I've played right through both games with my Shepard now and loved every minute of it. But when I started a new game and my Shepard had a different appearance I just couldint to get into it nearly as much, simply because I was so attached to my original one.

It just wasint MY Shepard.

Has this happend to anyone else?

(forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere)

Yes. Anything except default male Shepard looks wierd. I'm even having a hard time adjusting to female Shepard.

Sort of. I made a new character for ME2 but I didn't have the will to replay the game with a new character. 
 
Though to be fair, I did change my character's appearance in the beginning.

I don't think I pick it up again if I couldn't use my John Locke Shepard, he's perfect. Although I'm not really playing much anyway, just can't get into it, I'm a few hours in, I should go back at some point.

" Yes. Anything except default male Shepard looks wierd. I'm even having a hard time adjusting to female Shepard. "

I could care less about his/her appearance, Shepard is still a BAMF no matter what he looks like.

" @LiquidPrince said:

" Yes. Anything except default male Shepard looks wierd. I'm even having a hard time adjusting to female Shepard. "

Consequently, I'm the very opposite. I can't play a male Shepard. "

" @Meteora said:

" @LiquidPrince said:

" Yes. Anything except default male Shepard looks wierd. I'm even having a hard time adjusting to female Shepard. "

Consequently, I'm the very opposite. I can't play a male Shepard. "

I don't know. I mean, while Bioware gives you the option to create your own Shepard, they clearly meant for default male to be the correct one. Otherwise why would the put him on the cover? At least that's how I feel. If they wanted to have him remain faceless, then they could have created many clever boxarts, that never showed his face. However, when playing the female, I never use the default. The default female doesn't look any better then a custom female would. "

My Shepard is an asian-version of the default.
I believe it fits very well. It's cool how custom-created characters can be taken seriously.
 
...unlike the mohawked squirt in Fallout and the blue dude in Oblivion.

" @LiquidPrince said:

" @Meteora said:

" @LiquidPrince said:

" Yes. Anything except default male Shepard looks wierd. I'm even having a hard time adjusting to female Shepard. "

Consequently, I'm the very opposite. I can't play a male Shepard. "

I don't know. I mean, while Bioware gives you the option to create your own Shepard, they clearly meant for default male to be the correct one. Otherwise why would the put him on the cover? At least that's how I feel. If they wanted to have him remain faceless, then they could have created many clever boxarts, that never showed his face. However, when playing the female, I never use the default. The default female doesn't look any better then a custom female would. "

Well, having a blank Sheperd would be pretty hard to tell a compelling story in their trailers. You can use the default if you like or customize it to your liking.  Its like Dragon Age with that kick ass protagonist that we never get to use in the real game. "

" @Meteora said:
" @LiquidPrince said:
" Yes. Anything except default male Shepard looks wierd. I'm even having a hard time adjusting to female Shepard. "Consequently, I'm the very opposite. I can't play a male Shepard. "I don't know. I mean, while Bioware gives you the option to create your own Shepard, they clearly meant for default male to be the correct one. Otherwise why would the put him on the cover? At least that's how I feel. If they wanted to have him remain faceless, then they could have created many clever boxarts, that never showed his face. However, when playing the female, I never use the default. The default female doesn't look any better then a custom female would. "

Anything other than the default male Shepard kills it for me.

I'm putting off loading up ME1 on 360 and seeing if I can edit the apperance of my crafted Shepard, then loading up the PC version of ME2 right beside it and do a notch by notch transfer so I can finally get him on PC. Just too lazy and worried I won't be able to edit my original dude. After that I'll take the time to play ME2 with this ME1 save file that kinda resembles my playthrough.

I prefer playing characters that look like me, so seeing a different Shepard weirds me out.

" I prefer playing characters that look like me, so seeing a different Shepard weirds me out. "

not really.  I have a main Shepard that I beat both games with twice, but I also have a couple others to try out different classes and stuff.  It's not that hard to adjust.  The toughest thing is switching from a Paragon Shepard to a Renegade Shepard; sometimes I have to fight the urge to do the "right" thing when the "LT" pops up on the screen.

Not really. Played the 1st time as a female and replaying it again as the default male. Enjoying both but I had to get used to the male Shepard's voice.

Yes. Sometimes I see other people's Sheps and I'm just like "gosh, how did they play through the game with that?". The male Sheps especially don't do it for me. I also think that the female voicework >>> male voicework. 

I tried to play as Poster Shepard, it felt wrong Lady Shepard is just right. But then I have the same problem with all games that let you create characters.

all of the custom shepards look weird compared to the stock shepard but thats just me.

I have two different characters, so no. 

I use default all the time.

No I could play as different Shepards no worries.

Since I never used the default, I never got too accustomed to the regular male and female Sheps. My "ultimate" Shepard (the one where I'm doing everything in each game and sticking to the story as I want it to be) is a character I created and, I guess, feels right to me. I don't like the others I've created quite as well, but they don't feel wrong to me. The only thing that sometimes throws me is if the hairstyle is different, because that's basically the only distinguishing characteristic between characters (other than sex) through most of the actual game. We spend far more time looking at the backs of their heads than at their faces.

Yeah. I remember after playing hours upon hours of the first one, and then watching a review where they didn't use the default Shepard face, and just found it totally off-putting to hear the same voice coming out of a different face. It's sort of like playing one Nolan North game, and then immediately playing another (which happened to me when I went from Uncharted 2 to Assassin's Creed II).  
 
Also, I like playing as the guy that's on the games' covers, and I can't help but think that the face that BioWare designed is going to animate better than the monstrosities that gamers make. 

I was playing both games today, friend imports Mass Effect 1 shepard, ugly as hell. FACIAL RECONSTRUCTION --- Oh god my eyes, so ugly, so very ugly.
 
Yeah poster Shep or default male shep is best. Xbox Version isn't so easy to create brilliant faces on though. I have seen some nice ones on PC version.

No. I've played through the game with multiple different Shepards for both genders.

I've played through the game with 4 different Shepards, but you're right, I absolutely loved my first guy and lady Shepards. Playing with new Shepards feels weird but I can still go through the game with them.

I had a Cancer Shepard in the first game but now he's got hair and stuff, I think it works.

Anything other than Mark Vanderloo freaks me the hell out.

If its not default male bad-ass Shepard, it doesn't feel like mass effect.  With the default male face on ALL of the ads, commercials, posters, and box art, i feel it just doesn't play as well with a different looking Shepard.

Well, not the best screenshot as his face looks a little weird looking in this picture, but this is my Shepard.  And I mean, this is my  Shepard.  I think the default guy looks ultra weird, and it's weird looking at other people's Shepards. 
  

I played the game with my little male good-guy and it was awesome :) 
But now that i'm playing through it with a female to get som achievements that i missed it feels... wrong, that b*tch aint my Sheppard!

Yeah, I didn't care for the default Shepard design, so I changed it. 

It depends on the choices i would want to make in the game i suppose. In ME1 i wanted to play full Renegade, and default male Shepard just doesn't look like a Renegade character. 
Which is why my main Shep looks like a mean bastard with a scar, beard, red hair, and green eyes.

I always roll with default Shepard because anything I make looks hideous. 

No, I played through ME1 three times and each Shepard looked different from the previous one.  When they imported to ME2, I didn't have any trouble readjusting myself to the differences between them again.  Now, if I had to play a Shepard that I didn't create in ME1, then I might have some difficulty, but then again, I can choose her likeness at the start anyway.    

@Geno said:

" Yes. Sometimes I see other people's Sheps and I'm just like "gosh, how did they play through the game with that?". The male Sheps especially don't do it for me. I also think that the female voicework >>> male voicework.  "

See guys, what you don't understand is that Catherine Shepard is a short, aggro looking chick with cropped red hair, a scar under her eye, thin lips and a permanent fuck you look on her face.  Because you have to look like that to be the hardest motherfucker in the galaxy.

I got two Shepards.
 
My female Adept and my male Vanguard.
I experienced the wholes of ME1 and ME2 with them and they will feel fight for me.
I also got an infiltrator chicka but she doesn't feel natural compared to the above two.

Yes, everyone else's Shephard I see that they have created from scratch looks like Shephard got hit with a baseball bat, or Brock Lesnar...or both.

Yep.  Playing anything other than default male Shepard would have me distracted the whole game.

What are you talking about? My custom character is even sexier than default shepherd.......and its based off me, i was surprised my shepherd came out looking just like me. He's perfect, i love em.

It doesn't bother me at all, I've played the games multiple times as male and female and different 'persons' each time

I prefer to play as the regular Shepard, but I can play as customs as well and be fine.
 
As long as he doesn't look like this...

"

I've played right through both games with my Shepard now and loved every minute of it. But when I started a new game and my Shepard had a different appearance I just couldint to get into it nearly as much, simply because I was so attached to my original one.

It just wasint MY Shepard.

Has this happend to anyone else?

(forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere)

"

I'm the kind of person who spends a lot of time creating a character in games like this. The way I made my Shephard is how I think he should look, and after putting in about 100 hours between the 2 games, watching anyone else play and still have that same voice just looks weird to me.
 
My Shephard is a battle hardened combat vet with a badass scar. Seeing my roomie play a Shephard that looks like someone just out of basic, no scars and a crew cut, just isn't right.

Im not really sure how to describe mine. I guess in my eyes he just looks like a person the other characters would look up to and his facial expressions are exactly what I think they should look like during dialogue etc. Its a hard thing to explain really.