What makes BioWare games so great? Good storytelling and the options you have to affect it, yes? KOTOR is still as good as the day I first bought it, or the like, ten times afterwards because the CD's got ruined or I lost them. Excellent characters create an immersive world leading up to memorable events. Where were you when you found out you were Darth Revan? I was clutching my desk chair with my mouse hand tucked under my arm, screaming "That's not true! That's impossible!"
Unfortunately some of these great moments can be lost by what ought to be a few relatively easy fixes that are the bread-and-butter of BioWare gameplay. This is going to be a long post, so if you don't feel like reading I won't waste your time. Option for heterosexual/homosexual or BI at the outset of the game, in the character screen. That seems like a pretty important aspect of a character, so why not just put the option in there? Disable it for childproofing if you have to, like that would matter, although the ESRB probably feels differently.
Secondly, quit fudging the romance options in favor of "heterosexual male/female." Why? The fact that these are RPGs should be reason enough, but I will go into detail to explain. That is all the required reading. Peruse the rest at your leisure or share your own stories.
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So, I'm about a white-bread as they come. I actually am a heterosexual male and I am capable of playing exactly one class- human/Paladin/Paragon/ whatever, if it ain't blue, it ain't true. I can't think any other way. I was raised military, took all the training to heart, especially the part about protecting innocents. It's so bad that I actually had some trouble adapting to the Marines when I joined. Not the service, the people. Some officers used to make me perform all sorts of meaningless tasks just to see if I would actually do them. Then they'd laugh and ask why I was so eager to please. Not eager to please in they way they thought, just disciplined. One does not disobey lawful orders from superiors. Discipline counts for more than all else on the field. Did I say white bread? I meant stale white bread. Boring as they come.
I could go on, but that's enough of my life story save one quirky bit. I play female characters exclusively in third-person RPGs. Oh, exciting! Is it some perversion? Am I secretly gay? Do I want to be a woman? No, it's just that if I have to stare at somebody's backside for thousands of hours, I prefer it to be a woman's. I've tried it the other way round during the lovely military traditions known as the forced march, and the formation. Men's posteriors are not especially fascinating to begin with, and I'm downright sick of them after that.
Unfortunately, like most men, I've never been a woman and am not able to think like one. The closest I've ever come to understanding a woman's mind was a few dalliances with female Marines who think like Marines. Therefore, all my female characters are just a more pleasant-looking version of my male character, and hence, are all lesbians. I'm a dumb drone of the species. If one girl is good, two girls would be better. It's math. Now this is the part where options would really come in handy. If you're still tracking, thanks for reading.
In KOTOR, Bastila was central to the plot, and I was immediately interested. Hot chick who can fight voiced by Jennifer Hale? Sold. Only not, because you can't romance her as a female. Lame! Then in the sequel the options were great; hooray for Handmaiden, and hope for more choices, though no doubt some poor gay guy was left out for not getting to romance Atton or something. Lame! I have no dislike for gays. I try to find gay friends wherever possible. Two strategic advantages in them. (A) They are less competition for me, and (
I can send Girlfriend off with them whenever she becomes annoying. Can you believe that I once thought I had to go to the mall with Girlfriends and give them fashion advice? What a joke that was. To me, the height of fashion is the utility uniform, and while they seemed to appreciate the effort, they all ended up looking like soldiers. I'm boring like that.
Anyway, this whole deal started really becoming a problem for me with Mass Effect. Ashley Williams. Unremarkable character. Soldier. Good Christian girl who can fight. Sold. Don't care if she has the personality of a well-shaped rock, rocks are good. Negative points for having the loyalty of a common hamster, not even a space-hamster. Space-hamster always believed in me. Still acceptable, not an option. I can deal with that, but the immersive quality of the story broke down at a crucial point in the game because of the aforementioned gender prejudice.
Choose between saving Kaidan or Ash. Lives in your hands, the lives of friends. Which will you sacrifice? Powerful stuff, but not for me. Kaidan made the fatal mistake of hitting on my femshep. If I'd had a second nuke, I'd have dropped that on him just to make sure he was dead. As I said, I'm the dumb drone of the species. The only thing memorable about the moment was that it began a long abstinence streak for my character. Not romancing Liara, not into Hentai and also not Captain Kirk. You can't just color a chick blue and tell me that's hot. Not dealing with Kelly, who seems more like a hippy I would kill, and I don't like redheads. I can say that with impunity, I'm half-Scottish and the redheaded half of my family is a royal pain. Only Samara piqued my interest at all, and only for her infallible idealism and hauntingly beautiful Paragon eyes. Even if she had been an option, I would never dare touch something so pure for fear of spoiling it.
There were other moments that broke the immersion as well, due to more sexism. As I said, my characters are based on me and what I understand of female Marines. That joke the Batarian merc made about Femshep looking for the stripper's quarters would have ended in extreme violence. There are times when I still regret the decision to allow female Marines into front-line service because I'm not entirely sure that people know what they are unleashing. You think Krogan are bad? Ha! Kudos to BioWare for at least acknowledging that Shepard has a quint. Whatever the outcome, a female Marine will probably have more balls than you do if you ****** her off.
Finally, we had ME3, with my one romance option of Traynor. Because all women want pretty houses with white picket fences and five-thousand-credit toothbrushes? Lame. Can't fight, can't so much as hold a weapon, and can't even recognize the real Shepard. I'm no woman, but I know they tend to get upset when you can't remember the most trivial crap, like their birthdays or whatever. I don't remember my birthday half the time, but I digress.
Dragon Age also had its share of immersion-breaking moments to begin with. Alistair is the first example I offer. Who doesn't think Alistair is a great guy? He's funny, he's natural, and he's the underdog people tend to identify with to boot. So imagine my dismay at having to turn him down after that bit with the flower. It was memorable, sure, but in the wrong way.
DA2 was even worse, with Anders and his fumbling. I never liked him much to being with. He was like a warmed-over Alistair, but with less tact, and no Templar-ness. And an actual idiot. If anyone was ever not getting into my character's armor, it was him. Still, he tries to force the romance unless you flat-out turn him down, which unbelievably, is a thing he is resentful for. There is no option to explain that you're homosexual (or a man in a woman's body) you just get the heel for something that is not your fault. See why I don't hate gays?
If it were at all possible, I'd have pegged Morrigan from the get-go. Not for her clothes, nor her appearance (she has Scutt Farcus eyes) nor her magey-nonsense, but for Claudia Black being an authoritative-sounding badass. It's ironic that her voice is one of a peace-monger who seems to love art. Still, anything worth having is worth working for, and Morrigan makes you work for it like a boss.
And finally we get to Inquisition, where once again I am hobbled by lame choices. We've got Princess Prissypants Du Hot Shots Part Deux, and an elf. The human leader of the inquisition, the Herald of Andraste Herself, cannot be seen messing about with an elf. Well, maybe she can, but I also dislike short women. And elves. It's a personal thing. Everyone loves elves for some unknowable reason. Tolkien elves, anyway. You should try being one if you love them so much. I'm tall and I've the ears for it. It sucks. My own personality doesn't seem to matter one whit to Dungeon Masters, or Marines or just the general populace, especially women. One alliterative allusion or flowing fragment of a sentence and everyone assumes that I'm an elf at heart. Is it my crime to be well-spoken? Am I an elf because I am good with the horses? I'm not an elf, I'm a human Paladin and that's all there is to it. I don't even like nature, and again, you can experience it for yourself if you think it so great. A few weeks of SEAR training will cure you of that. Nature sucks. Humans are great because they can make better nature.
Well, I've gone on long enough, I think, for you to get some idea of my character perspective, but I look forward to hearing your own. Regardless of what it may be, and whether I agree with it or not, I'm sure we can all agree that more freedom of choice is a good thing. You don't want to end up like me, a simple Marine with a simple doctrine that cannot be disobeyed. More choice, fewer assumptions, and a handy tool to eliminate the complexity of programming paths for BioWare. Your thoughts? And again, thank you for reading.
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