Entry tags:
You tell 'em, Shepard
Penny Arcade is occasionally impenetrable to me because despite loving video games, I don't actually play that many. Today's strip, though, was about Mass Effect, a game with which I am so intimately familiar, we are common law spouses in 16 countries. Still, I needed to read the run-down on why this was suddenly a thing to figure out why this comic is even more awesome than previous thought.
I had heard some while ago that BioWare is making a stab at true parity for their games by offering, for the first time, a version of Mass Effect (in this case, the third game) where the cover has a female Shepard on it. (If you call her "FemShep," I kill you. Fuck you, she's not a brand of Shepard. She is Shepard. If you start in with the FemShep bullshit, you better be modifying male Shepard to ButtfuckuglyShep.) Apparently, there is a Facebook poll where you can vote on which Shepard you want to be the archetype female Shepard, since there hasn't been one on a cover before from which to take the basic female avatar.
Except...there has been? There is definitely a default female Shepard, and I'm sure that, despite changing scars and hair color, most of my female Shepards have been largely unchanged from this default. Why not just put her on the cover? Whatever, people are reeeeeeeally pissed that a blonde Shepard is/was leading (with Penny Arcade commenting on it, I'm sure those numbers will change). I don't get why she's automatically dumber-looking/less feminist-looking (buh?) for being blonde. I think she looks pretty fucking badass, actually. She looks goddamn dangerous with that glower, which, whatever the skin-tone politics of these options are, does come across more easily in a picture with a paler skinned avatar. Not that Shepard 2 doesn't look like one serious motherfucker. (She's a demon, you guys. HER EYES. DO NOT LOOK AT THEM.) But Shepard 5 actually looks like she's been through a sweaty firefight, which, okay, I can see how that may sex her up a little to some, but to me it mostly looks like she's walked through the fire and her hair's a mess as it should be. The others are all too clean-cut, unruffled to be really soldier-y.
As far as girly-girl stupid looks ago, I think the model for Shepard 6 is the wors. She looks like Snow White, and a less badass Disney Princess has never graced this world. Shepard 4 looks like she was kicked out of an emo band, with her pouty lips and hair covering one eye. Shepard 1 is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Her precious pixie cut makes her look like you could snap her neck like a chicken's. If anything undercuts Shepard's goddamned dangerous, no nonsense reputation, it's a haircut that last looked good on Twiggy.
So I appreciate Penny Arcade's take. Because precious haircut or hair color shade synonymous with dumb, Shepard is a mean motherfucker. End of story.
I had heard some while ago that BioWare is making a stab at true parity for their games by offering, for the first time, a version of Mass Effect (in this case, the third game) where the cover has a female Shepard on it. (If you call her "FemShep," I kill you. Fuck you, she's not a brand of Shepard. She is Shepard. If you start in with the FemShep bullshit, you better be modifying male Shepard to ButtfuckuglyShep.) Apparently, there is a Facebook poll where you can vote on which Shepard you want to be the archetype female Shepard, since there hasn't been one on a cover before from which to take the basic female avatar.
Except...there has been? There is definitely a default female Shepard, and I'm sure that, despite changing scars and hair color, most of my female Shepards have been largely unchanged from this default. Why not just put her on the cover? Whatever, people are reeeeeeeally pissed that a blonde Shepard is/was leading (with Penny Arcade commenting on it, I'm sure those numbers will change). I don't get why she's automatically dumber-looking/less feminist-looking (buh?) for being blonde. I think she looks pretty fucking badass, actually. She looks goddamn dangerous with that glower, which, whatever the skin-tone politics of these options are, does come across more easily in a picture with a paler skinned avatar. Not that Shepard 2 doesn't look like one serious motherfucker. (She's a demon, you guys. HER EYES. DO NOT LOOK AT THEM.) But Shepard 5 actually looks like she's been through a sweaty firefight, which, okay, I can see how that may sex her up a little to some, but to me it mostly looks like she's walked through the fire and her hair's a mess as it should be. The others are all too clean-cut, unruffled to be really soldier-y.
As far as girly-girl stupid looks ago, I think the model for Shepard 6 is the wors. She looks like Snow White, and a less badass Disney Princess has never graced this world. Shepard 4 looks like she was kicked out of an emo band, with her pouty lips and hair covering one eye. Shepard 1 is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Her precious pixie cut makes her look like you could snap her neck like a chicken's. If anything undercuts Shepard's goddamned dangerous, no nonsense reputation, it's a haircut that last looked good on Twiggy.
So I appreciate Penny Arcade's take. Because precious haircut or hair color shade synonymous with dumb, Shepard is a mean motherfucker. End of story.