Quote Originally Posted by Vyk View Post
I played through the whole series as dude Shep, and watched my girlfriend play through multiple times as a chick, and I played through the first game and most of the second as a chick, and I enjoyed both. I'm not sure why people have such disdain for the male version other than the possibility that it's just anti-establishment and going against the grain since male shep was canon and everyone wanted to be different. But now you're all the same! :P
Male Shep isn't canon. Shepard doesn't have a set gender. Male Shep is just the default in promotional stuff.

My brother is a huge Dragon Age fanatic so I recommended these games to him since they were made by the same people. I think DA spoiled him in a lot of ways because according to him the games aren't nearly as expansive as exploring DA's world was. Then there were the customizations for Shepard, which admittedly isn't that great. Compare Shep to the character models in the game and he/she looks awful. I don't know if that's improved in the later game because I never spent that much time on the character create screen.

He's having difficulty making it through the second game because it's even worse in the exploration side of things. You're severely cut off in the second game compared to where you were in the first. I never thought about it that way. It is a fair point to make. ME2 is pretty focused on that one area. I'm not sure if he'll like the third game any better. According to him there doesn't seem to be any mods for the game. With Dragon Age there are a ton of stuff to download but it doesn't seem like anyone bothered with Mass Effect. I don't know if he's just looking in the wrong places or not, but it's interesting.