Yeah, I would have liked to see more of that stuff as well. It could be a bit jarring when you go into a cutscene and Shepard is suddenly using the default assault rifle.

I'm pretty sure it comes up in the Citadel dlc when Vega and Liara are talking about physical strength vs. biotics. And I seem to have a vague recollection of someone mentioning that I was an engineer... maybe in the Kasumi dlc? (probably wrong about that)

I always assumed it was the space armor that made them physically strong in those games because in the first 2 games other than Wrex and Grunt everyone is very lean or svelte. As a male Shepard where I was using the soldier class I figured the build was about right, then using a female Shepard who was a biotic using all the crazy powers again it seemed about right to me because I played that game while holding back and mostly letting Garrus take dudes out for me.

However what broke that theory for me wasn't one of the romance scenes (as female shep didn't get any), it was Vega. Because that is a big motherfucker, so it can't all be the armor meaning I don't understand how after all those fights they went through how the woman are so damn scrawny. I mean they've all been doing lots of running and climbing, being physically pretty fit and managed to avoid putting on any muscle.

@sparky_buzzsaw: I'm glad we're talking about male options too! My complaint is for both the men and women in Mass Effect, especially the third game, which I feel lost a lot of uniqueness of character appearance and instead went for making people look sexy. It's just easier to focus on Shepard herself since I spent so much time in her head. Ashley, Liara and Kaidan were all made more stereotypically attractive, and while I get that they wanted to make romance options look good, they also kind of made them look more boring to me. Luckily the voice acting shone through, so even if Kaidan looked a little different, he was still the same guy, more or less.

@pr1mus: I really enjoy fiddling with character creators, or at least having an option to choose between a few presets so that I can try to find a type that fits with my idea of what the character is. I agree with your points about how Shepard is a military officer with intense training, so I feel like her body type should more accurately reflect that in-game reality. However, I know that my vision of Shepard is not the vision of everyone playing, so I can only speak to what I felt and what I was hoping to see. It's nice to hear that other people had similar feelings or ideas concerning her appearance.

@brodehouse: Your idea of Shepard sounds like a bad ass! I certainly don't want me idea of Shepard to be a default. It's only based on my playing through the three games, the story as I experienced it, and her class. I think my idea was anything from Gina Carano, who is stunning but can kick butt, to Beth Phoenix, who is a former pro-wrestler so she has a bit more muscle than I think people may be comfortable with, but I think doesn't detract at all from her being attractive and feminine, just in a slightly different way. But I think that anything should be acceptable, considering the range of classes in the game. I just am disappointed that the Vanguard wasn't more brutish? I'm trying to find the right words but I feel like I am coming up short. :)

@praxis: I certainly won't stoke any fires about other game heroines, but thanks for the input on a similar situation! I think that we all have little quibbles when our favorite games or characters are involved, mine just happens to be Mass Effect and Commander Shepard!

@themanwithnoplan: Thanks very much! I know that I may invest too much emotional weight into my RPG characters, but I can't help it, especially with a game series as good and engrossing as Mass Effect.

@whur: I would agree, except that I feel like we have a good amount of those types of heroines already. I see less of the type I describe. I came up with two for my post, but I honestly couldn't think of more, off the top of my head. With time I might be able to. Most women in games, no matter how powerful, are sexy. That's not a problem at all, but I like to see more variety in what I choose to play as, especially in RPGs. It's all personal preference, of course, so I understand people not wanting to play as a more muscled female. I just want a chance to if I feel the character warrants it.

@truthtellah:That is a cool mod! I wish I had played on PC, but I did all three on XBox 360. Even that little bit of tweaking helps my suspension of disbelief greatly. It's amazing what just a few changes can do, but there it is. Thanks for sharing that!

This reply post is getting a bit long, so I will come back later and hopefully do more. I'm sttill thinking about a lot of comments! Thanks for the input duders!

To be fair, she looks like most woman I have seen in real life military roles.

I will specifically address this, since a few people have said similar things. I am not saying that my idea of what Shepard would look like is more true to real life than what they did. I am sure that there are all kinds of types of people in the military. My father was in the Navy and he didn't look like James Vega or Kaidan Alenko, and I would never assume that he should look like them, or they should look like him. However, there are a broad range of types of people in the world and I was hoping for my Vanguard to look different than an Adept or an Engineer class. I consider their abilities, strengths and weaknesses to be different, so why wouldn't they look different?

I admit that it's a small detail and it doesn't detract from how much I love the game and the character. It does however disrupt my suspension of disbelief, just like seeing a small, petite actress taking out multiple large men in an action movie also breaks my suspension of disbelief. That's why I appreciate Haywire so much as a film. it may not be some great artistic piece, but the fight scenes were much more believable and enjoyable to me with an actress that looked like she can give and take in a fight.

Also - I apologize for not posting a pic of Shepard. I felt like I should only post my own Shepard for reference, but I played on the 360 so I was trying to figure out what to do to get a proper screen shot. But if anyone is interested, this is the romance scene I was talking about that a user uploaded to youtube.

She makes some extra *swooshy* sounds, but the impact sounds are virtually identical to that of Batman who looks to be more than twice her size. Those scratching animations - in character or not - are really quite silly.

Edit: That video is also quite ridiculous and choreographed...

@jadegl: Off-topic, I enjoyed with what I've seen of Haywire immensely. I want to go back to finish watching it though with the last scene I remember watching was the scene in the diner with the coffee mug. I paused the movie after that to sleep since it was really late.

@gaspower: It's a cracking movie. It works best when you just focus on all the action scenes. The one with Carano and Fassbender is my favorite, from what I remember. Anyway, it's a fun way to waste some time. :)

Of course the video is choreographed and so are the animations in the videogame that is based on a comic. Doesn't change the fact that you don't have to be incredibly buff or tall to hit really hard. I think that's a weird distinction to make.

If you can acknowledge that the animations are in character and still think it's silly then your critique is also directed to the character which is fine but not out of place in the context of a Batman game. I don't want to derail this discussion too much though so I'm gonna stop with this topic now.

You know, something I was struck by when I saw the movie Lone Survivor was that all of the actors cast as SEALs were pretty jacked. However, when it came time at the end of the movie to show their real-life counterparts, they really didn't look that atypical. In good shape, sure, but not body-builders. While a woman would have to be somewhat more atypical to be on par with men physically, I do believe that the basis of this complaint is a stereotype that is actually somewhat false. And anyway, you're wearing a suit of armor that enhances your strength.

@veektarius: I'm not denying that my perception of what my character should look like may be based on my own ideas of what I think a capable fighter may look like. I think that my problem comes more from the fact that no matter your class or skill set, you have the same body type, male or female. I find that idea kind of preposterous. I mean, look at the differences, in the game, between Vega and Kaidan. Kaidan has muscle definition, but he's surely not as jacked as Vega, yet they both wear Alliance military gear and armor. Why would Vega need to be more built? Wouldn't they be more similar if what you are saying is correct? Why is it acceptable to have different body types for men in the game and not for the female characters?

To me, the female roster appears to be very similar, besides maybe bust size and a few minute details. I looked at a lot of pictures while writing my post and I had issues telling Allers, Traynor and Shepard apart from below the neck. I guess my thought is that wouldn't some females decide to be more muscular, or less? Or wouldn't some females appear differently if they had different forms of military training and life experiences? I know I have scars and other appearance quirks that differentiate me from other women, and my desk job means that my body type is also different, not to even include talk of differences brought about by genetics. I don't know, it just seems to me that there would be variety, and writing off variety by using the excuse space tech or space magic seems to be too easy. And again, my perception of Shepard was based on her through 3 games and reading background materials, and that's why I had the reaction I did. Nothing more and nothing less.

@jadegl: You know what bothers me? There's not a single blond in the entire crew. Ashley, brunette, Jack, bald (but a brunette in 3, Miranda, brunette, default Shepard, brunette (male) redhead (female), Chakwas (gray), Chambers (redhead), Alenko, brunette. Add in whatever secondary characters you like. Of course, that's just because of hair tech.

As for differing female body types, yeah, I sort of see your point. I wasn't looking for any jacked ladies like you are, but in general the female body design seemed pretty generic and unremarkable, with the possible exception of of Miranda's ass. Jack is the biggest outlier.

@veektarius: There was in in lore explaination for the rarity of blondes in Mass Effect. My husband read it in the novels I believe, and they note it in Kahlee Sanders wiki article. I think Miranda was also initially going to be blonde, but they decided on black hair, I can't recall why. I think it was mentioned in an art book. That doesn't make your comment any less valid, I just remember hearing about it being recessive and therefore becoming more and more rare in the future.

And I don't want Shepard to be "jacked" necessarily, just look different between models. I guess I just feel like a Vanguard should look imposing in or out of armor. Not extreme, but have a physicality that an Adept or Infiltrator may not have, or need.

I can't say that the female model of Shepard bothered me (although the run animation on femShep was hilarious), but I have to wonder if part of this isn't due to mismanagement of expectations. There are very, very few RPGs that allow for robust body types. The only ones I can think of from this last generation were Two Worlds and Saints Row. Developers who make really big games like a Mass Effect will cheat where they can, and when they cheat, they often settle on what the majority of players will find acceptable. I didn't think that Ashley (my romance option from ME1 and ME3) looked particularly soft. Then again there was so much bokeh and hazy dreamy bits during the love scene that I couldn't really tell.

Don't get me wrong, more body types would be awesome, but I don't think it bothered me in Mass Effect because the character creator was pretty poor all around. As a male Shepard your choice of nose was "Dick Tracy hook" or "Planet of the Apes extra" with absolutely zero room in between. The hair options were pretty awful as well. That was the most frustrating thing about those games actually. The character creation options were just shit.

Mass Effect 3 is kind of a poor argument considering that there was absolutely no customization options for party members outside of a few predefined outfit selections. If Vega was a roid monkey in ME1 you'd have a point, but considering ME3 being the way it is in regards to party customization... yeah.

As far as females not having different body types, I'd argue that's not true. Diana Allers is a thicker woman than anyone else (although that could just be that awful, awful dress), Ashley was definitely bigger than Liara who was the smallest of the bunch. Jack is lean and svelt. Miranda is your classic femme fatale with an hourglass figure. Out of all the women in ME3 I'd say Traynor is the one that looks the most generic, but it's pretty clear she would be considering she was created using the same creation tools as every other non-hand crafted NPC. There's of course the elephant in the room that suggests maybe neither women nor men want to play as a jacked up woman. This thread is the only place where I've ever heard the suggestion, in any event. Anecdotal, sure, but it is what it is.

Overall I do think it's a bummer that more RPGs don't offer more body types, but considering the current circumstances surrounding RPG creation, I don't think it's a reasonable expectations while so much of an RPG's budget is focused on everything but character generation.

@jadegl: It's funny how I read this yesterday, agreed with you, then saw this today, and now I disagree with you :)

I agree wholeheartedly with that, even if I don't like it personally. Maybe developers will allow for more options in the future. I don't know and I don't hold it against them. They need to spend time and resources on what they feel is important, and while fiddling with a character creator may be important to me, it's not necessarily important to everyone. Maybe it's not even important to a vast majority of players, Again, I don't know.

This was more a personal post on why I felt the way I felt at a moment in the game, not that I feel that there is some great wrong that I need fixed. I wanted to explore my emotional reaction and put words to my desire to see more variety in both female and male body types in games, especially in games that allow you some amount of freedom to create a character. I admit, I think the reason is more expediency than any type of malice on the part of developers. I just think it would be cool to tweak my character in a way that would fit her character class/archetype a little better than what we have right now is some big RPGs.

@professoress: I watched that and it is very cool! Also, seeing her in action, I think she appears to be much more toned and athletic than my Shepard, so I don't think it precludes what I wrote. If you look at her arms when she's on the net, they're pretty impressive. She may not be huge, but she is definitely capable and seeing her in action just makes me add another person to my list of possible body types I'd like to see in games!

Yeah I was conceding that point in my head as I was making the comment, but Kacy is still pretty slight despite being toned.

I feel like what you've described is the awkward middle ground you get from "illusion of choice" games. On one hand, you're giving the player just enough control to make it feel like they're personally invested, but on the other hand, the developer feels the need to control things to fit their personal "vision". It's a delicate operation that, for me, comes across as an "uncanny valley" type phenomenon of story telling. As soon as i feel the developer's control, the illusion is broken and i'm reminded i'm just playing a video game, which is only ok if the actual gameplay is any good.

What i think we could learn from this is, if you want to emphasis player control, then you have to give the player more control, whether it be visually or within the story telling.

@jadegl: I definitely agree. The romance options in that game were about as humdrum as they got. I think I picked the technological woman just because she was something different, but even her basic shape was what I'd consider blandly attractive. The only thing really different about her was the mask. In a universe with so much potential for unique looking races, why limit all the female options to stereotypical plastic-looking cookie cutter types? Males, too, for that matter, though I didn't explore any of the fem-Shep or male-to-male romance options. Come to think of it, even my party usually never consisted of the humans. I was always more intrigued by the distinctly alien races.

The hair options were pretty awful as well.

Welcome to the Alliance, soldier, you are the best of the best. Now cut that fuckin' hair!

FemShep rockin' the N7 Hoodie. Going for the casual look.

And from me all of people! What a world.

I had the same feeling upon seeing Shepard undressed. Not what I thought she'd look like, but not surprising at all in the end. Most women soldiers in fiction are "hotter" than they are realistic.

And I'm not trying invalidate your reaction!

I just appreciate some nice juxtaposition every once and a while:

That's mighty impressive. What a run.

Companies throw babies and bathwaters out all the time based on either internal politics, sales feedback, or sheer creative intent. Arguably it's better that way because then individual iterations aren't de-facto mired in the new or old generations' problems. Look at what happened to Silent Hill, for example. Considering Nintendo also deals with multiple timelines and iterations with Zelda, and that Other M already completely ignores Prime, I don't really see why making an Other, Different Metroid game is so damning. Especially considering that about twelve people seemed to like Other M, in which case it would probably be a really smart marketing move to distance the brand from that title.

I actually really liked this blog post, though. It's something that's always seemed particularly lacking in the face of the wide array of physical body control other games, in both similar and wildly different genres, give in comparison to Mass Effect. I'm not sure it would matter as much in ME if they didn't put so much emphasis on it ostensibly being the player character's story as opposed to Shepard's Story - although the extent to which it could ever really not be Shepard's Story is suspect. It's also particularly jarring in comparison to the Male Shepard, whose body IS a rippling muscle mass with rock-hard cuts.

@sparky_buzzsaw: I dunno, I found most of the builds of the female party members to be relatively varied. Ashley's redesign for ME3 was the only one I had an issue with, but that's just because they changed it. She looks pretty different than she did in ME1, and it's not a matter of the graphical difference between the two.

I do agree that male party members (krogans aside) look pretty similar. Actually come to think of it, only Garrus, Jacob, and Kaiden looked similar (though apparently they redesigned Kaiden as well? I dunno, that dude's dead as far as I'm concerned). James, Thane, and Mordin all have relatively different builds.

Granted, there wasn't a huge disparity between them all like, well, everyone versus a krogan. They were also all humanoid and generally fit.

Hunh, it doesn't seem that bad after all, at least so far as party members go. It's real easy to rag on BioWare though. Weird.

Woa ... my Shepard was also a female vanguard... altho I never noticed her to be pettite because well I went with Liara so in contrast Shepar looked a bit rougher I say , but now that you say it yeah I would´ve prefered actual body options so i could make her look like the Amazon in Dragon´s Crown ( I sure like her design , even if it is exagerated) , hope Bioware finaly takes a step further to allow more body types ... heck if MMOS have been doing that for a long time I fail to see why rpgs cant do the same .

Mass Effect would've been a better series with fewer choices and less customization overall, but I realize that's just me. Could've pursued a more specific narrative with a more specific character, explored it with better depth and less weird contradictions (of which, body type is the tip of a potential iceberg).

But I'm pretty old school, I know that. Others love for their characters to seem special, which is why every other RPG blasts me in the face with a billion sliders and pointless choices before I can get down to work.