BioWare Adding Female Shepard to Mass Effect 3 Marketing

[Xaositect]

And that is not just my favouritism for Hale kicking in either (seriously, she's been involved in loads of my favourite cartoons as a kid.

Yeah, it is. Thats pretty much all it is.

Fundamentally its about people finding which of the two neutral performances you enjoy the most. Most maleshep fans just play the game and dont bother. Most femshep fans however have to piss and moan for some reason. (who gives a shit if they plaster maleshep on the boxes and in the marketing? They paid for his likeness, so might as well use it. Most people customise anyway).

Of course, there is a third sect like me who cant stand their choice constantly being ridiculed by certain people looking to offset the fact that statistically femshep is by FAR the less picked option.

But yeah, Jennifer Hale has done many great performances over time, so I think much of the exagerration of her performance comes from that. If it was a more voice acting unknown, I dont think people would go quite so overboard with the made up "excellence" in a fundamentally neutral performance.

 

[Faux Furry]

Everybody on the Collector's Edition box should be variants on designs for Shepard, both male and female. That would be a great way to close out the series, especially for those who are big enough fans to buy the collector's edition in the first place.

And for all of those comments that seem to suggest that sex appeal/skimpy attire=degrading, what do they think of characters such as these:

Okay, so Raiden doesn't exactly look as if he's beaming with pride right there.

More clothes don't make the character more complex...not that such a fact is even relevant when it comes to Shepard, anyway.
Less clothes would mean fewer armor upgrade options, always a bad thing when it comes to the main character of an action RPG.

 

[Vault101]

Not canon? since when?

well fuck canon, to me shepard aint mister white brown haired protagonist, and Im sure its vicer versa for many others

 

[JediMB]

only 1/5 use femshep? i'm surprised. i thought her VA was more popular, so i thought she would have been too. guess not.

Keep in mind that about 50% of the people who started Mass Effect 2 never actually finished the game. I'm going to assume that there's a lot of overlap between those players and the ManShap players, and much less with FemShep players.

It's basically guys who aren't too familiar with BioWare games, start up the game, play around a bit with the character customization, and then eventually get bored of the game and stop playing.

EDIT: And here is my personal canon Shepard...

 

[Jungy 365]

A lot of people are saying that FemShep has a better voice actor (sorry, actress), but I don't get that. I think it's just two different people's interpretation of the character, from MaleShep's authoritative get-the-job-done voice, to FemShep's more relaxed voice which makes her sound more individualised from the military system that Shepherd is a party to. Which one you preference depends entirely on how similar their interpretation is to yours. On my two playthroughs, my maleshep was a paragon soldier, so his voice felt right, as I meant for him to be an icon of the human spirit. My second playthrough, conversely, was a renegade who voiced her opinion regardless of whether it suited protocol, and would occasionally show a softer side, which suited FemShep's more free-spirited voice.
So, I guess I'm saying that I enjoy both voice-actors, as they offer various ways to play the same character.

 

[Xaositect]

Keep in mind that about 50% of the people who started Mass Effect 2 never actually finished the game. I'm going to assume that there's a lot of overlap between those players and the ManShap players, and much less with FemShep players.

Actually, I just think people play femshep less because for a lot of folks that character or her voice is just less appealing. Shocking I know, but if youre not in denial about how "awesome" Hales performance is, or how popular femshep is, is just kinda fits in place quite easily.

 

[JediMB]

Keep in mind that about 50% of the people who started Mass Effect 2 never actually finished the game. I'm going to assume that there's a lot of overlap between those players and the ManShap players, and much less with FemShep players.

Actually, I just think people play femshep less because for a lot of folks that character or her voice is just less appealing. Shocking I know, but if youre not in denial about how "awesome" Hales performance is, or how popular femshep is, is just kinda fits in place quite easily.

I'm not saying ManShep isn't more popular, but BioWare's statistics still show that 50% of all ME2 players never finished the game. And that's players, not characters. A huge majority of those must have played ManShep, since anything else is just impossible.

 

[DarkTenka]

at first glance: .. "well its about time!"

at second glance: .. "wait .. what if she doesnt look like my version of her .... crap."

 

[Zhukov]

Im not interested really, since femshep is too cliche "kickass chick" for my tastes, she looks boring, and Mark Meer just does an all round better performance. Hales performance, though she is a fantastic voice actress for other characters, just sounds emotionless and a fake attempt at sounding tough when she does Shepard.

(Most of that is opinion, but since femshep fans love to insecurely spout opinion as fact, I thought what the hell, I would give it a try too.)

You suggest that people who prefer the female Shepard are voicing their opinion due to insecurity. Yet, every single time this subject is brought up around here I see you come charging along in exactly the same manner, tearing into anyone who dares to mention that they prefer one performer over another.

In short, I suspect that all the people declaring Hale's performance to be superior have made you insecure in your choice, because it quite clearly bothers you.

But yeah, Jennifer Hale has done many great performances over time, so I think much of the exagerration of her performance comes from that. If it was a more voice acting unknown, I dont think people would go quite so overboard with the made up "excellence" in a fundamentally neutral performance.

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I decided Hale's voicing acting was better I didn't even know her name, let alone any of her other work.

Actually, I just think people play femshep less because for a lot of folks that character or her voice is just less appealing. Shocking I know, but if youre not in denial about how "awesome" Hales performance is, or how popular femshep is, is just kinda fits in place quite easily.

I'm guessing it's because the majority of people playing Mass Effect are male and therefor choose to play a male character.

...

Lastly, I would like to add that I agree with you on one point. Some of the femshep fans can get a bit... overzealous about the whole thing. The people on the Bioware forums can get especially wierd. They're not quite as bad as the Tali people, but they're up there.

 

[Latinidiot]

I like how the parts of her armor that are supposed to hide her naughty bits are flesh coloured.

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

I've only ever played Shepard as a female...I can't even conceive of the character as a male, and everything I've seen in ads or other videos of the male Shepard has been absolutely groan-inducing.

Shepard's a female to me.

 

[conmag9]

Hmm. Well, I rather appreciate it. Not because I'm "taking a stand" or some such, but because I generally prefer FemShep's voice to MaleShep to much the same extent that you average human prefers a comfortable, happy life to being beaten over the head every 3-7 seconds, forever. When I first played Mass Effect, I went for MaleShep and, I kid you not, my first thought was "did someone eat your soul or something?". I don't know if his actor is always like that or it was just a sub-par performance, but if it weren't for Jennifer Hale, I would likely never have played the game (and I've never refused to play something based on voices before).

 

[Agent Larkin]

They might say it's non-canon but to me it's canon.

 

[XDravond]

As pointed out by many before really only 1/5 play as fem shep? I have played as both and well actually both as good/bad (so 4 run throughs... and a couple of extras for the fun like save the reaper and the like)... I do think you miss some thing if you play as the standard (un-custom option A) on everything..) male shep, you really don't get any feelings for that generic Doe that died for the 9th time.

Liked both games and but they streamlined the 2nd for general public mases to much for my taste... More guns to the heroes thank you... ;-)

 

[lolmynamewastaken]

Yes! femshep is the only way.

 

[DustyDrB]

Thank holy Christ! I played the demo for Mass Effect 2 twice (because I'm a PS3 bastard), once with Male Shep and once with Female Shep. And Jennifer Hale just blew Mark Meer out of the galaxy. Meer sounded more like he was reading the phone book to himself in a library when he was under fire in combat. Hale sounded like a gorram space marine. I wish no offence against Meer (the guy's pretty damn good elsewhere) but it's Hale for me every time. And that is not just my favouritism for Hale kicking in either (seriously, she's been involved in loads of my favourite cartoons as a kid. e.g. She was Numbah 86 in Codename: Kids Next Door!)

Actually, the marketing Shepard isn't even canon...
*image snip*

So why do they insist on going with the most generic grizzled space marine they could come up with? It just makes the game look generic. Especially to Joe Average who has never heard of Mass Effect.

Why, I happen to have another Priestly post for that question...

That post is specifically referring to Dragon Age II, but it also addresses Mass Effect. It's blunt, but I can't really argue with the truth of it.

Edit: And just so I don't seem like a weird Chris Priestly internet stalker, those are the only two posts I saved.

 

[GLo Jones]

I don't know why, but I just enjoy playing as FemShep so much more. Meer has such a deadpan tone, his voice never fucking changes.

 

[mattaui]

Bets on her cup size being at least an E, and generally fulfilling the 36-24-36 image?

Come on, we know Bioware treats all their female characters with enough respect to not sexualize them. I mean just look at Miranda!

In all seriousness that's one of the things that always struck me as odd about Mass Effect 2. Bioware doesn't seem to sexualize women but Miranda is handled horribly in that regard.

Look what they did to Ashley Williams.

Not exactly holding my breath over here.

Who cares, she's dead anyway because I sent her on the suicide mission so that she wouldn't compete for Kaiden's affections!

...I mean, she was the only one who could pull off the job, of course!

 

[MasterChief892039]

Where do people keep getting the idea that maleshep is canon? There is no canon Shepard, only the default Shep they use on the box art (which understandably ticked off the people for whom the box art didn't match their own personal idea of the Commander).

How is any such rage (if it indeed exists) even remotely justified? There are untold thousands (if not millions) of possible Shepard appearances. Unless Bioware let fans order a custom printed box (at a hefty fee) how would you actually expect them to produce a cover that happened to have your interpretation of the character plastered on the cover?

I don't think it makes sense to have Shepard on the cover at all. I think it would be entirely possible for a decent artist to make a compelling cover while sidestepped Shepard completely. Not only would that not interfere with people's personal characters, but it would also deter them from getting the silly idea that there's a "canon" in a game with thousands of forking conversations, decisions and plotlines.


Or, failing that, at least give us some variety. Mass Effect, Fable, and Dragon Age (2) all suffer from the same compulsion to put white, brown-haired men on their covers, despite having games where there is no true canon character. And I get it, the average gamer is 18-35, white and male, and they want to appeal to that audience by saying, "Hey look, it's you on the cover! Buy the game!"... but would you really not buy a game because it had a woman on the front? Or a black dude? Or an asian chick? Speaking from experience I can say it gets pretty tiresome having your own demographic constantly erased.