Commander Shepard is Female

[MasterChief892039]

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?

Just to clear something up - in the Shepard/Jacob thing, there are a number of options for what you can "share" with Jacob about yourself (either you're lonely, you have survivor guilt, or you feel burdened by command), or you can choose a neutral option and not share any emotions at all (either tell him it's none of his business or just say nothing)- the scene is still defined by the character and isn't any different from any other the chat options throughout the game. There is still choice, and if you don't want to share anything, you don't have to. Also the scene is very brief. At no point does Shepard become a "gushing ball of emotions".

I suggest you play as female Shepard. I played as my own gender the first time around, but then switched to the other because it's a whole nother part of the game. Why buy a game if you're only going to play half of it?

 

[Talvrae]

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.

I have read you

 

[LetalisK]

I don't like the standard male because he looks like one of the martians from Mars Attacks. The voice doesn't feel like it fits the face either.

 

[CJ1145]

Uh...Why not just let you choose your gender?

They do, except that in all the trailers, commercials, etc., Shepard is male. If you choose the standard Shepard option, he's male. In the canon, he's male.

Well they only do it in the trailers because they had to pick one gender to keep an established continuity in the promotions. However, it's still your story. If you think Shepard's female, then she is. If you think he's male, then he is.

And am I the only one that thinks Mark Meer did a great job? He was a little stale in the first game, I'll give you that. But the second time around he really was a lot better, and he showed improvement in most of his weak points.

 

[soren7550]

I disagree w/ the OP on some things, but overall I agree.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Uh...Why not just let you choose your gender?

They do, except that in all the trailers, commercials, etc., Shepard is male. If you choose the standard Shepard option, he's male. In the canon, he's male.

I asked about that, actually. I was visiting BioWare for a look at Mass Effect 2, and I suggested to Casey Hudson that perhaps in one of their demos, they could use a female Shepard. For me (and many others), it's a major selling point of the game. His response was "...but he's male in all of our marketing and on the box. How would you know it was Mass Effect?"

He's right, of course, but it's a bit disappointing just the same.

Jerks, to me Shepard is most definately female rather than Male, Male Commander Shepard is just a face on a box and has very, very little actual bearing on the character I actually see in the game.

The sad thing here is that Bioware or possibly EA clearly think of Shepard as more their character than the players, which sort of distorts the whole point of the series, players building their own story and all that rot. I'm worried that in Mass Effect 3, Female Shepard will be a complete after thought, ignored in favor of their marketing darling.

 

[xemnahort]

Not to mention love interests. I think that FemShep gets a little screwed over in this department. And finally, good pick for a profile pic. I love me some House!

Yep FemShep definitely gets the shaft while MaleShep just gets some.

 

[lumenadducere]

I definitely like Hale's voice acting better than Meer's. Meer's renegade lines can be decent, but Hale's is still superior IMO, and her paragon lines are miles better than Meer's, who delivers everything in the same monotone voice.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

The box art, trailers and associated media for Mass Effect 1 and 2 disagree.

 

[Omikron009]

I would have to disagree with you, simply because the Shepard on the box art for both games and in all of the promotional media and whatnot is male.

 

[Talvrae]

I would have to disagree with you, simply because the Shepard on the box art for both games and in all of the promotional media and whatnot is male.

Because they needed to show a character they decided to go with this apparence for the promotion... But Drew said many times... It'S your story, your decision... you decide what gender Shepard is... You want him to be male, fine for you... but there is no canon

 

[Druyn]

Uh...Why not just let you choose your gender?

They do, except that in all the trailers, commercials, etc., Shepard is male. If you choose the standard Shepard option, he's male. In the canon, he's male.

I think thats because that was established during the marketing for Mass Effect 1. YEs, you could choose characters, but I think male protagonists tend to sell a bit better. But dont hold me to that, Im just assuming, and really have no idea.

Anyways, switching inbetween games, making shepherd female in either ME2 or ME3, would throw everything off and be a bit confusing. It would be like having a totally different protagonist. Imagine looking at the box art for ME3. Most people would go, look, see a woman on the box, and be like "WTH, WHos that? WHat happened to shepherd?"

Its just marketing, and continuity through the series.

 

[xemnahort]

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

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

It's so simple. ARE YOU LISTENING BIOWARE?

 

[xemnahort]

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

Finally someone understands. Give an asari for both genders and everybody wins. Asari FTW.

 

[Talvrae]

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

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

It's so simple. ARE YOU LISTENING BIOWARE?

I dont have a clue what you are talking about

 

[KarumaK]

All very interesting and poetic, shows possibilities and paths not taken yadda yadda.

But no, the Commander is male by default just how it is doesn't really matter move on with life.

 

[DominicxD]

We've already established that the Male Shepard is cannon because he appears in the trailers.

It's not like it matters anyway, the choices in the game are yours to make.

 

[McNinja]

Let's go over this.

Or at least should be. Allow me to explain.

Slight spoilers ahead.

No.

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.

I actually never cared much. I'm a male, so I preferred male Shepard.

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.

That's assuming someone wanted to romance Jacob in the first place, so many people don't even know about that. Also, shouldn't you already know how Shepard tick? Shepard is your character, defined by the actions you make. Female Shepard is female, and they like talking about their feelings a lot more than guys do.

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.

Same goes for the female.

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.

How did they not? She's the female lead in an awesome game. I'm assuiming this is tied into the next one.

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.

Ok. Starting last: Then males would have just picked male Shepard instead. As many people have said, most gamers are male, and males (generally) like being badass dudes.

I don't get what you're getting at. She is the female protagonist. I do agree that if there was a female on the box art more women would be playing the game, but it would have turned off more men, and men are the vast majority of gamers.

female Shepard is exactly what the male character is, because she quite literally is. The same lines, same actions, everything. It all boils down to who is playing, and as I said before, men wouldn't care, they'd just choose a guy. Most of us, anyway.

 

[Divine Miss Bee]

Most gamers in the shooter/rpg genre are males. Therefore, the default is male. Simple as that.

right, but i think his point is that perhaps THAT'S where innovation in gaming lies (instead of stupid gimmicks like kinect).

it makes sense-in shooters with little hand-to-hand combat (in which there is a lot of gender inequality), there's no realism lost over which gender is pulling a trigger. a female shepard doesn't affect anything, except to open up a bit more story. so, why not?