Poll: Question for all the Mass Effect players out there

[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/

 

[lunavixen]

I'm a female and I play as FemShep. 1, because I didn't really like Meers VA but I do like Hale (he wasn't bad, just bland). 2, the option to play as a woman is a nice change instead of the generic short brown haired white dude, and 3, why not?

 

[Bergthor86]

I'm with several others in this thread wondering where the "both FemShep and MaleShep" options are. That said, I'm a guy, and my canon Shepard is a male, so I guess that the first option applies. That said, I've played through the entire trilogy with a total of 8 Shepards - half male, half female - and I'm currently playing and planning several more playthroughs for each gender.

My canon Shepard (and canon Warden in Dragon Age) being male just comes down to the fact that I know I'll play the games several times and get to play both genders, and then I guess I just like to start with my own gender. It's also that my first/canon playthroughs are often a particular kind of character which I personally like to play as male. But I'm totally open to playing a female and often do when I have the chance.

 

[Michel Henzel]

I just played default male shep, with even going with his default name John. I tried making my own version at first but I ended up restarting cause it just felt really weird. I guess with all the promotional stuff of the first which pretty much always showed the default male shep. I kinda could not imaging him looking any other way. Probably also the reason I never bothered playing Fem shep. If they had pushed Fem shep. instead of male shep. I would have ended up playing fem shep. instead.

Capcha: They are watching

Oh snap :X

 

[w23eer]

I agree Meer was crap, but only for ME1. By ME3, I consider his performance much better than Hale's.

Anyhow, I always play as males when given the option because that's what I am in RL I suppose (the only exception is Dragon Age 2 - I have no idea why, but it seems wrong for Hawke to be male). I really don't think about it that much to be honest.

 

[Floppertje]

I always think this is such a weird question... Why should you play as your own gender? I don't dislike Alien because the main character is female... Especially in Mass Effect you have different stories based on what gender you pick, so why would it be weird for me to play femshep? I want to hear her story too (also, I like Sam). But, to answer your question: My first complete playthrough was with a male shep.

 

[runequester]

Some people identify with the character you play. For me, I think too many years of running tabletop RPG's spoiled me to that. The character is always a playing piece to me and I never feel any kind of "identification". I'll think of a personality and then try to stick with that.