicalPsychologist]

Female, Femshep.

Didn't play her as "me", though, she looked way different and I'm not the courageous military kind at all (went full paragon). But yeah, she's my idol Was really cool to see a woman kick ass like that in a game, I haven't seen this often (not just in giving out damage, but just being so courageous, admirable, etc)! I felt like a real commander and hero a bit at times.

 

[mrdude2010]

I played male shep just because I was more interested in the romance options/playing as a character vaguely resembling myself. I made a side female character to try out one of the other classes, but I haven't spent a lot of time on it.

 

[Alex Baas]

I play femshep because Jennifer Hale kills in the role. That is all

 

[votemarvel]

Role playing game wise I like to play as a female character, even though I am male myself.

This I do because it enables me to role play more if I played as a male character.

When I play as a male, I tend to make choices and reactions as if I were there. When I play as a female, I find it easier to put imagine what the character would do and not what I would do.

In essence, when playing as a female character I find it easier not to be myself.

 

[Brennan]

Male IRL, but almost always play female in any RPG when given the choice, so I'm a femShep player.

Playing "myself" in games where there's a character avatar doesn't work. I know what I look like, and complete likenesses are never possible, so the harder I try to achieve one, the deeper the results slide into the uncanny valley. Even if I did get a good enough likeness, the voices and in-game dialog/choice options never represent me closely enough not to ruin the illusion anyway. It's an inherently self-defeating endeavor.

So I make characters who aren't me, but who I can mentally inhabit. Characters who are not-me, but who I can experience in a psychologically first-person way as if I were them. I find it much easier to inhabit female characters because as a hetero male I reflexively/instinctively empathize with females to a greater degree than with other males. IRL it's just a BS animal instinct easily overridden by conscious awareness, but in games it's a BS animal instinct I deliberately exploit for greater immersion. That mental move-to-sync reflex that comes with making my character female is the difference between experiencing that not-me on the screen as a first person me, or a third person some other guy I'm merely controlling (mentally, not visually).

 

[laggyteabag]

I have played through the games around 4 times, and I have played it twice as Male Shepard (1st, 4th) and twice as a Female Shepard (2nd, 3rd). I am a male and I tend to play my games as a male first, but after I had played Fem Shep, I had decided that I preferred Hale over Meer. I do tend to prefer the Male Shepard's romance options more, however. I also like to play as Fem Shep because I feel like I can customise her more. My reasoning being that the image of the Male Shepard is pretty much stuck in my mind after watching all of the trailers and seeing all of the box art, so the idea of a Male Shepard that looks different to that rendition of the Male Shepard just seems weird to me, same goes for Hawke in Dragon Age 2. It is basically a case of I can go one way or the other, but there is no middle ground that I am interested in.

 

[white_wolf]

I've played fshep since ME when I discovered you could be a girl (they made no effort to advertise her existence) originally I got the game because the planet exploration looked so cool. I primarily play as fshep (15total) but I do have one mshep and thats only to play what little variations his play has compared with hers. The BSN did a similar poll but only asked what type of hero did they pick http://social.bioware.com/35168/polls/2829/