Mass Effect

[prisoner_24601]

It took me awhile because I had to play in smallish chunks of time, but I finally managed to finish Mass Effect.



Mass Effect spoilers below.



This Shepard is a Vanguard/Earthborn/Sole Survivor who ended up being about 55% Paragon/45% Renegade after she sacrificed the Council, talked Saren into blowing himself away and installing her former boss as head of the new galactic council. I ended up choosing the darkest skintone because I didn't want to get the melty face effect that plutospawn talked about. Plus I just find the darker skintones in this game to be a lot prettier than the pasty light ones. I think a lot of that probably comes from me not really getting the knack of customizing the faces. Still, I was pretty happy with the way she turned out - except for the hair which ended up driving me batshit crazy by the end (more on that later).

I thought this game, while having some irritating design issues, kicked a lot of ass.

The awesome:

1. Paragon/Renagade system.

I thought this was a great way to make a distinction between two types of play. It's a lot more complicated than just good/evil, lightside/darkside. Sure a lot of the renegade options are the "asshole" options, but there are several occasions where arguably the morally right thing to do is to choose the renegade choice, which usually offered a sure thing, instead of taking a huge risk and choosing the paragon choice. Letting the Council die in order to focus on killing the big bad is a good example of this.

Personally, I would have liked to see this carried a bit further to the point of some of the paragon or renegade choices ending up biting Shepard in the ass such as letting the council live, only to almost lose the game because you didn't have enough firepower to take out the giant alien. There were no real consequences for choosing a paragon or renegade choice and that sometimes cheapened the choices made. Still, most of the time their system worked - and hey - at least they got out of the black and white world view that's in most of these types of games.

2. Jennifer Hale's voice acting.

Her fem!Shep voice just rocked. She was so good, in fact, that I'm having a hard time playing a male!Shep game because the voice actor just sounds horribly wooden in comparison. She also gives Shepard so much personality that I think I'm going to have a hard time reading most fanfic. I can already feel myself cringing at the idea of reading a super sweet, super good, super caring Shepard who talks ad nauseum to Kaiden/Garrus about their relationship. I can already hear the cry of "Shepard is who you make her to be, so shut up, Pris" but I can't agree. Unlike Revan in Kotor, I think the voice acting here and dialogue choices really give Shepard a distinct (hard ass) personality and while I think there'd definitely be some room for interpretation, I don't think there'd be tons - which means I'd probably better stay far, far away from mass effect fandom.

3. Kaiden

I wish they would have chosen someone other than Sbarge to voice Kaiden in a way because it was it was really distracting in the beginning. Still, even though he shares a lot of Carth traits, he's different enough to be interesting in his own right. This is probably a sign of my age, but it's nice to see a romance lead where you don't have to fix their emotional issues because he's grown up enough to do it himself. Out of all the bioware romance options in their games, Kaiden is the only one I'd even emotionally healthy enough to consider hanging with in real life. Plus I found the dialogue options between hard ass fem!Shep and Kaiden to be really entertaining. I have to say that I like him as much as Carth.

4. Hanging up on the council.

This never got old. Never. It's goofy of me, I know, but I thought that hanging up on the Council was one of the best parts of the game.

5. The plot.

I thought the main plot itself, while certainly not original, was well thought out. They took the idea of one person being responsible for the safety of the entire universe almost to it's logical extreme by writing in difficult grey choices for the player to make. I also liked that while the player was another version of "the chosen one" I got more of the sense that it was Shepard's choice, and not fate, circumstances, higher powers or the force thrusting this unwilling person into a position of power (like all of the other bioware games). Shepard seems to be the proactive sort that would choose to do this job, instead of just being anointed against her will. Overall, it was definitely entertaining enough for me to be excited to see the sequels.


The not so awesome:

1. Ashley.

Honestly, I couldn't stand this character. I think she was supposed to come across as a strong female, but really, she's a xenophobic prude who just irritated the crap out of me (I think I my annoyance with her crystallized the minute we walked into the strip club), especially when compared to the awesome job they did with fem!Shep's personality. This ended up being a problem when it came to the part where you have to decide between saving her and Kaiden, because honestly that wasn't even remotely difficult. It didn't have the emotional resonance that I think it was supposed to have (I felt a lot worse in Kotor when Bastila stays behind to fight Malak - even back when I didn't like Bastila). I'm wondering if she improves if you play a guy. Bioware seems to spend so much time on the romances that it seems like they fall short sometimes on creating same sex friendships between the pc and the romance leads.

2. Mako

I suck at driving vehicles in games. Seriously. I find it extremely frustrating to drive even in a straight line, so I was pretty dismayed to discover how often you needed to drive the damn thing.

3. Repetitive, boring side quests.

First of all, they really need to have more than one layout for a base, mines, abandoned ship, etc because holy crap it's irritating. Second, they should have cut the number of these quests by two thirds and focused on making the ones that they kept interesting and distinct. As it was, I ended up skipping a bunch of them because I got so bored. Third, they should have put more thought into the Garrus and Wrex sidequests which when compared to the ones in Kotor, fall horribly short.

4. Male Shepard faces.

Holy crap is it difficult to make an attractive or cool looking male!Shep face. I know I'm not the greatest at that kind of artistic stuff, but still. It seemed like the fem!Shep got the better end of that deal.

5. Shepard's hair.

What the hell was with the hair choices for both genders? Seriously? I thought they all sucked. On the males, I gave up and made my Shep bald. On the fem!Shep I went for the bob, but still, that irritated the crap out of me after about an hour. They need to come up with better choices. They also need to make it so that you can change the pc's hair mid game if you get sick of it.

As a side note, one thing I really don't get is the Garrus fangirling. Hey, I like the guy. I thought he was cool. I really don't get the fangirling that seems to be happening over him though (especially wanting him to be a romance option). I'm guessing it's because he has a cool voice?

Next up... Ivan Shepard, Infiltrator/Colonist/Ruthless:


I have a feeling he's going to be a raging asshole.

Anyway, post pictures of your Shepards (male and female). I've seen some of them but I'm curious to see what other people came up with, and I can't remember where you all posted your Sheps and am too lazy to go looking.

Comments

[midnight-hawk.livejournal.com]

Haven't played it yet and I had to skim read because I wanted to comment on some stuff, expectations and things. I'm trying to avoid any more spoilers than what I already know, (Boom! Headshot!) though I suspect it will all be stuff I've seen before, again.

I'm oddly looking forward to seeing if I'm going to hate the game mechanics or not. They look a bit of a mix up between action and pseudo turn-based combat. I think I might be bored by it, but I thought that about Jade Empire and adored the simplistic joy of beating the crap out of things with a character I liked.

Your fem!shep is oddly reminiscent of your really interesting fem!Revan whose name I have completely forgotten (Min.. something? I fail, I know), but I think that's interesting since, presumably, there's more options than different head swapping (though the grease face thing is annoying from the screen shots I've seen, but I love that everyone seems to be making dark skinned ladies). Male!shep looks like Daniel Craig became a white supremacist and took up steroids and being hit with an ugly stick. I hope the facial expressions are better in game than what I see here, because they look like they are thinking about doing laundry.

I really like what I've heard from Hale's voice work (I think she tends to not use her full range in things, which is why I have trouble liking her work sometimes), but I wish they had used a new voice actor for the Kaiden guy. Not another one that's in stuff all the time (Cam Clarke, Grey De Lisle), or a mimic of someone who's a better voice actor (I always though that B. J. Ward was trying to be both Lisle and Hale and inferior to both) but some new voice we hadn't all heard before.

Actually what I really want is proper male love interest character voiced by Louis Mellis who doesn't want to just slay the main character (yes I know Sion's motivation is more complex than that, I just love that voice).

I did buy the game yesterday, which isn't what I originally planned to do.I was going to hold out until I could be sure there was a sure-fire way of removing that version of Securom, or dummying it, without damaging the game or my system (if that ever happens). But there's so few copies in the stores in the UK (at least in my city), partly because it's a direct PC port of a successful console title, mostly because it's a bit nerdy compared to the casual games the ds and the wii that are the biggest commercial game platforms right now, but also because of the bad press with copy protection. I decided I'd buy it now (and I had a big discount to use up on a reward card) and not install it.

That way I don't mind taking the aaaargh path because I did buy the game. If it was any other company I wouldn't care at all (I recently flashed my ps2 to make it do my bidding entirely, instead of half-way), so it's only a question of my own peace of mind. And the way I'm feeling right now, I think my peace of mind is more important than not very much money. And now I've got it, I can't wait to *get* it, if that makes sense.

I didn't mean for that to be so long or turn into my thoughts on yaoi copy protection, sorry about that, Pris.

[mizanchan.livejournal.com]

Minuet Avery Revan. I have to say, I love her as well; maybe that's why the name comes to me so easily.

(Back to Pris' original post from here.)

First off, I must admit, I'm disappointed in Bioware/EA. I've really wanted to get ME for the PC, but am preventing myself from doing so. Why? The DRM copy protection. Basically, it's only allowing people to install it three times, and uninstalling it doesn't give you an install back. Once your installs are up, you either have to buy a new game license (read: game) or contact EA and beg for more installs. No thanks on either count.

/soapbox

Back on topic, the game really does sound awesome. I've heard there are quite a few shortcomings to it (even more asides from what you mentioned, Pris), but I hope the game itself is worth dealing with those issues. I have to wonder how I'll feel about hearing Sbarge as Kaiden; hopefully as good as I felt hearing his voice as Carth. I've also heard a lot of negative about Ashley, and I agree with you 115%, Pris. In KotOR, I seem to remember that a Fem!Revan could have some kind of friendship with her female crewmates; it sounds like in ME, they just wanted Shepard to have her romantic interest and little else. Oy.

I'm hoping they get rid of the draconian DRM protection so I can actually buy the game without having to worry about being treated like a criminal. Until then, no more EA purchases for this girl.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

I think they did try and put a token attempt at making some kind of friendship with Ashley, but it just doesn't fly. Partially because Shepard is a hard ass and her commanding officer, which naturally puts them at a distance, and partially because Ashley is just kind of annoying. It's like she tries so hard to be tough, which makes her look kind of like a lame poser.

As far as Kaiden goes, it's just that Sbarge is so identified as Carth in my mind, that it's really really difficult to separate the voice from that character - especially since Sbarge doesn't even try to make him sound different than Carth. I find it very distracting, which is a shame because I like Kaiden as a character.

EA seems to be putting this that DRM protection on all of their stuff because I remember people bitching about it with the newer Sims expansion packs. When I installed the latest expansion for the sims, I didn't even realize that it had that kind of copy protection (I found out about it after the fact). I figured that since it didn't mess up my computer then, that installing Mass Effect wouldn't mess it up now (and it appears that I've been right about that so far thankfully).

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, she totally looks like the way I pictured my female Revan, which wasn't my intention when I started out, but by the time I'd realized what I'd done I decided to keep it anyway. This is probably half due to my subconscious physical preferences for a player character and half due to wanting to avoid the melty face effect. I don't know what it is about the lighting in the kotor games and in Mass Effect, but for some reason the darker skintones look so much better.

But that aside, it definitely says something about what I find aesthetically appealing. Actually, now that I think about it, in other games when given a choice about portraits and skintones, I almost always pick dark skinned player characters (I think I did it in both Baulder's Gate games too), with the only exception being Kotor 2 when I played the blonde exile with a bun. A lot of it's probably due to the fact that I'm short, fair skinned and blonde - so this is my chance to look as different from myself as it gets.

I have no excuse for my ugly ass male!Shep other than I truly suck at making faces. I went through about four different versions that looked even worse than this one (oh god... super blonde nordic male shep with a beard, which is what I really wanted, was a total disaster).

As far as Kaiden goes, I guess I should just be grateful that he wasn't voiced by Cam Clarke (the mess that was Sky still makes me cringe) or even worse, the dude that did Anomen. Still some variety would have been nice. They should have switched Garrus's voice with Kaiden's or made Sbarge the voice of the male!Shep, although I don't know if Sbarge could pull that off considering what a hard ass Shepard is.

[midnight-hawk.livejournal.com]

the dude that did Anomen

He actually has a big range, Anomen was just a huge insecure prick.

He's Pinky from the Pink and the Brain Cartoon, which is pretty hilarious.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

See... him making Anomen sound like Pinky would have been all kinds of awesome. They should have done that instead of the whiny, passive aggressive voice that he seemed to have (or maybe it was just the dialogue - hard to say).

[midnight-hawk.livejournal.com]

He actually also voices the Baldur's Gate character Kivan who was modded into my personal favourite BG2 romance mod, if not my favourite gaming romance so far. Kivan of Shilmestria - you'd probably hate it, whiny elves, Greyelvish and angst. But I like it because it was written with the idea in mind that the PC knows she loves the character and him being oblivious to her interest, because he's not really living for anything except revenge. Nice change from the female PC being well, pretty passive (hairless wookieeing doesn't count, naturally), except to play mommy.

It actually spans right across the entire series: With companionship and the beginnings of trust in the first Baldur's Gate, a more intimate friendship and the possibility of choosing to resurrect his dead wife instead of being with him in the second game (which is a very hard choice if you get attached to him), and finally a romantic relationship in the Throne of Bhaal. Most game romances feel rushed (the "canon" romances in Baldur's gate were written in a week, apparently), because of time constraints, as well as the sort of instant gratification aspects that destroy natural character development.

It was nice to see something that developed slowly because it's more realistic than fighting a few battles and falling into bed together (though that can be fun too), but this made the PC work to get her man, because its completely scripted differently than a 1 hour lovetalk timer.

Anyway, he's got a completely different feel to his voice than Anomen. He's more like an emo Aragon, but you don't want to smack him in the head every time he talks about his daddy issues.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

Wow that sounds really cool (despite the elf part). Who wrote this mod? Was it by the game developers or was it a player created one?

[midnight-hawk.livejournal.com]

It's a fan-made mod (http://www.gibberlings3.net/kivan/) by a a lovely lady called "Domi" (she also wrote a really great multi-pathway romance for Coran in the first game, I think she wrote the Dynaheir romance mod as well, but I don't tend to play male characters in BG.) It's much more creative than anything the game developers put out, because she had the advantage of time. She also understands how to trigger really creative script events that means Kivan "knows" the player character much better. He will ask her opinion on things and remember what she "said". And he does listen to her, rather than being ram-roded through set events.

Example: if you've played the first BG game you might remember that Sarevok has an underling called Tazok, in the unmodded game Kivan is looking for Tazok because he murdered his wife (because of this he also has racial prejudice towards ogres, in addition to being a bit of a stuck-up eleven pillock, for which the PC can give him a hard time about, including going about how he's really attractive looking as a drow, in whatever that drow city is called and eventually he will realise she's right). In the unmodded BG2, you find Tazok working with the red dragon guy.

Kivan's reaction to finding out that he is still alive is to kill him and then cut his heart out. This is important because it means he can't be raised ever and it's a desecration of nature that is against everything elves and rangers believe in. That's how damaged he is by the death of his wife, he will completely destroy himself and his principals for revenge she wouldn't even want. He's so tortured he makes Carth look like a shiny happy bunny with pink slippers. The main character can talk him out of it, but if you let him do it, he carries the heart around as a trophy and it unlocks another little mini-arc of the friendship/romance.

She's always tweaking things and finding bugs and releasing updates, which I'm love forward to, but she's going to get someone to revoice Kivan's lines (because Kivan is not an OC his romance dialog is not voiced, but in BG that doesn't matter so much and you can fill it in from what his basic soundset is like anyway), so I'm a bit conflicted about it.

If you can get past the occasional cliche and the fact he uses Elvish like oxygen (it's all translated though and is justified because he calls the character different epithets regarding how he feels about her), it's really fun. If you're interested in playing it you need a bunch of other stuff to get the full series spanning experience, but I won't go into it right now, because its techy and this is long enough already.

[singblueeyes.livejournal.com]

I've managed to avoid reading any horrific woobie!Fem!Shep's so far, but I've got an itchy backbuttonfinger, that leaps into action the moment I smell Mass Effect fluffs. I've written a couple of small pieces, but so far, I think this http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4213483/1/Iunctio is the best of the best - even if her Shep is a paragon's paragon.
I'm actually quite fond of my Male!Shep. http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o288/Uilleand/Mass%20effect/Jamesside.jpg But...I actually think he looks a bit like my dad when he was younger. (Yeah, my dad *is* that cool heheheh)

Where does the soundtrack fit in your awesome/not so awesome scale? And Joker?? (He *makes* the hanging up on the council worth it...every time. "Aaaa..nd we're out..." *snerk*)

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

I have to say that I liked both the soundtrack and Joker. The soundtrack was pretty damn excellent at times, and I really like how they make the effort with their games to score them like movies. It really adds to the atmosphere.

Joker was one of those characters that I thought I was going to hate and ended up liking. I wouldn't have minded more of him and would have loved to see some interaction between him and the rest of the crew. The bit with Kaiden in the beginning was amusing - it would have been cool to see him interact with others like Wrex and Liara especially.

Actually, I would have loved to see more interaction between the other characters in general. While there was some, it seemed the game was a bit light on that in comparison to Kotor and Baulder's Gate 2 where half of the fun in playing the games was tossing two or more characters into your party and seeing how they reacted to one another and to what was going on. Mass Effect had some of that, but not nearly as much as the other games which is a shame.

[foxfire74.livejournal.com]

I loved Jennifer Hale in this, and I loved the way the writing and voice acting combined to give a consistent personality no matter which choices you made. I am currently playing with my charm maxed out, and am way too amused that most of the "sweet-talk" choices still boil down to "Yes, but I do have a bigger gun than you do, and we'll all be much happier if I don't need to shoot it. Right? Right."

Also, this (http://casirafics.livejournal.com/511273.html) fic made me happy - next to no Shepard focus, which can be a very, very good thing when you're determined to dodge woobified PCs. Reminds me a bit of athenaprime's writing in its focus on the relationships between secondary characters.

I suck at driving vehicles in games. Seriously. I find it extremely frustrating to drive even in a straight line, so I was pretty dismayed to discover how often you needed to drive the damn thing.

It's annoying as hell, but I can usually keep myself amused by picturing the victimsNPCs clinging for dear life to the oh-shit handles and trying to figure out ways to keep Shepard from driving next time. (...also, I have an unholy fondness for trying to bounce the Mako on its nose.)

I really don't get the fangirling that seems to be happening over him though (especially wanting him to be a romance option). I'm guessing it's because he has a cool voice?

I really, really like the voice, and that's probably part of it. (Note: not a fangirl.) I think the appeal is that of all the cast, he seems to be the only one who changes as a result of knowing you...much as I like Kaiden's settled adult-ness, I think there's a little more emotional pull in a character whom you can influence. It's a fine line to walk between "needy" and "independent", but I think that's part of the Garrus appeal. (That, and the slight feline vibe which is a lot of fun.)

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

It's annoying as hell, but I can usually keep myself amused by picturing the victimsNPCs clinging for dear life to the oh-shit handles and trying to figure out ways to keep Shepard from driving next time. (...also, I have an unholy fondness for trying to bounce the Mako on its nose.)

Oh yes. I imagined the same thing myself, because I drove the Mako like a drunken sailor and I couldn't picture anyone in their right mind actually getting in the vehicle with my Shep - at least without giving her tons of crap about it.

I really, really like the voice, and that's probably part of it. (Note: not a fangirl.) I think the appeal is that of all the cast, he seems to be the only one who changes as a result of knowing you...much as I like Kaiden's settled adult-ness, I think there's a little more emotional pull in a character whom you can influence. It's a fine line to walk between "needy" and "independent", but I think that's part of the Garrus appeal. (That, and the slight feline vibe which is a lot of fun.)

That is a good point. Although the fact that Kaiden doesn't change due to Shepard is the one thing that I really like about him (and what keeps him from being too similar to Carth). I agree that it's a fine line. It's too bad that they didn't give the romance leads sidequests, because I think a well crafted one would have gone a long way in getting people to emotionally invest in them more. Actually after finding out Kaiden's backstory, I was totally shocked that we didn't get one. I thought for sure we were going to have either the corporate guys that turned him into a biotic or the chick that freaked out on him turn up at some point. I was rather disappointed that they didn't and it seems like a wasted opportunity to me.

[witchzenka.livejournal.com]

You don't have to suck at driving vehicles in games to hate the Mako. It was clumsy and counterintuitive. The controls were not responsive enough.
I just really liked the cannon.
I usually let my son run the Mako. He loved it, and I love listening to him say things like "You want a piece a me, sissy old lady?"

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

Haha awesome. My son thought the Mako was cool too, but he's only four and I don't think he could quite grasp the keyboard controls (although maybe he could - I'll try it on my next run through).

[witchzenka.livejournal.com]

Aaron has the understanding of about a 7 year old, but a remarkable facility with video games. We played on the Xbox, and it might be easier to work the Mako with a controller, possibly. (Ok, I have no way of knowing.) LOL

[rimwalker.livejournal.com]

Ashley isn't any better when playing as a guy. The redeeming elements to her character were made too subtle and almost exclusively in "throw away" bits and they made obnoxious bits the only up-front things about her. She had potential to be a FUN character but they really dropped the ball when they over did it in trying to make her sound like a hardened soldier chick and just made her sound like a stupid poser.

Kaiden was cool in that he was pretty laid back. But every now and then they made him say something that screamed "HEY LOL I AM THE LADY ROMANCE INTEREST." I would have preferred another VA too. Someone younger sounding to match the face.

Let's not get started on Liara, shall we? (Or the asari in general. As soon as they introduced us to Liara's mom with a close-up of ONLY HER BOOBS, I knew we were in for a hilarious adventure.)

Bioware romances are starting to become parodies of themselves. They need to just focus on good, old-fashioned character development.

And wtf is the thing how simply having conversations is enough to "romance" someone. It should be a separate dialog tree or require some additional work other than just going, "Hi."

Were you on the Xbox? Combat and Mako driving is pretty simple on the PC.

Also, Lance Henriksen as Admiral Hackett will never stop being awesome for me. You know Hackett looks just like him too. I nearly pissed myself in glee every time I got another message from him.

Also, since YOU SUCK... Here is a link to the post where I linked to a close-up of my (so far only) Shep:
http://rimwalker.livejournal.com/314440.html
And another cap of LOLs:
http://rimwalker.livejournal.com/315144.html

[rimwalker.livejournal.com]

As an aside since most people are familiar with female Shep's VA...

Male Shep's VA is an improv actor in Canada. When he does not have enormous boobs (http://www.varsconatheatre.com/ohSusanna/) he plays Black Adam (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKmm8L5SMnU). True facts.

This is, of course, startling to me since he plays Male Shep with all the personality of a block of wood. I assume it was a deliberate acting choice then.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

She had potential to be a FUN character but they really dropped the ball when they over did it in trying to make her sound like a hardened soldier chick and just made her sound like a stupid poser.

Exactly. It's amazing how they botched it considering how well the fem!Shep comes across as a hardened soldier. Ashley in comparison to a fem!Shep just tries way too hard to be taken seriously. Which actually could have been cool if handled correctly and the writers were aware of how she comes across. Having a touchy, obnoxious, wannabe tough woman who ends up being all talk could be really interesting and entertaining in the right hands.

Let's not get started on Liara, shall we? (Or the asari in general. As soon as they introduced us to Liara's mom with a close-up of ONLY HER BOOBS, I knew we were in for a hilarious adventure.)

Oh man, Liara and the Asari. Talk about Bioware dipping into every sci-fi hot alien chick cliche possible with them. You'd think that if gender has no meaning to their species the way that Liara claims, the Asari would look more androgynous instead of like HOT BLUE CHICKS FROM SPACE!!111!! But then, that would probably interfere with all the fanboi's that eat that shit up.

Also I haven't tried it yet, but the whole idea of a romance with Liara kind of icks me out. I mean, I like her better than Ashley, but still, she's so far into the inexperienced virgin librarian stereotype that she ends up coming across as a teenage kid who is desperately trying to act adult. Considering how hard assed Shepard is - it doesn't seem sexy - more like robbing the cradle or doing the dirty with jail bait. When she started hitting on my fem!Shep, I felt the way I imagine high school teachers feel when their students have obvious crushes on them, which I doubt is what Bioware intended.

Bioware romances are starting to become parodies of themselves. They need to just focus on good, old-fashioned character development.

Agreed. I mean I liked the Kaiden romance but still, the romance angle is wearing thin, especially since they seem to toss all other character development out the window in favor of the romances. I'd love it if there weren't any romances at all in the next few Bioware games - ust some cool characters with interesting stories and interactions.

And wtf is the thing how simply having conversations is enough to "romance" someone. It should be a separate dialog tree or require some additional work other than just going, "Hi."

Hahahahahaha. The fem!Shep Kaiden romance can basically be boiled down to:

"Hey."
"S'up."
"I like you. You're cool."
"Thanks. You too, but you're my CO."
"Yeah. Later then."

*Later*

"Take your pants off now, bitch."
"K."

I think if it had been anyone other than a hard assed fem!Shep, that wouldn't have worked lol. But I do agree, especially since they follow that pattern every game. I realize that they're constrained by time and game mechanics, but still, it would be nice to see something more realistic.

Were you on the Xbox? Combat and Mako driving is pretty simple on the PC.

I was on the PC, which tells you how much I suck at driving. Combat I got pretty good at. Driving in a straight line - not so much, and I have no excuse for it really.

Also, Lance Henriksen as Admiral Hackett will never stop being awesome for me. You know Hackett looks just like him too. I nearly pissed myself in glee every time I got another message from him.

OMG yes. You know, I think I was way more emotionally invested with what was happening with Admiral Hackett, than with any of my actual crew members. And the part where he goes and decks the Ambassador to get the Normandy released from the docks? One of the best moments of the game. So was installing him as the head of the new Council. He was far better developed than the entire Normandy crew. In the next game, they need to put the effort into the rest of the crew members that they did into him.

[rimwalker.livejournal.com]

Agreed on everything. Haha, oh man, Liara. I romanced her because Ashley was dead and I wanted the achievement token. But even though she's like, a hundred, it still felt creepily like pedophilia.

Haha, oh man, sorry. I didn't mean to insult you. To be truthful, I could not drive in a straight line either, but thankfully the game does not really require you to. I just barreled along best I could while firing guns. It isn't exactly precision racing but it wasn't frustrating for me (other than driving around those planets takes SO FREAKING LONG).

You mean Captain Anderson, yes? Voiced by Keith David. He is also way awesome. Admiral Hackett (voiced by Henriksen) is only ever a voice over comms, we never see him. Which makes me have the personal fanon that he looks just like Henrikson. There's like, an Aliens/Mass Effect crossover fic in there somewhere.

[siujerkjai.livejournal.com]

I can already feel myself cringing at the idea of reading a super sweet, super good, super caring Shepard who talks ad nauseum to Kaiden/Garrus about their relationship.

omg, there is some out there and it makes me want to punch a wall in a Shepard-ish way.

Thus far I have felt little desire to write ME fanfic. Unlike KotOR 2, after which I started writing fanfic, I think ME has a strong enough and tight enough storyline and universe that I don't feel the need to fill in the gaps so much. I'm content to sit back and be lazy and let BioWare do it for me with the sequels.

And so much of the fanfic is Shep/Garrus. Which I am totally in the same boat as you with the Huh?

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

Your right that the storyline is really tight - a good thing really. I think the best Mass Effect story opportunities come from the relationships between the crew (since I don't think we got nearly enough interaction between crew members) or maybe pre-game stories.

I'd love to see someone write fics with Shepard in the background. Something where characters like Joker and Wrex had to interact (because that has to be entertaining). Or maybe a pre game story about one of the crew or Captain Anderson or something.

Like you though, I think I'm going to be lazy and see what Bioware comes up with.

[danel4d.livejournal.com]

On my first play through, I quite liked Ashley and didn't really get to know Kaiden - it doesn't help that he's so quiet, I had to turn up the volume whenever I wanted to talk to him. It helped that my first playthrough was as a guy - while the male!Shepard voice isn't bad, it's simply not as good as the female one, so playing it first meant I didn't know this. But yeah - while Ashley is kind of prickly, she does have reasons for being like that, just as Kaiden has reasons for his issues, and both of them are old enough that you don't know to work through them - you just get to find out about them.

As regards the character creating - I had a forum post once that gave advice on making characters, and mine don't look half as bad anymore.

But yeah, I agree absolutely about the Mako being dull, and the sidequests repetitive as hell. Some of them are actually reasonably atmospheric, while others tie into your character's backstory - but they're let down by the tiny number of maps and the fact that they're almost all the same. The best way to do is to really try to break them up - do as many of you can stand before you do another story mission, repeat. It's how I got through my second play through.

[winterfox.livejournal.com]

As regards the character creating - I had a forum post once that gave advice on making characters, and mine don't look half as bad anymore.

It's the curse of customization. Give the player free reign to alter the facial structure/skintone/etc, and the result almost always plunges right into uncanny valley. See Oblivion and Sims 2.

[midnight-hawk.livejournal.com]

Your icon just reminded me how depressed I am about Boris being mayor of London. *sigh*

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

It helped that my first playthrough was as a guy - while the male!Shepard voice isn't bad, it's simply not as good as the female one, so playing it first meant I didn't know this.

I really wish I'd played a male game first, because it's so distracting. I keep comparing him to Jen Hale as I play. I will say though, he has a cool, commanding sounding voice, I would just like a bit more expression when he talks. Then again, I'm playing full out renegade with him, so maybe that's why it's not so expressive.

[plutospawn.livejournal.com]

Ashley's not better as a dude. She talks to you like you're a moron and any redeeming qualities are explained by her and most probably in her head. I told you that you were going to hate her.

Garrus felt too much like a "yes" man for me to see the fascination with his character. I love me some Wrex, though. I have a soft spot for murderous bastards. He's up there with the Black Whirlwind.

I wrote a couple shorts for ME, but they were just quick musings where I would've quickly backed myself into a corner had I continued them. Ullie has a couple really good ones and I've heard strangers on the internet rave over Who is Cagulia, though I haven't looked at her stuff yet. The interesting trend I've noticed is that if they're not Garrus/Shepard romances, most of the time they're just set in the universe with all new characters. I think maybe the story was too tight for much interpretation unlike messes like TSL.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

Ashley's not better as a dude. She talks to you like you're a moron and any redeeming qualities are explained by her and most probably in her head. I told you that you were going to hate her.

Roflmao. I know. Every time I talked to her, I couldn't stop thinking about how right you were.

I have to say that I did like Garrus, but I just don't get the whole "Hey he's sexy. Let's write romances about him." I can't tell if it's his personality or the fact that he's physically different enough from humans to make me think that a romance with a turian would be weird as hell. It's probably a bit of both.

Agree about Wrex, I love me some murderous bastards too (and apparently so does bioware because they have one in every single one of their games lol). I thought he was pretty entertaining and would have liked to see the side quest where you go and get his armor with him expanded more - because as it was, it was rather underwhelming. On the other hand, he's the only member of your crew that has a real story arc that ties into the main plot of the game, which was cool. I actually felt bad for the guy, and I'm wondering if the whole Krogan subplot is going to be expanded in further games.

The interesting trend I've noticed is that if they're not Garrus/Shepard romances, most of the time they're just set in the universe with all new characters. I think maybe the story was too tight for much interpretation unlike messes like TSL.

Agreed. The main plot was well crafted and tight, although I think there's a lot of room for expansion when it comes to characters themselves because we just didn't get tons of interaction between them - at least the way we did in a game like KOTOR.

Personally, I would like to see either pre game stories, stories that expand on the crew interaction more or stories featuring non crew characters like Captain Anderson or something. But I'm probably in the minority in wanting to see stuff that's non Shepard centric.

Of course, I'm actually far too lazy to write this stuff myself lol.

[rose70.livejournal.com]

I would post my Shepherd pics, but I played the XBox version. However, I have a webcam in my laptop, so I may be able to, and probably will, because I am a big dork, lol. Her name was Lily Shepherd, and I kind of tried to play her almost like a female Carth; she was Paragon, but not to the point where she was giving away all her money or going out of her way to help people or not killing people who obviously deserved it.

Being one of the people who wished you could romance Garrus in game, I can't really explain it. I think I just wanted anyone other than Kaidan and Liara, and Garrus was the next coolest dude. You can read all my thoughts on Mass Effect here (http://meraviglia.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/mass-effect/), here (http://meraviglia.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/girl-gamers-and-more-mass-effect-teeny-spoilers/), and here (http://meraviglia.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/final-thoughts-on-mass-effect-no-spoilers/), but basically I loved the overall plot and the universe. I really didn't like the repetition of the side quests, the poor character development/side-quests, and I didn't like the romance. I just couldn't get over Sbarge's voice, among other things.

Kos was interested in a Mass Effect RP, so I wonder what you guys' feelings are on that? :)

[rose70.livejournal.com]

Here she is, Lily Shepherd, a Colonist/War Hero/Vanguard. (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/jilko/DSCF0092.jpg)

I never used the biotics with her though (too busy trying to figure out first person shooting!), so she was actually more like a soldier.

Here also is Elliot Shepherd, a Earthborn/Sole Survivor/Sentinel. (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/jilko/DSCF0090.jpg)

I haven't really played Elliot yet, just created him, but my plan is for him to start pragmatic and get steadily more Renegade. I agree about the male hair, as you can tell, lol.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

Ooh I like the way she looks. She looks like someone who wouldn't take shit from anyone. Very fem!Shep appropriate.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

A Mass Effect RP sounds fun, I just don't know if I have the time to really write in one, which is probably obvious considering how long it takes for me to respond to comments (I swear - finding two seconds of uninterrupted time never seems to happen anymore). I'd have to write someone like Joker or Captain Anderson and make cameo appearances or something lol.

I agree with almost all of what you wrote about Mass Effect - especially the whole part about how the game was really lacking in sidequests for crewmates. I personally think it was a shame - they lost a lot of opportunities there. I mean, I would have loved to see the Garrus one expanded (it seemed really abrupt) or actually had the chance to go to the Flotilla to do something with Tali. Hell, when Kaiden mentioned that girl from his youth I thought for sure that we were going to get to meet her or that she'd show up somewhere. It was a real disappointment that she didn't.

You make some good points about the Kaiden romance - although I still have to say that he was different enough to me from Carth for me to like him. I just really, really wish they'd chosen another voice actor.

[athenaprime.livejournal.com]

Wow, he looks melty. In an inbred, rednecky sorta way.

Here's Athena Sheppard (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v679/athenaprime/?action=view&current=IMG_1158.jpg)

I went with darker skin, too--it looked to me like a Shep with darker skin looked less like she got hit too many times with the "run over by a double-wide" stick. But I put her in the Cosmic Bun hair because it looked least like a bunch of cardboard chunks. And I love her eyes. I must admit that I lucked out on awesoming the eyes.

Absolutely agree with you about Jen Hale's voice. She did an awesome job and made Shep really likeable. The guy who did MShep's voice did okay, I guess--listening to him, I thought he was playing things in this sort of dry, understated deadpan style.

The only quibble I have is that she very firmly established Sheppard on the hardass end of the spectrum, even with Paragon choices. Not that there was much in-game opportunity for it, but all my fic gizka center around a femshep who's actually a bit of a femme-fatale, diplomat, and PR-face person (who's waaay the hell out of her element and has to learn fast).

In the same vein, it took me some concentrating to see Kaidan as more than Not-Carth. Especially in the beginning when he says, "Smells like smoke and death here" - it just seems like such a Carth-emo thing to say. And then my six-year-old started saying, "It smells like beans and weenies here" and the Carth-ness sorta went away. :P And, more into the storyline, he does develop his own personality that's distinct from Carth's.

Ashley--I like her side-stories a lot better than her main stuff. Actually, what I liked best was hearing her little non-sequiturs on the different main places ("Nobody lick any poles." on Noveria. Next to Kaidan's "extranet fetish site...What?" line that made me LUL)

As for Garrus - I can't help but like the guy. It's the bird-alien-d00d thing, the voice, and the subtle changes your PC can engender in him. The turian culture is fascinating to think about, too. And while I liked Kaidan well enough, I had a hard time getting past the fact that I was supposed to be his commanding officer. It lent the romance a distinctly skeevy undertone to it. And while I went with the whole "bunk here tonight" thing just to get the cutscene, if I were pressed, I'd have just shunted it to the side and said, "get yourself assigned to some other ship first, soldier." Even though there were solid story elements that made that little fraternization problem go away.

[athenaprime.livejournal.com]

Crap! I thought I just linked that.

Great game

[nivenus.livejournal.com]

Probably my favorite game of all time as a matter of fact. It's not perfect (nothing is) and the story's a wee bit overrated (I still think both KOTORs have a better story as well as NWN2 and MOTB) but the gameplay more than makes up for it, as do the incredible production values.

I agree that the paragon/renegade system was great though, like you, I saw ways to improve it. I more or less looked at it as the Helo/Cain axis (Helo being the ultimate paragon and Cain the ultimate renegade) and it was a huge improvement over the open palm / closed fist system in JE or even the light side / dark side in KOTOR (though not in TSL... in TSL the dark side options could be a bit more complex than the thug side options in KOTOR 1).

I've only just started my female level (I just beat ME for the second time a few days ago) and I'm not sure whether or not Jennifer Hale's voicing is better than the male actor's. I heard as much but... well, they sound more or less the same to me - just with different... actors. Still, the male actor was good, so that's not a problem. On the downside it's true (though you can see this as a good side) that no matter what you say there's not as much variation in personality for the PC as in previous BioWare-style games.

I actually though all the romanceable characters were well-written and liked Ashley. If anything, I though Liara was a little too passive but I liked her as well. Honestly, I never saw Ashley as a xenophobe - more of a nationalist (or globalist - neohumanist or whatever you want to call it) with an extremely pragmatic view of other species. Truth of the matter is the other species do put their own species above others on a regular basis - as evidenced in the game itself. That doesn't mean they're evil or should die. It's just in their (and our) nature. It's how we overcome that nature that's important and I thought getting into Ashley's backstory and character were interesting.

Then again, as you pointed out, it may have something to do with playing as a guy. BioWare tends to do that I've noticed. But in any case all three romances are greatly improved over JE's, which I found either boring (Sky and Dawn Star) or unattractive (Silk Fox).

But I still think Garrus and Tali are the most interesting characters in your party.

And don't worry about your driving skills... the Mako's a pain in the ass by all accounts.

As for appearance-creation I think you're right in saying you suck at it :P. Honestly, I never found any problem in making a decent-looking guy Shepherd. But then again I exhaustively make my characters, coming up with a backstory and appearance in my head before I even start the creation process. And it often takes me at least five to ten minutes to come up with a name I like (I was greatly relieved not to have to come up with a last name!).

Oh, yes... and the side quests sucked. Well, most of them. There were a few jewels in there. A few. But I at least hope there's a payoff down the line with Cerberus. So many damn quests connected to them that they'd better have a major role in ME2 or I will be thoroughly displeased :(.

Re: Great game

[rimwalker.livejournal.com]

"I never saw Ashley as a xenophobe"

Me neither, actually. You hit it on the head, she was just pragmatic and a bit suspicious. She actually has some nice asides that show she wasn't outright prejudiced.

For example, in an elevator, she and Tali had an exchange where Ashley seemed apologetic that many humans back home blame the Quarrians for the Geth attack on Eden Prime and told Tali that having her helping on the mission would help improve feelings about that. She also expresses sympathy for Liara after Benezia dies. There's a potential depth to the character that I think gets lost because of the way they have her come across in cut scenes and the like.

I've also read people calling her some kind of religious fanatic/zealot too which irritates me as it is entirely unfounded and unfair. She says she believes in god because the universe is so big and grand. That's it. That's all she says. Hardly the ravings of a fundamentalist nutjob.

I think the problem was BALANCE and CONSISTENCY. It's possible they tried to have the characters coming in from too many angles. I also have a sneaking suspicion that certain things were written by different people, causing a weird cock-eyed result when it was all put together. They just didn't realize how certain things would come across. (For example Liara's fainting spells were interesting once but just annoying when duplicated a million times afterwards.)

But I am with you though, it is currently one of my favorite games right now. It's not perfect, but it does have really great stuff in it.

Re: Great game

[plutospawn.livejournal.com]

I saw Ashley as xenophobic. Not in the sense of, "I hate all aliens and they need to die," but it seemed a subtler, "You can be friends with aliens and work with them, but don't date them or bring them home to Mom" kind of thing. So that way, because she interacts alright with aliens, she feels like she's morally clear, but just replace "aliens" with "black people" or any minority and see how it's kind of... yeah.

I think her biggest poison is that she's a dumbass, coupled with being so stubborn and self-righteous enough to believe she's right when she comes off sounding naive or downright uninformed. Or how she keeps trying to speaking to her Commander like a peer or worse, like she's the Commander without any invite. I kept having to tell her to shut her big mouth and let Mommy handle all the big bad scaries.

Re: Great game

[nivenus.livejournal.com]

You have a point but with the exception of the asari there are no aliens that make a real, logical companion. She doesn't think aliens are inferior morally or otherwise. But she recognizes that they are a different species - and alien.

Mass Effect isn't like Star Wars or Star Trek. The aliens are actually alien. Physically, and mentally. The turians and krogan aren't just different culturally - but psychologically. It's a lot different than black vs. white people.

Actually, I find it amusing that people still make the racism/speciesm connection. Race is almost entirely nonexistant biologically and the genetic differences in different human populations are insignificant. This is not the case with different species, let alone beings from an entirely different gene pool.

Re: Great game

[midnight-hawk.livejournal.com]

I think the reason people still make the connection is that there are still too many bigoted people who think that other races are as "alien" as that, unfortunately. I don't think it's to do with the context of the story so much as the problems that exist in our societies (I haven't played it yet, so this is just a totally stabbing theory, but one that always interests me).

If everyone alive had an accepting and rational attitude about race relations, cultural identity and cosmopolitanism, as the once you are voicing here, then I think it wouldn't be a comparison we make when analysing Sci-fi (but perhaps so much of the stuff wouldn't focus on relationships with aliens then eithe), but I don't know if we will ever get there, xenophobia is just... ingrained in a lot of people. And people will always project their own observations about society onto fictional characters, even if it doesn't always hold true (I'm not calling pluto a bigot for seeing it either, I know why she sees it: I recently quit a job I hated because everyone else in the office didn't understand how racist they were and it hurts to be constantly exposed to people who are ignorant and complete unable to realise how ridiculous they are, still genuinely do think that foreigners are subhuman).

[midnight-hawk.livejournal.com]

Oh Pris, I wonder if you found that the "canon" surname made it harder to find good names for the player character? I feel like everyone who is not very good at creating new names is going have Jacks and Vondas. Is there a name generator and does it have more options than Kotors, because that one didn't have enough options for people who can't create their own names (which I don't think is applicable to either you or me, but I remember how many people had Revan characters with similar fake names.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. All the Revans with similar sounding names due to the name generator was kind of hilarious. They really needed to add like fifty or a hundred names to that list.

I personally didn't think it was hard to come up with a first name since it's an Earth based universe and you can use most common first names since Shepard isn't one of those weird sounding surnames that nothing goes with. On the other hand, Shepard has such a strong, hard-assed personality that naming him or her something romantic sounding or fluffy probably would feel weird. I haven't looked at much fanfic(which would probably be a good indicator), so I can't tell if this has been a problem or not.

There isn't a random name generator with this one. You either make up your own name or it defaults to John (I think) or Jane depending on the gender you choose.