Do you not get to select her body shape even a bit? That’s a shame. I like being able to use sliders to make avatars look like me (almost never works as I’m not “slim” enough but I like having a go).

What I liked about ME2, at least, was that although her breasts are ridiculous, if you’re a naughty sort her face is all scarred up just as his would be too. The scars made it for me last time.

P.S. At least her armour covers her chest?

Ah, I thought I saw Bioware *asking* on twitter about using FemShep in the promotional materials for 3, and getting a predictably overwhelmingly positive response, but I’m not surprised they’d been lobbied for one long-term.

There had been silence from Bioware on the possibility during games 1 and 2, but then this is kinda unprecedented for any game which offers the 50/50 creation options. (Quite a few do these days, but I think this is the very first one I’ve seen with female-only on the box?)

Having played ME1+2 as just about every class/alignment but only male, playing as female Shepard was *awesome*. I love some of the small dialogue changes, all of which only make her seem stronger.

Aww, this comment made me smile, thank you! Glad you like our blog!

(- the ed)

Yes and no.

Despite this being the 3rd game of the series it is the first that will use the female version of Commander Shepard in it’s marketing materials. Fans of female Shepard tweeted and emailed David Silverman and others at Bioware for a long time in order to make this happen. I think it’s fantastic that female Shepard is going to be the face of Mass Effect 3 but I think it is also worth remembering that “male as default” is so ingrained that there had to be a vocal campaign to make the change.

I’m very happy Bioware is doing this though. There are many games that give you the option of changing the gender of your main character (Skyrim, Fallout, Fable…) but you would hardly know from most game advertising.

One of the things I like about Shepard is her dignity. Whether you choose friendly or aggressive dialogue options, she’s still the commander of a ship and that’s still her primary motivation; she doesn’t curl her hair around her fingers and flirt with people when you tell her to be nice to them. She’s a strong character with a real, distinct personality.

(Two exceptions to this neutrality that I’ve found – female characters can’t fight in the stadium controlled by a faction of Romanesque soldiers in New Vegas (Because, well, Romanesque tossers), and the Black Widow Perk available to female characters is superior to the equivalent for male characters because more Raiders and enemies are male http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Widow )