280 réponses à ce sujet

[drakkan1021]

Monglor wrote...

I always play as the female Shepard. Makes the character a hell of a lot more interesting. Comes down to a few things:

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.

This. You really spared me some writing.

[Fhaileas]

Monglor wrote...

I always play as the female Shepard. Makes the character a hell of a lot more interesting. Comes down to a few things:

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.

Bravo Monglor! Very well put indeed!

[SarEnyaDor]

I don't think our ages are on our profiles for one (I may be incorrect on that though) but I didn't look up your profile, no need to as I wasn't adding you as a friend.



You may not WANT to come off as sexist or arrogant, but by continually returning and stating your opinion in the manner you have it seems that way to others. If you weren't trying to convince others of the validity of your world-view, you would have just agreed when people pointed out it is personal preference and let the thread drop.



The easiest solution is to simply not play as femShep if she disagrees with you so, it really is what most of us do. We find what we like and play it that way. We don't try to force ourselves to play in a manner we don't like and then complain about it on the internet, and then respond to every post that disagrees with us by re-asserting how very much we don't like playing it that way.

[aaniadyen]

Luc0s wrote...

Yeah... female Shepard...

It just doesn't work for me.

No honestly, I just can't understand how people can prefer femShep to maleShep or even think maleShep doesn't work.
This is not a troll-post, I'm not trolling people. But honestly, I played both, female Shepard and male Shepard, in fact, my very first custom Shepard (ME1) was a female Shepard (after beating ME1 with the pre-made John Shepard Soldier).

I'm not a sexist either. I think females can be pretty damn ass-kicking in space. Ashley is a bad example (she does NOT kick ass), but Samus Aran from Metriod Prime is. Samus simply kicks ass and you gotta love her!

But no, not femShep, femShep just feels weird and wrong. Maybe it's Jennifer Hale? Nah, I don't think so. Even though I prefer Mark Meer, Jeniffer Hale did her best to fit her voice for the character.

Personally, I think it's the script. The whole script makes me feel as if BioWare wrote it with maleShepard in their heads, and later during the game development simply replaced maleShep with femShep for those who want to play female, without changing much (if anything) at the script. This makes femShep feel misplaced and misfit and I simply can't understand I'm the only one bothered by this (or are there more people who think this way?).

Please tell me, am I the only one who sees/feels this? And did BioWare indeed write the ME script with the canon male John Shepard in the back of their heads and simply add femShep to it later on?

I actually agree, personally. To me, it seems out of place. It doesn't mean I don't think there should be a femshep. I tried it, and I just couldn't get into it. Maybe I just can't really get into playing as an opposite gender character. There was something about it that rubbed me the wrong way...probably just me getting used to Mark Meer's performance to the exclusion of a different interpretation.

[Isaantia]

In the business world there is a lot of talk about why women, who now make up 50% of the work force and graduate college at a higher rate than men, aren't in positions of leadership proportional to their presence in the workforce. Research shows that about 12%-15% of boards and executive leadership are women.



One of the (many) theories floating around as to why that is involves speaking and writing patterns. There is some research out there that suggest that women tend to use to the passive voice rather than action verbs. In essence, "failure to lead" comes down to grammar structure and punctuation.



This is what makes femShep so awesome. Yes, she voices all the same lines as the maleShep. She doesn't speak in the passive voice (often). She uses action verbs. This is powerful language. She is powerful. She saves the galaxy and so she should use the same language of power that the maleShep uses. To change it any way to make her more "feminine" as the OP understands feminine to be diminishes her utterly.



For once a budget constraint works.

[Neophyte Padawan]

aaniadyen wrote...

I actually agree, personally. To me, it seems out of place. It doesn't mean I don't think there should be a femshep. I tried it, and I just couldn't get into it. Maybe I just can't really get into playing as an opposite gender character. There was something about it that rubbed me the wrong way...probably just me getting used to Mark Meer's performance to the exclusion of a different interpretation.

You think there shouldn't be a femshep just because you don't like it? If you don't like it simply don't use it. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be there for the rest of us (quite a large number according to this thread) who enjoy the female option. Especially for female gamers who are afforded the rare opportunity to play as someone their own gender.

[aaniadyen]

Neophyte Padawan wrote...

aaniadyen wrote...

I actually agree, personally. To me, it seems out of place. It doesn't mean I don't think there should be a femshep. I tried it, and I just couldn't get into it. Maybe I just can't really get into playing as an opposite gender character. There was something about it that rubbed me the wrong way...probably just me getting used to Mark Meer's performance to the exclusion of a different interpretation.

You think there shouldn't be a femshep just because you don't like it? If you don't like it simply don't use it. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be there for the rest of us (quite a large number according to this thread) who enjoy the female option. Especially for female gamers who are afforded the rare opportunity to play as someone their own gender.

I said that it doesn't mean I don't think there should be a Femshep. Sorry, double negative. My meaning is I don't care one way or another if there is a femshep.

[aaniadyen]

Isaantia wrote...

In the business world there is a lot of talk about why women, who now make up 50% of the work force and graduate college at a higher rate than men, aren't in positions of leadership proportional to their presence in the workforce. Research shows that about 12%-15% of boards and executive leadership are women.

Could also be because the other 35%-38% spend to much time complaining about inequality to become successful. All joking aside, you made a good point. I never really thought about that at all.

[Neophyte Padawan]

aaniadyen wrote...

Neophyte Padawan wrote...

aaniadyen wrote...

I actually agree, personally. To me, it seems out of place. It doesn't mean I don't think there should be a femshep. I tried it, and I just couldn't get into it. Maybe I just can't really get into playing as an opposite gender character. There was something about it that rubbed me the wrong way...probably just me getting used to Mark Meer's performance to the exclusion of a different interpretation.

You think there shouldn't be a femshep just because you don't like it? If you don't like it simply don't use it. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be there for the rest of us (quite a large number according to this thread) who enjoy the female option. Especially for female gamers who are afforded the rare opportunity to play as someone their own gender.

I said that it doesn't mean I don't think there should be a Femshep. Sorry, double negative. My meaning is I don't care one way or another if there is a femshep.

Ah ok, sorry. Fair enough 

[bstrothe]

Luc0s wrote...
'm not a sexist either. I think females can be pretty damn ass-kicking in space. Ashley is a bad example (she does NOT kick ass), but Samus Aran from Metriod Prime is. Samus simply kicks ass and you gotta love her!

But no, not femShep, femShep just feels weird and wrong. Maybe it's Jennifer Hale? Nah, I don't think so. Even though I prefer Mark Meer, Jeniffer Hale did her best to fit her voice for the character.

I find it amusing that your example of good female (Samus) and bad female (femShep) are actually voiced by the same Jennifer Hale. Perhaps that lends aid to your point about the writing, but I disagree.

Obviously people have different opinions, but for me, Meer's delivery, especially of paragon lines was flat and emotionless in a way that made them unbelievable, where Hale brought life and liveliness to the same lines. Renegade, I think they both do a fine job as cold and ruthless, but for my playthroughs paragon Shep is always female.

[Cyberstrike nTo]

As a 32 year old male, I beat ME1 about 20 times and I only played a male Shepard 3 times the rest were all FemShepards. I found Hale's voice and delivery much better and believable than Meer's voice and delivery also if I'm going to play a game for about 40 hours I want to look at a girl this is true with almost all RPGs I've played (games like Jade Empire, Star Wars: The Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age: Origins, Fable 2, Fallout 3, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and so on and so forth).

If people like the male Shepard then that there is their right I've tried very hard to like the Male Shepard I couldn't.

Modifié par Cyberstrike nTo, 16 février 2010 - 05:43 .

[jojon2se]

There should be a good bit less authoritative speak in the world, incidently.

I can't even estimate the number of times I've seen things go south, because I have not spoken up when somebody has gone all self assured (since I'd never do that myself, without having a solid basis for such certainty and expect the same from others), only to turn out clueless, in reality and just steamrolling his way through life, hoping never to be put on the spot.

It seems to me that this kind of behaviour goes hand in hand with ambition, which would explain quite a few things about leadership structures...

[reepneep]

aaniadyen wrote...

Isaantia wrote...

In the business world there is a lot of talk about why women, who now make up 50% of the work force and graduate college at a higher rate than men, aren't in positions of leadership proportional to their presence in the workforce. Research shows that about 12%-15% of boards and executive leadership are women.

Could also be because the other 35%-38% spend to much time complaining about inequality to become successful. All joking aside, you made a good point. I never really thought about that at all.

I'm sure sexism plays a role but there are tons of other factors, the biggest being that women are far more likely to prioritize family issues over their careers than men are.

[Astranagant]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say both Meer and Hale are pretty woody and bland in their delivery of lines.

I've played both all the way through both games. I'd like F Shepard more if she didn't come with ducklips by default and there were better mouth shapes available.

Modifié par Astranagant, 16 février 2010 - 11:33 .

[slicer477]

I think male videogame characters work better in fps's. just not rpg's, unless you like playing with men....

[Taritu]

In ME I could barely manage to get through a maleshep playthrough I disliked the VActing so much. In ME2 I still prefer Femshep, but Meer's VA is (to me) much better than in ME1. However, each to their own.



I actually find that Femshep sounds more authoritative than MaleShep, more like a military officer. Right in ME1, at the beginning, when I told Joker and Kaiden to act like soldiers, Hale had more snap than Meer.



And she's so much better at the positive emotional moments that there's no comparison.



My only real objection to Femshep's voice acting comes when dealing with Jacob. *shudder*

[babylonfreak]

What Monglor said.



FemShep is not the stereotypical "Female Action Hero" because she acts exactly like a stereotypical "Male Action Hero". Miranda acts more like the stereotypical action girl (complete with skintight spandex and high heels) and... that... is not Shepard.

[HAGA NAGA]

Femshep all the way! burn in hell "walls of Femshep hate-text". and i'm out punks........

[Spell Singer]

I enjoy both. There are times when one or the other of the voice actors does a better job with a certain delivery then the other one does. In ME this was especially true of the renegade lines with a male Shepard but in ME2 the situation with respect to that is dramatically improved.



The only jarring thing for me in ME2 was my female Shepard catching Grunt as he was sliding off the disk at the end...even my male Shepard would look odd doing that but for a 60-70 kg woman to hold a Krogan with one hand and no obvious means to absorb the momentum sort of stretched credulity to the limit.



But I can understand how you can "fixate" on a character. I could only play KotOR once since my first character (female actually) became "the" character and my second attempt I just abandoned because it wasn't working. On my third playthrough of ME2 it took me a while to get used to my custom male Shepard's face, since I'm hearing the same voice as with my first playthrough where I used the official face.



Given the amount of work involved in making up the voice acting for a female character I think that it was always planned and not tacked on at the last minute but only Bioware can give a definitive answer.

[Archilochos]

On femShep: I get where the OP is coming from - yes, the game was probably written with a male character in mind, and yes, there is often a masculine flavor to the language, but in the context of a female authority figure in the military, it just works.

There's no doubt that Hale is excellent - she's one of the best voice actors working in the english speaking world, particularly when it comes to games.  In her voice, the Shep dialogue isn't out of place.  FemShep doesn't sound manly, just confident.  Again, it just works.  (Although as a guy, I must confess that romances during a femShep playthrough can be jarring, regardless of the romancee's gender.  I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to react to a romance subplot by thinking "Damn, I wish I had Garrus/Thane/Jacob/Kelly's girl.  Oh, wait... that's me.")

On maleShep and Mark Meer: I honestly don't get the whole "maleShep's a cliche" thing.  Yes, space marines are a cliche, and yes, action heroes are also cliches.  Yet, even within those categories, there are plenty of twists that break the mold.  Sure, maleShep can kick ass and chew gum, etc., but he can also charm, persuade, talk his way OUT of violence, sneak, steal, evade, stab in the back like a coward, etc... all very much not in line with the cliche.  He also doesn't have to be the cliche meathead soldier.  He can be an egghead engineer, or a semi-feminized Asari style adept, or a sneaky, non-confrontational infiltrator.  If your maleShep's cliche, you're playing him wrong.

I used to think Mark Meer's paragon lines and more emotional moments sounded flat, as some have pointed out, but then I realized something ... maleShep is, well, male.  Yes, emotionally significant lines from maleShep sound less emotional and more monotone than from femShep ... but maleShep is a man.  Men generally are more monotone and more uncomfortable expressing emotions than women.  That's what's socially expected of us - when people see any emotion other than monotone blank or anger coming out of a man, they tend to think it's odd.  So, when maleShep struggles to subtley infuse a deeply personal admission or gesture of aid with emotion, he's working against centuries of gender-specific social conditioning, plus the hardening military life he's led, not to mention a lonely/horrific/violent upbringing (depending on what you've picked for him).  Listening to maleShep force out these innermost thoughts and feelings during a critically important mission when his upbringing and training are screaming at him to stay in control and not show vulnerability or emotion rings true for me.  When maleShep says "Come here" and hugs Tali, the words are a little awkward, as they should be, but the hug is sincere.  Shep's trouble with emotion is comparable to Tali's nervous babbling - it's a defense mechanism, and therefore a very effective characterization.  Intentional or not, it's a great insight Meer's brought to the story, even if almost no one seems to notice it.

[Spell Singer]

Archilochos did hit the nail on the head with his last comment. I found the scene with the Tali hugging perfectly done. I found the female Shepard with Liara romance scene very awkward. The actresses sounded uncomfortable more than aroused. Female Shepard and Kaiden just worked better for me, as did Male Shepard and Liara.



But the only thing I didn't like about ME and male Shepard was the lack of a command voice. This is something he would have. Hale did that much better then Meer did but by ME2 the performance of both is much more equal in general and even the "snap" makes it into male Shepard. But the lack is the fault of the voice director not the actor.



The paragon interrupt in the Quarian-Volus-C-sec officer mission is extremely well done by both voice actors. The renegade option of "I've shot people for less." comes across perfectly in either case.

[Milana_Saros]

Luc0s wrote...

No honestly, I just can't understand how people can prefer femShep to maleShep or even think maleShep doesn't work.

Cos I'm female myself? Please don't forget the possibility of female gamers...