Editorial On FemShep's Popularity In Mass Effect

[Volourn]

FemShep is 'popular' because 20% of players played her? That doesn't even make sense. What did 80% of the other players played? MaleShep. Seems to me MaleShep was way more popular.

EPIC FAIL IS EPIC FAIL by peons who FAIL at simple mathz.

 

[SoupNazi]

The speech in ME1 when you take command of the Normandy after Anderson is relieved of duty is the only memorable moment of both games, and it's only that good with FemShep, otherwise it's bland and even annoying.

 

[Elhoim]

Really. Mark Meer's voice acting is terrible.

 

[dr. one]

personally, I blame Gothic.

and yes, article is redundant because Hale it is.

(correct me if I'm wrong, but people BAWWW'ed over the fact that the protagonist is silent in Dragon Age).

hm, i´d say people thought the game contains too much filler combat and people thought origin stories were a nice touch. as far as general consensus goes, that´s just about it imo.
all these other "people" seem to be more on the imaginary side, serving devs as means to introduce the new exciting direction their game is heading without having to bother mentioning true motivations.

 

[Sceptic]

People are bitching about whatever they can bitch. They even bitched about Morrigan.

I don't see the relation between the two sentences.

 

[Derpy]

Actually, voice acting for me is a secondary concern. It has more to do with the following:

1. Shepard as a bloke is a very, very ordinary character. He's just Generic Space Hero #3251. He could be Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, James T Kirk, Lee Adama or a hundred other more forgettable creations. Nothing male Shepard does as a man is particular big or clever because let's face it, he's not the first guy to save the universe. There is nothing about his role as a male character that is interesting, exciting or new. He is a cliche.

2. Shepard as a woman is not a cliche in the same way as manshep is. Traditionally science fiction heroines are almost always second fiddle to a male lead (Wilma Deering, Princess Leia, new BSG Starbuck) but Femshep is ruling the roost. That in and of itself sticks her in a very small group alongside the likes of Ripley and Janeway. So you've got this female character and that's great but then you've got the fact that, by being written effectively as a slightly feminised version of an essentially male character you've actually got a proper female commander. The fact is by writing her almost as a man they've pretty much nailed what a female soldier ought to be like, it's the very fact she's not written particularly feminine that makes the character work so well. That isn't to say that the character isn't convincing as a woman though, what I mean is that she is more convincing than if they had set out with a female Shepard in mind from the get go.

3. If you look at female characters in video games what do you see? T&A. Heaving breasts, skimpy costumes, an inability to jump, climb or take a punch without emitting a breathy little sigh and very little else. Hell even Mass Effect 2 itself can't get away from this. Shepard however is different. I mean sure she can be hot depending how good you are at building faces, but it doesn't define the character. She's a strong female character that doesn't need to resort to simply being eye candy. The fact that Femshep is so closely tied to the role of Manshep is essentially what saves her from turning into adolescent toss fodder.

4. The female character perspective works really well. There's more to the relationships with the female crew members than crude attempts to get into their pants. Femshep is a big sister to Tali, a confidant to Miranda, a surrogate daughter to Samara, rather than just a bloke trying to get some. They dropped the ball in my opinion with Jack's relationship with Femshep, in that she doesn't have one, but meh.

I think you can look at the Mass Effect and it's pretty clear that it's very much a product of a male fantasy. The only races that get to be ugly are near exclusively male when it comes to which species you can meet, the one race that is apparently female happens to be hot and like nothing more than going to war in skin tight catsuits and table dancing, it's all a bit juvenile. There's nothing wrong with that, it's a fantasy setting after all, but amid all that to actually find a female character that actually feels mature and grown up is a welcome break. If anything I think Mass Effect 1 did this better, Ash was a stronger female character than any of the ME2 batch and the game wasn't shy about letting the female characters dress appropriately for combat.

 

[Derpy]

FemShep is 'popular' because 20% of players played her?

Errr... no since the stats for FemShep weren't provided. "80% played as male Shephard"...you're presuming 80% played as male Shephard "exclusively". The stats are misleading because there was no context provided for proper interpretation.

 

[Jack]

God, you're such a bore.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

So you've got this female character and that's great but then you've got the fact that, by being written effectively as a slightly feminised version of an essentially male character you've actually got a proper female commander.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I tried out the male Shepard and was amazed how bland he made everything, because he's basically MASTAR CH1EF clone #234234. Having a female commander felt refreshing.

 

[circ]

Hale's voice goes off into comical territory about mid way through ME2. It's like she doesn't even care anymore. It was pretty solidly kickass take nametags voice all throughout ME1. Too bad BW can't get any talent in other areas.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

So a boring male characters immediately becomes interesting when you turn him into a woman? I'm gonna have to write that one down.

Hale's voice goes off into comical territory about mid way through ME2. It's like she doesn't even care anymore. It was pretty solidly kickass take nametags voice all throughout ME1.

I wouldn't say that but the dialogue Bio wrote for Shepard is very bad.

 

[Serious_Business]

Fuck you guys, Male Shepperd is where it's at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PjTuSQNLI4

My opinion is the one that matters!

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

[Luzur]

i dunno guys, alot of you sounds like perfect tranny material, just get the dress and wig on and go clubbing already.

just set the voice volume to 0 or do like me, dont play the game at all.

 

[Cassidy]

I know there has been a shortage of good Sci-fi movies, but sometimes a few ones of average quality come here and there. Even a so-so movie like Pandorum delivers a better experience than the "cinematic with popamole minigames" bullshit of Mass Effect.

Wait, I forgot again that Codex, Codex has changed.

 

[Jaesun]

Male Shep is totally hot. Anyways carry on.

 

[ironyuri]

A distilled reason is Because It Is Expected. There's been a rebellion against the silent protagonist (Link is perhaps now the only holdout), but really - protagonist voice - and full voiced dialogue in general - has now become a fully expected part of games. If you DON'T have it, there's the danger of an audience believing your game looks and feels unpolished (correct me if I'm wrong, but people BAWWW'ed over the fact that the protagonist is silent in Dragon Age).

Mind you, I'm not saying this is right or that I agree at all - I'm just saying it's the prevailing opinion in many circles, and one of those circles seem to be the publishers, so there you go.

Is the ubiquitous Gordon Freeman of Valve's Half Life not a Silent Protagonist?

And is the Half Life series not considered by many PC Gaming magazines to be the "best" series of games in history?

The silent protagonist as unpolished thesis doesn't hold up when you look at games like Half Life and Bioshock, both games sold massively and have not been baww'ed over because of a silent protagonist. Oblivion, KotOR and Fallout 3's protagonists were all silent as well, so the same can be said for RPGS.

The problem is likely more structural than anything else- Mass Effect has cinematic dialogue sequences in which the protagonist is shown from a third person perspective and so is removed from the player- the player controls the protagonist inasmuch as what the protagonist says, but the characterisation of the protagonist is pre-determined, manner of speech, attitude, etc.

In all the other silent protagonist games you embody the protagonist even in dialogue, which is usually in first person; in the isometric rpgs the system is slightly different, but one could argue Fallout 1 and 2's talking heads system worked similarly in that for major dialogues you took the place of the protagonist in the conversation rather than the character model on the screen.

When dialogue is conducted in first person there is a tendency to voice the protagonist in your own voice in your own head, so no need for voice; you are the protagonist in the dialogue and therefore do not need to hear another voice to suspend disbelief. Enter Mass Effect and the 3rd person dialogue system in which you are taken out of the protagonist's head and enter "choose your own adventure" dialogue system which then plays out cinematics based on your choices; you are no longer the protagonist therefore s/he needs to be fully voiced for you to continue to suspend disbelief.

(A silent character model from 3rd person perspective standing in dialogue completely silent while being responded to would look completely off.)

So I'd argue it's more a structural element of how dialogue is implemented that effects whether nor not full voice acting is required.

 

[Sceptic]

(A silent character model from 3rd person perspective standing in dialogue completely silent while being responded to would look completely off.)

Doom 3 and Quake 4 were perfect exampe of this. To be honest so's Freeman to be honest: unlike other "silent" protagonists like KOTOR/DAO/etc, he's not silent because there is no speech, he's silent because everyone talks at him and he... just nods I guess. It makes the whole thing completely stupid.

 

[circ]

Pandorum started great. But it declined. Still it was partly fun.

 

[ironyuri]

(A silent character model from 3rd person perspective standing in dialogue completely silent while being responded to would look completely off.)

Doom 3 and Quake 4 were perfect exampe of this. To be honest so's Freeman to be honest: unlike other "silent" protagonists like KOTOR/DAO/etc, he's not silent because there is no speech, he's silent because everyone talks at him and he... just nods I guess. It makes the whole thing completely stupid.

I guess that's what makes Duke Nukem quite unique amongst FPS protagonists as well.

You play through the eyes of Duke but you are never "roleplaying" Duke Nukem. He is a pre-defined character, you don't choose when he will spout lines lilke "Bitchin'!" or "I'm gonna rip off your head and shit down your neck!"

And then at the end of each level you get a cinematic of Duke doing what Duke said he was going to do. He's far from a silent first person protagonist.

For Shephard, like Duke, the characterisation is completely pre-determined. You don't build the character, s/he is already pre-determined. You just decide which end of the Shephard scale the character will be at at any given point in a dialogue. So you can go from renegade Shep to Paragon Shep in the space of two lines.

 

[Azrael the cat]

So a boring male characters immediately becomes interesting when you turn him into a woman? I'm gonna have to write that one down.
.

Legions of 80s commentary criticising 'strong' female roles for resembling roles written male that happen to be played by females aside, it isn't that crazy. The easiest (and yes, lowliest) way to make a one-dimensional character slightly less irritatingly one-dimensional is to cast someone that is physically the opposite of the cliche the writer implies.

Edit: and yes, I'm well aware that listing arguments that undercut my claim, and putting the word 'aside' after them, doesn't ACTUALLY rebut those arguments.

 

[Drakron]

Hale's voice goes off into comical territory about mid way through ME2.

Yes because CLEARLY the script is written from the start to finish without ANY change.
Same with recording.

Oh wait ...

... What is comical is you dumbfucks doing the "haters got to hate" in order to belong in the Codex, as much sheep as the people you accuse of being sheep.

This goes to all the dumbfucks on this tread, ME2 is terrible RPG but its a good game.

 

[anus_pounder]

I want a buck rogers remake. or not, i dunno, depends on whose doing it.

 

[Achilles]

So a boring male character immediately becomes interesting when you turn him into a woman?

Case in point:

 

[Andyman Messiah]

So a boring male character immediately becomes interesting when you turn him into a woman?

Case in point:

Touch, eh?

Legions of 80s commentary criticising 'strong' female roles for resembling roles written male that happen to be played by females aside, it isn't that crazy. The easiest (and yes, lowliest) way to make a one-dimensional character slightly less irritatingly one-dimensional is to cast someone that is physically the opposite of the cliche the writer implies.

True, but Commander Shepard is a very boring character no matter the gender. I guess I'm one of them assholes who don't think the character's gender should matter, like ever. Male, female, scotsmanlady... centaur, I dunno. That's just a detail in my opinion. Of course, I just saw Nintendo utterly destroy Samus Aran and the entire Metroid franchise in what I guess is their (stupid) attempt at making her more "feminine", so I'm not really into the male or female thing right now, no matter if it's positive (which it never is). The tough as nails bounty hunter Samus Aran is now an insecure, very vulnerable mess and in dire need of strong manly arms to hug her and make the self-doubt go away.

But whatever. The very idea that Bioware is at the forefront of making strong, 'manly' heroines is absolute news to me, because Female Shep was never a priority. She was absolutely just shoehorned into the game because you have to have the alternative of playing the other sex, even if there's virtually no difference other than who you're going to fuck when the game's drawing to an end. The one and only thing Bio did in Female Shep's favour was to bring in Jennifer Hale, a simply awesome voice actress.

Lastly, a more effective way of two-dimensionalizing Shepard, rather than just turning him into a her, would actually be to get rid of the human and cast one of the less ridiculous human species. The space prostitutes are out since they're really just humans with a paint job and a bicycle helmet.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Or just let me play as Garrus, since he's supposed to be a Shepard-in-training of sorts already so they could even use the same lines, just exchanging "Shepard" for "Vakarian" (which would mean substituting 80% of the game's text).