Bioware *clearly* hates women and wants them to suffer

[Trishbot]

I'm a girl. I banged Garrus. I loved every second of that awkward, interspecies intercourse. That ointment Mordin gave me sure was handy.

 

[ShakenBake]

Why does everyone hate Carth?
I had a great time romancing him. Also, Sky from Jade Empire. I thought they were both great characters and wish that there were more of them now.

In the ME and DA games, Anders is the only one I really cared for. I had wanted to romance him in DA Origins, but that wasn't an option. Luckily there was in DA2 - I liked him even though he was now very different.

Sky > Carth. They're both similarly tragic figures, but Sky dealt with his issues much better. He never forgot his sense of humor for one thing. And despite his painful past, he always had time and a sympathetic ear for your problems. All around great guy. Carth? He just stews in his cesspool of misery, wearing his hero status like a faded college jersey.

Still, I agree with you they're both way better than Bioware's recent offerings.

 

[Rayne870]

I disagree, as a male playing female characters I found the romances of Garrus, and Anders to be quite endearing. There are other options and they may not be the best, but hey not everyone is the best romantically in the real world.

 

[JMeganSnow]

I actually kind of like Kaiden (and Carth, his alter-ego). Probably my favorite Bioware romance was Valen (From Neverwinter Nights), though, and even he had a whine issue.

My favorite male Bioware characters, hands down, were both written by Mary Kirby, and you cannot romance either of them: Sten and Varric.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Yeah becuase

1.disabled people can't have relationships? and 2. It's okay to risk killing Tali? /sarcasm.

riiight....

Tali just ends up sick. Joker would end up a bag shattered femurs (and pelvis, ribs, arms...).

Yes but if you want to go straight by lore she has no immune system and as far as I remember but I might be wrong in this a fair portion of the Migrant Fleet was wiped out one time by a cold. It doesn't make sense from a purely lore stand point that she is an option so easily.

Joker got upgraded in ME2. Not gameplay upgrades, but bone upgrades from Cerberus. I think that if you can hold an assault rifle and escape a bunch of collectors you can hold your bones together for a kick shagging.

As I was talking about Tali and not Joker I think you wanted to quote CGAdam.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

This might seem kind of a strange thing to complain about, because I'm not actually a woman (it's true!), but what the HELL, Bioware, is up with these romantic leads for women in your games? They're intolerable. Male Shepards and Wardens and Hawkes have a panoply of riches to choose from. But women?

That's fine. But it means you need to work that much harder to provide evidence of a rather subjective claim.

Alistair is the cream of the crop because his simpering is occasionally amusing, but he's a polarizing character who is deeply loathed by half the player base.

Erm...not from what I've seen. On the fanbase opinion, that is. Even from my personal experience with him, he was well-voiced and ended up being a pretty good character.

Fenris wandered in from a questionable anime and clearly has some manner of magical leprosy.

The anime thing I can understand, but really? You're complaining about the magical tattoos?

Sebastian is a prim, bloodless bible thumper.

...I'm starting to sense that your complaints stem from the female protagonists not have a "real man" to satisfy them. Most of your comments seem to branch from the character not being a self-assured manly-man.

And the less said about Anders the better.

What, stuff like 'altruistic,' 'strongly-convicted,' that sort of thing?

Then we can move along to Mass Effect, where we have the unbearably fabulous Kaidan Alenko, who is almost certainly a moldering corpse on the surface of Virmire because Ashley is so goddam indispensable.

Meh. That's just a case of not living up to his distaff counterpart. It's hardly a demerit.

Thane, the utterly demoralizing and downbeat frog-man with his acid flashbacks and relentless fatalism.

Kinda with good reason, mate. You're looking at justified character traits that are meant to be flaws and condemning them for them. Part of the point is that through the romance, you work past them. Thane realizes that he has something to live for, for instance.

The entirely awesome Garrus, who is nevertheless a scaly and crusted anthropomorphic lizard and thus unlikely to bestir many hearts.

Okay, now I'm sure that you don't have a great impression of fanbase opinions.

Leaving us with Jacob, and was there ever a duller romantic lead than Jacob Taylor? They wasted so many development resources detailing his improbable pectorals they forgot to program him up a personality.

Jacob was hilarious. You're like the film critic who sits in during a showing of Plan 9 From Outer Space and complains about it while the rest of the theater is in stitches.

And the dialogue...oh lord, the dialogue. The droopy, sappy declarations of love. The bizarrely animated nocturnal fumblings. Shepard and Hawke, acting like sexual harassment lawsuits waiting to happen instead of flirting like normal human beings. It's all so EXCRUCIATING.

But...how does that fit with your overall complaints? "Bioware didn't dedicate enough to the boning animations, therefore sexism."

So please, Bioware, throw the Femhawkes and Femsheps a frickin' bone, will you? Where's their Morrigan? Or Ashley? Or Tali? or Jack? Or Miranda? Or Merrill?

Right...let me ask you this: what made those characters interesting? Presumably, their personality.

Now, I want you to take each of those characters and translate them into a male counterpart. I'm going to pretend that Morrigan wasn't on that list.

Tali: a timid 'nice guy' who constantly hopes that Shepard will notice the crush he has on her.

Jack: a burly, tattooed convict. Sociopathic tendencies and a veritable sex machine. Eventually reveals that it's all an act to conceal the frightened little boy inside him.

Miranda: an Aryan superman with a horrifying trouser bulge and abs that could stop a charging krogan. Eventually reveals that the genetic engineering that made him left him sterile, which he constantly states is a bad thing.

Merrill: a naive country boy prone to making adorable misinterpretations of the double-entendres being made by various other characters. Probably ends up being raped by the hulking, sex-crazed pirate, Ferdinand, who he made the poor choice to make his mentor.

Oh, right, and Ashley. I'm pretty sure that if she was redone as a male character, the sheer influence of her name would give 'her' a chin cut from marble and a chainsaw for a hand.

Whatever. My point is that even in matters that supposedly have nothing to do with gender, gender matters a lot. The things that made the female cast so good would do the exact opposite if applied to a male cast. Would ladies go for Jack, a character who couldn't look any more like a stereotypical prison rapist if he had it written next to his Aryan Brotherhood tattoo? Or Miranda, the ubermensch who spends the first half of the game lording over you with his perfect genes, and the second half complaining about them?

...Jesus, already, two of the characters are probably Nazis. That doesn't bode well. But do you see where I'm going with this?

Why do guys have a range of at least moderately interesting stock personality types to choose from, and girls get a choice of Blandy McBlanderson, Repulsive Alien, Raging Metrosexual, or Epic Douchebag?

I've got this weird feeling that if James Vega [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/James_Vega] is romancible, you'll go nuts for him. I'd say that you'd like a romancible Zaeed, but you'd probably write him off for being in his late forties.

That's another thing. Bioware doesn't write 'old' characters very well. Wynn had the body of a twenty year old, and Zaeed was significantly younger than he looked, as I recall. Oh well. Issue for another time.

Surely you can't expect ALL of them to become lesbians just to avoid weeping quietly into their pillows at the compromises they have to make to get that romance achievement?

I'm still astounded that you thought Garrus was somehow at a disadvantage because he wasn't human.

 

[Mark Hardigan]

So since you personally dislike the characterization of some of Bioware's female romance options, Bioware hates women? Really?

That's like accusing someone of sexism because they don't like to watch The View.

 

[trollnystan]

Garrus isn't repulsive. He's my waifu.

I agree with the statement above, only I'd use the word hasubando; Garrus is too manly to be called waifu =P

OT: Yes, the choices for romance in Bioware games can occasionally be slim pickins if you play female. Garrus is probably the best one of all them just because he wasn't meant to be a romance choice. And I'd love a choice to romance Joker. Mmmmm, don't worry Joker, I'll be gentle... *creepy leer*

Fun little rant all in all. Thank you for brightening my day =)

 

[Warlord211]

This is my problem with Anders. If you played the expansion for DA:O then if you're like me, Anders was one of your favorite characters. He was hilarious and interesting. Then they pull some really stupid bullshit in DA2 and make him this bleeding heart Mage's Rights activist who wasn't even remotely funny and was only there because of what he does in the third act. It pissed me off to no end. They took one of my favorite characters in the last game, completely changed his personality, then made him a douchebag to top it all off.

 

[Elysiumsw]

I thought Alistair was the bomb.

I WISH I could've had a romance with Varric (..I didn't like Anders.). And Varric was just funny as heck.

Out of Buldurs gate I would of rather started a romance with Minsc lol

 

[Beryl77]

To be fair, I didn't like the romances you could have as a male in Mass Effect Dragon Age either.
In Dragon Age, the only person I even tried to have a relationship with, was Morrigan, I didn't think any of the other women was actually interesting.
Mass Effect is even worse. I was really happy when I was able to send that annoying Ashley to her death in Virmire. Jack is just ugly and her character rather repulsive for a relationship. I never really got why everyone likes Tali so much and I'd rather shoot a bullet through my head than have a relationship with that stupid, annoying and smug Miranda.

 

[Volkov]

Bioware writers are atrocious. ESPECIALLY when character creation is concerned. This is not new.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Furious Rebuttals

So since you personally dislike the characterization of some of Bioware's female romance options, Bioware hates women? Really?

That's like accusing someone of sexism because they don't like to watch The View.

Well, guys, it was just a spot of fun, but you've got me dead to rights. If this had been an official thesis paper I'd be up against the wall.

And Char, you're right, I could probably easily have made a similar list of the female characters. But I don't feel that strongly about it, because my bizarre geas for digital crossdressing in Bioware games has kept me from playing through any of them as a male first hand (although I've watched my girlfriend go the Leliana and Miranda routes, and I romanced the HELL out of Aerie back in the day).

Really, though, this is not a serious examination of sexism in gaming, nor do I ACTUALLY THINK BIOWARE HATES WOMEN. Put down your pitchforks guys. Have a slice of pie. We're all friends here.

PS - I already admitted Garrus was awesome, but no, I do not really conceive of how someone might find him anything less than entirely repugnant to look upon. My friend's dog is awesome too. Doesn't mean I want to romance it.

 

[guitarsniper]

Problem with romancing Joker: he's obviously going to end up in a really strange but somehow adorable and awesome relationship with EDI. Don't argue, it's how i hope ME3 goes down, and that's that .
I have less of a problem with Bioware's writing of male characters with regards to romance and more of a problem with their approach to romance overall. Is it too much to ask that you get something more than "hey i kind of like you" "hey i kind of like you too" "let's bone" "not yet" "oh hey look it's the big ending scene we can bone now" "okay". I would have loved to have "date spots" on different worlds, getting a cutscene of my femshep and garrus just getting drinks and dancing like couples do sometimes, to get more the feel of a relationship rather than just push the buttons to get the sex scene.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

But the Priiiize!

Sorry, had to put it out there.

For that matter, how come we can't romance Wynne? Sure she's technically dead, but she'll knit your socks! Shale stomps chickens for us to eat! Oghren would make for a great drunken abusive relationship! Good lord, imagine if LadyHawke could romance Varric!

I got along with Wynne the best, anyway. I'd actually would have liked her to be a possible LI.

 

[ShakenBake]

How could any woman not want to romance Garrus? Guy's made out of pure awesome, and he's physically ribbed for your pleasure.

 

[kickyourass]

Very, very good for you sir, even though I actually like most of Bioware' male characters (Except Kaiden, my god, that man was so bland I literally have nothing to say about him he was just sorta, there) I can only really say I disagree with your point on Garrus. His sheer levels of pure awsome a more then enough to negate that whole, "he's a weird alien, lizard, bird, thing" he's got going.

 

[Catie Caraco]

As a female, I have to say your argument is a little.. um.. well, not entirely accurate.

Alistair = win. That's all there is to it. I have no problems romancing him ever, because I don't have a problem with his ethical standpoints. Where as when I played as a dude to romance Morrigan all of my choices made my flesh crawl. I like to make her nice when I play as her gal pal, but seriously... the woman's a bit psychotic on her own.

Zevran.. not so much, but I had fun with him. Besides, it's established in Dragon Age 2 (via an Anders/Isabela dialog) that v.d. can be cured via magic, so not really scared. He's gotta have tons of tricks up his sleeve, and we KNOW he knows lots of positions (via his crappy love scene, seriously, Bioware? It's like the kama sutra in 10 seconds w/ your underwear on. Oh, and his dialog w/ Alistair)

What you are right about: Kaiden and Jacob. Both have the personalities of cardboard cut outs, and Kaiden... just isn't hot. At least Jacob's got muscle mass.

Thane = adorable. Oh my god, the chemistry between him and fem!shep is amazing, and it's heartbreaking to boot. As someone who shipped the crap outta Cloud/Aeris in her youth, it's like crack to me.

Garrus = probably awkward, but his personality makes it worth the shot.



Also, re: Jacob and Old Spice - http://youtu.be/y1iiRLFROwM <-- if someone can make that work, more power to you. Def. worth a view