You Can Kiss Shepard Goodbye After Mass Effect 3

I love Shepatd but the ME universe is filled with interesting things that could inspire more games so I won't be too sad to see them move on from him.

Personally, I'd love a game based on the First Contact War.

I am hoping that they don't go with a generic "hero has to die in the end to save everyone' ending, even though there are numerous ways to save most to everyone without the hero killing themselves in some pointless actions that is intended to bring the story to an end. I am looking at you... 
 

I love how every time Mass Effect being a trilogy is mentioned there's inevitably someone that is super surprised WAIT WHAT HOLY CRAP?!

We've known this since what... 2006?

Good news, might get into the series more after they get rid of hir.

Three's enough. The whole 'Consequences Over Multiple Games' thing will be pushed to breaking point by then I should think, if it isn't already.

Really hope any further ME goes to a different Team, and Hudson goes on to a new franchise.

Wow, that article linked at the end was SO stupid. How I fucking hate straw feminists, I had two friends like this in high school and college - one was a manipulative bitch and the other thought fucking everyone in the district gave her depth. Same thing here, she's throwing a lame joke about having girly parts combined with implying that to have character and personality, you have to have a crew cut, so you look like Generic Current Gen Protagonist with boobs.

Fuck.

@Zor: Still, that second game actually added a neat twist by making the final choice morally gray (and subverting the modus operandi of the generic "eater of worlds" antagonist in a nice way) . Yeah, it's still judged as good/bad by the karma system, but that's more a fault of game mechanics interfering with storytelling than the writing's fault.

Redheads fore everyone ... no seriously now ... I want one!

As a redhead, my advice to anyone playing FemShep in the ME3: Wear sunscreen.

My people sunburn like a motherfucker. It can only be worse in space.

.................................................... How is this news?

I kinda already assumed this. Three games is enough for one character.

I loooove me some Alex Navarro articles.

@Cybexx said:

Well of course the follow up you play as Wrex in a hardboiled detective game where you search for Shepard who was lost into the vastness of space after [censored]. You have a dedicated "Shepard" button and if your nearby an NPC he will say it in the form of a question.

Its kind of like that button in Luigi's Mansion which had Luigi shakily vocalize "Maaarriooo" except way better.

I really hope bioware reads this. O_o

because it's totally awesome

@SpaceInsomniac: Oh, I'm aware of that point. It's still meaningless. While I applaud the fact that BioWare is including the female version of Shepard on the cover of the collector's edition and in the ads, what hair color/style she has is a completely meaningless distinction. FemShep getting promoted is a good thing regardless of whether she's blonde, redhead, black-haired or Sinead O'Connor. It's. A. HAIRCUT.

That fem-shep looks like she was grown in a test-tube by a 14 year old boy.

My Shepard looks a lot like me. He is me. Bioware, dont even attempt to kill me or make me sacrifice myself to save anyone cuz it aint gonna happen.

well you have such a huge universe I am sure there are a crazy amount of stories that could be told.

They could continue making games in this universe for years. The Milky Way is big, and lots of things are happening in it. I've posted so many times about this so now I'm just going to ask: What the hell is the big deal about femshep? I've got 12 male and 2 female Shepards, am I missing something truly mind blowing with femshep or something? 

@phrosnite

The first thing I"m gonna do when I get ME3 is to change her hair - short and black. F you all ginger junkies!

My fiancée is a redhead. So, you know, fuck you right back. All my video game female characters are lovely redheads.

Alex making snarky comments that are utterly dick? Yeah, everything is still normal.

I kind of like redheads. I have a red beard because my Mom is a red head so I sort of have to approve of this FemShep.

Can someone clarify what the hell happened during that Bioware poll? Because redhead shep with bangs wasn't one of the options in the vote to begin with, and blondie shep was winning by a HUUGE margin last time I looked. (It seems like they completely got rid of the polls on the ME facebook page, but we still have some data in the forums: http://www.giantbomb.com/mass-effect-3/61-29935/female-shepard-cast-your-vote/35-507808/? )

I really don't care what they do with female shep, but it's disingenuous to have a poll asking players to decide the new look and then completely ignoring it. Furthermore, it's kind of insulting to suggest they were even considering changing her race and whole look at all so deep into the series, as if it didn't matter. No similar poll was held for Mark Vindaloo, or whatever his name is. You don't change horses midstream, after all.

It's kinda like Nintendo putting up a poll in Nintendo Power after SMB3 asking, "Hey, so we're thinking of giving Mario a new look for Super Mario World. Instead of an Italian plumber, what do you guys think of a Jamaican electrician? Filipino carpenter? Thoughts?"

ME MMO incoming.

That doesn't mean Shepard won't return in Mass Effect games after ME3 so...

@onan: We voted on the model, meaning face along with hairstyle, first then we chose a hair color for that model.

Do i care not one jot. Glad the Shepard arc is ending, will probably see shephard as an NPC in a prequel or ME4.

ME 3 as the best jumping in point for new players is still the most fucking stupid thing I've ever heard.

So long Shepard now onto the next blank slate RPG protagonist that can get shit done.

Red heads usually look better in the video games.. But people have their own opinions, just that to me mine are the answer to everything and yours can all go to hell. And wtf is up with the rant about from the link about how blonde haired, blue eyed women are automatically put in as a whore who cant do shit but do her nails and look pretty. That shit pisses me off and when the game comes out i am going to use the default style but change the color to blond to spite this bitch from pc gamer. Fuck her.

so long space cowboy...

Good to see this story wrapping up, yet Bioware is still interested in pursuing other avenues in the ME fiction. I approve of red-head Shep, and the PC Gamer article was retarded.

@Mulberry said:

ME MMO incoming.

i wouldnt be totally against the idea of playing a ME MMO, iv never played an MMO before, but i can imagine taking alot of what my completely basic knowledge of EVE Online is, and applying it to the ME universe, would make it quite a compelling game

There is only female Shepard...no other

@Afroman269 said:

ME 3 as the best jumping in point for new players is still the most fucking stupid thing I've ever heard.

Can I live in your world? Because I've heard far, FAR stupider things. You didn't have to play ME1 to play ME2 since it was mostly about getting to know entirely new characters, and in ME3 nearly everyone you've partied up with or had history with could potentially be dead except for Liara and Joker, meaning an entirely new crew.

And really, giant robot bugs are destroying the Earth and you need to stop them. While it's nice to know how you got there, realistically you don't need to know more than that to appreciate the game. Those of us who have played the games however can turn to our non-ME1&2 player friends on the couch and say, "you know, my character totally knew this was going to happen." That's pretty much the extent of what we got out of the first two games when you get right down to it.

Sure we'll get a little more out of the experience, we'll recognize people they won't, appreciate ironies they don't, etc, but at the end of the day more people played Mass Effect 2 than Mass Effect 1, and more people will likely play ME3 than ME2. If they make it more accessible for people coming in fresh, that's fine. They handled it well enough with ME2, didn't they?

I like that now the default FemShep looks very similar to mine :)

I pity anyone trying to go into ME3 spoiler-free. It's like BioWare wants everyone to knows everything about the game before it comes out.

I just go by the assumption that all Female Shepard players are bad people, partly because I hate the word Femshep.

I want another series based in the mass effect universe kind of what the ico and shadow of the colossus did but didn't do but maybe. IT'S OPEN TO INTERPRETATION GUYS

I'll just play as a dude. Problem solved.

Sooo any chance we will be able to download this default model and use it for ME1 & 2?

@Sammo21 said:

Alex making snarky comments that are utterly dick? Yeah, everything is still normal.

Whatever Bulletstorm, Alex is spot on. It's stupid how much people are bitching over a character design. It's not canon, it's just a promotional look. Just like how it isn't canon that Shepard is a male or female. It's the player's choice on gender and look at the end of the day and it doesn't warrant this much whining. For god's sakes, if people can ignore that Deus Ex Invisible War exists, you can ignore a default look for a character because you at least have the final word.

In other news, water is wet.

Good. Not that I don't like Shepherd, but with the inevitable release of new consoles, I think it only appropriate to start fresh with new characters. The universe is certainly large enough that it could sustain any number of potential stories, and I look forward to seeing what they can come up with.

I was kinda hoping they would go all out and finish the whole thing right there.
Hopefully potential future games will not mess with the storyline in ME3.

If they do a new franchise, hopefully it'll be like 500 years in the future to the events of Mass Effect 3.    Shepard would have had legendary status and he'd be in all the textbooks that alien children read about in school and aspire to be like him.

Alex, you are the most confrontational newsblogger on Whiskey Media. haha

Also, a red-head Shepard would seem to be a better pick for an evil player, given that red-headed females are generally more diabolical than other heads of female hair.

@onan said:

@Afroman269 said:

ME 3 as the best jumping in point for new players is still the most fucking stupid thing I've ever heard.

Can I live in your world? Because I've heard far, FAR stupider things. You didn't have to play ME1 to play ME2 since it was mostly about getting to know entirely new characters, and in ME3 nearly everyone you've partied up with or had history with could potentially be dead except for Liara and Joker, meaning an entirely new crew.

And really, giant robot bugs are destroying the Earth and you need to stop them. While it's nice to know how you got there, realistically you don't need to know more than that to appreciate the game. Those of us who have played the games however can turn to our non-ME1&2 player friends on the couch and say, "you know, my character totally knew this was going to happen." That's pretty much the extent of what we got out of the first two games when you get right down to it.

Sure we'll get a little more out of the experience, we'll recognize people they won't, appreciate ironies they don't, etc, but at the end of the day more people played Mass Effect 2 than Mass Effect 1, and more people will likely play ME3 than ME2. If they make it more accessible for people coming in fresh, that's fine. They handled it well enough with ME2, didn't they?

The keyword is context. I have only played MGS4 and technically it was a brand new beginning for me but doesn't negate the fact that very few things made sense to me in that game(also it could very well be the game and not me in this example). I also played Dead Space2 but not 1 and felt good about it. The difference is Bioware promised a fucking engaging role-playing experience where you build/cultivate relationships and make choices that would span and change now a trilogy of games.

The argument isn't can people join in now and enjoy the third game. Of course they can, you can enjoy everything on some level. You've made a lot of assumptions and simplified a complex thing to make a point but the fact of the matter is these new players will miss out on a lot of stuff. If they're OK with that than that's fine but juxtaposing the good doctor's statements makes you see how it could be a little dumb. What he's saying is just pure marketing as it is directly opposed to the design of his games. It's kind of misleading and certainly (I hate to say this but playing all 3 games is what this series is based on) not the way it's meant to be played.