Commander Shepard is Female

[Talvrae]

Pretty sure the canon Shep is Male Soldier. Just look at the front covers of both games.

At risk to repeting my self
There is no Canon... Drew Kapynky said numerous times that there is no Canon for Shepard story or gender, he is what you what s/he is...
Even if the comic book where Liara try to find Shepard body one of the character of the comic comment that he could not tell if the corpse in the cofin was male or female...
The character of the cover is the default one they needed one... but there is no canon choice

 

[JohnDoey]

No problem playing a female but I would rather play a male lead in most games like mass effect.

 

[Mstrswrd]

She's probably the best voice actor of all time. Look her up if you want to see what all she's done. It's an impressive list.

I would respectfully disagree, though, you are right, she has done a large amount of work (some of which I went to youtube to find clips of just to hear, and it was very, very good). I would place her in the top 5 for English voice actors, though. I don't know who I put as number 1; probably someone who did a lot of voice acting from about 40 or so years ago (like the voice of Bugs Bunny), if only because nowadays, voice acting is actually respected, so getting a good performance out of the voice actors is expected for them to earn their pay, while about 40 years ago, it was looked down upon, so getting anything of quality was rare, and to be respected, you had to be so good as to force your detractors to admit, begrudingly, that you were indeed skilled, and should be respected as an actor.

It's mostly semantics, I guess, but there it is.

 

[Mcface]

Or at least should be. Allow me to explain.

Slight spoilers ahead.

The first and most obvious reason I can give, is that Jennifer Hale is a better voice actor than Mark Meer. She can lend a much stronger humanity and flexibility to her portrayal than Meer ever could. Sure, male Shepard sounds great when he's making heroic lines or threatening people, but he just doesn't cut it on the human side of things. Jennifer Hale pulls off both and shines doing it.

She's probably the best voice actor of all time. Look her up if you want to see what all she's done. It's an impressive list.

The second reason is because of the romance with Jacob Taylor in Mass Effect 2. If you get into that, Jacob asks Shepard to share her problems. There are a couple of possible answers, but each of them lend a humanity to the Shepard character that simply isn't present anywhere else. There are other romance plots with emotion, true, but none of them give much of a glimpse into what makes the commander tick.

I think Commander Shepard should have been female from the beginning. Yeah, Mark Vanderloo is a great model for the standard Shep, but what's there is pretty much a standard RPG cutout character.

And on another argument entirely, I feel like Bioware should have given Jennifer Hale the spotlight here. She's done a lot for Bioware. I'm not saying Bioware did anything wrong, just that it would have cool.

And finally, a female protagonist like Shepard would have gone miles for the current big-breasted Lara Croft stereotype prevalent in gaming today. She's exactly what the male character is. It's a powerful argument that video games aren't the sexist things that some people seem to think they are.

I don't want people to think I'm complaining; I'm not. I love Mass Effect. I just think it may have turned out better if they had chosen a female face for the standard Shepard.

Anyway, please, let's discuss this.

Female Shepards voice sounds manlier than male Shepard. And her eyes are retarded. So no..

 

[Nickisimo]

I don't find either VA in the Mass Effect series to be all that memorable. I think part of it has to do with the fact that they need to be as culturally and ethnically generic as possible to accommodate as many backgrounds and play-styles as possible. The end result is that the supporting cast(Joker, Ashley, Mordin, etc) end up stealing the show.

It's tough because I like to see developers trying to move away from the mute heroes of the past, but I still don't know how well it's been pulled off yet. Mass Effect has been the best effort in that department that I've seen and yet it does kinda feel like choosing between "Niceguy McGalaxySaver" and "Bitchy von Capbuster".

It's really funny to go back and hear Jennifer Hale do E.E. from MGS2 after Shepard. Hale also has the dubious distinction of replacing Mei Ling's fantastic voice from MGS in the Twin Snakes port. Blech.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Shepard is male on the box, in the trailers ect. The character is written so that it can be both, but if you wanted to define something as canon, Shepard would be a male soldier class with a buzzcut. However, the whole point of mass effect is to create a unique experience for every playthrough, and choosing your Shepard's gender and attitude is part of that.

I'll admit, the VA for shepard is very clean cut and bland. I think bioware wanted to make the character voices generic, so that it would be more relatable, but they overshot it a bit when casting the male Shepard. The reason he's male in the "canon" is probably just because most gamers are, and so a placeholder character might as well be as generic as possible in respect to its general audience.

As for the "romance with Jacob" thing, there's a few things wrong with that.
1. Shepard doesn't need to show "humanity" because his/her personality is supposed to be defined by you. You choose what makes him/her tick. I haven't played as a girl, because I'm not female, and I want my Shepard to be as close to me as possible, but I would assume that introducing outside psychology to Shepard would detach me from the character more, unless it just so happens to be concurrent with my personality.
2. Traditionally, guys are less emotional than girls, or rather, they tend to hide their emotions more. Yes it's a stereotype, but the purpose of Shepard is, again, to be projected onto, and putting male gamers into a situation where Shepard is a gushing ball of emotions would be unrelatable to many people, especially those who want shepard to be a cold hearted killer or a suave playboy.
3. Might I remind you that Shepard is supposed to be a hardass marine in the first place?

Though all of this is irrelevant anyways. If you like the female Shepard better, play as her. If you're complaining that the default Shepard is male, you're just kind of making a big deal out of something that really shouldn't bother you anyways.

 

[Jzolr0708]

I really have to disagree here. I have beaten the game twice so far, once doing what was completely natural to me myself, and once doing mostly douchebag-ish things. And honestly, I liked male shepard better A LOT. Now, whenever I would do a renegade action on Male Shepard, he would emit this tone of voice, this half sneering half jesting sound that made every renegade action that he did make it seem like he was really a renegade; he would push you off a cliff and shoot you in the face just for the laughs, and would have no problem breaking a regulation or two to do what he felt was best. And no matter how bad I felt when I would let a innocent/ semi innocent person die, Male Shepards voice always made it sound like my victim deserved exactly what was coming to them.

When I played as my Female Shep, it just didn't seem natural. It sounded unnatural, as though she wasn't doing the actions because they were right, she was doing them just to be a douche.

As for the Paragon actions, Im neutral. Male Shepard and Female Shepard both deliver them with the same sort of lack of emotion or caring.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Yes Jennifer Hale is a fantastic voice actor but Commander Shepard will always be a Male to me. Although if they do decide to make a movie or what not and they make Shepard Female in it, I won't complain it'll still be an epic story.

basically this. sums up entirely what i was thinking

Here's the one flaw I see in your argument: people don't base their entire stories and characters around whose voice they're going to use for the part.
unless your name is Nolan North...

cookie to you. good one.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think the female Shepard is infinitely more interesting than the male version. I thought the same thing about female Revan in KoToR. It's just so much more compelling to have a strong, yet vulnerable, female character as the hero in an epic adventure, and frankily, I think Bioware writes their women better than their men, for the most part.

Honestly, that is a HUGE compliment to them, and they really ought to take advantage of that more by making some of their default heroes female. But perhaps it would scare off some part of their market, I don't know.

wait what..revan doesn't talk in kotor? so what makes either one better than the other?




OT: FOR THE MOST PART (i dont think im included in this) most males like to play males, especially when it involves a badass like commander shepherd, and being as that most gamers are males, i've noticed especially when it comes to rpg's (at least with alot of the people i know and have observed) they are going to obviously appeal to the majority first, at least for box art and whatnot.

 

[aristos_achaion]

I can't stand femi sheps voice to me it doesn't sound human...

It doesn't sound human? I mean, she sounds like a rather throaty alto, but I find her voice acting quite convincing. +1 for female canon Shepard.

Not to mention, having a female action hero for once would be nice.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Samus Aran, female Shepard, Bastila Shan, Trinity in The Matrix Path of Neo, Jennifer Mui from Mercenaries, and Aayla Secura from the Clone Wars cartoon are the all the same person.

Don't forget Emma Emmerich. And Naomi Hunter. When Hale puts on the accent, she sounds more convincingly British than most British people do.

However, even though she's a very talented voice actress, I did notice her trying sometimes. As in, sometimes her attempts to come across as intimidating, end up just sounding unnatural. Needs some practice playing tough chicks. Though even at her worst, Jennifer Hale's better than most.

 

[aristos_achaion]

OT: FOR THE MOST PART (i dont think im included in this) most males like to play males, especially when it involves a badass like commander shepherd, and being as that most gamers are males, i've noticed especially when it comes to rpg's (at least with alot of the people i know and have observed) they are going to obviously appeal to the majority first, at least for box art and whatnot.

I dunno...I think this falls into the same category of media myth that lead early record companies never to give females contracts because "only girls buy records". Or given Hollywood the strange idea that women can never talk to each other except about a guy.

Seriously, I think us guys are to the point that, as long as the person on the front of the box is badass and heavily armed, whether it's a guy or a girl. I imagine most guys do default to playing guys...given that's usually the default choice and the female lead has a funny way of having awful romance options (remember Carth? Creepy, whiny SOB) and afterthought dialog. But most guys I know immediately restarted Mass Effect as a female Shepard, given that her voice acting was amazing, whereas the guy sounded laughable.

 

[Hat of Controversy]

I didn't read the whole thing, because you lost me when you said Jennifer Hale is a better voice actor. Both actors are very bland in the Mass Effect games; it's quite astonishing really, because the other actors are very good. I dunno, it's almost like the Shepards are trying to be bland.

It's probably because they're trying to make their voices appeal to the largest audience, which would explain their generic/bland/flavorless voicing.

Imagine if they used a voice like Chris Rock's or Whoopi Goldberg or something. Yeah it's got more "flavor" or "edge", but I doubt that the average gamer would approve.

Crack-A'-Lackin'!

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

OT: FOR THE MOST PART (i dont think im included in this) most males like to play males, especially when it involves a badass like commander shepherd, and being as that most gamers are males, i've noticed especially when it comes to rpg's (at least with alot of the people i know and have observed) they are going to obviously appeal to the majority first, at least for box art and whatnot.

I dunno...I think this falls into the same category of media myth that lead early record companies never to give females contracts because "only girls buy records". Or given Hollywood the strange idea that women can never talk to each other except about a guy.

Seriously, I think us guys are to the point that, as long as the person on the front of the box is badass and heavily armed, whether it's a guy or a girl. I imagine most guys do default to playing guys...given that's usually the default choice and the female lead has a funny way of having awful romance options (remember Carth? Creepy, whiny SOB) and afterthought dialog. But most guys I know immediately restarted Mass Effect as a female Shepard, given that her voice acting was amazing, whereas the guy sounded laughable.

thats where we differ, on paragon choices i think they were about even on the VA, but on the renegade badass side the male shepherd sounded way better and i was way more immersed, while female shep sounded like she was FORCED to do the renegade decision, not like it was natural

 

[I Max95]

hell i dont care
as long as i can be a male i see no reason why it should matter who gets the spotlight
and Mark Meer IS a terrible actor from what i hear of Hale she is actually pretty good

 

[guntotingtomcat]

Call me immature, but three words:
Lesbian-Sex-Win

 

[Vrex360]

I can see where your coming from, but personally I prefer the male Shepard. Largely this might just be because the male Shepard is clearly the 'default' and if you factor in the Ashley/Shepard romance something about the way she was fit into the plot seemed designed to be for a male Shepard.

 

[Ava Elzbieta]

OT: Why can't we have Schrödinger's Shepard? Both male AND female!

That's the most sensible thing I've heard all day.

 

[Deviltongue]

Dude, the reality is that the gaming demo is 18 to 35 year old white males. So rarely will you see a female protagonist(Unless she is oozing sex appeal) or a racially varied protagonist because that's not who they're trying to sell their games to.

NOTE: I'm on like the 4th page so I doubt anyone will read my astute observation.