Mass Asside

I just a had a strange realization. In Mass Effect 2 there are two optional recruits, Zaeed and Kasumi. The guy's free, but you have to pay for the girl. What the hell's with that?

Massive Affectation 2

Well, I found out what happened to the Krogan females. Apparently they have their own clans, and I guess they just don't get out much? Still, it'd be nice to meet one. At least now their absence makes a certain amount of sense; given the precious rarity of a fertile Krogan ladies, doesn't make a whole lot of sense for them to be gallivanting around the galaxy. Sucks for the fruitful female, a life-time of breeding. But not all alien species' civilizations can be rainbows and moonbeams. Would like to know more about the cultural ramifications. And what about the sterile women? What do they do with their time? Questions, questions. Still no word on turian chicks, but I hear they're rather flexible.

I also realized that in addition to the lack of unappealing women in space, there also seems to be a lack of fat people in general (except for the volus, but they're only fat in comparison to everyone else, for all I know the round butterballs on the Citadel are actually the one's spry enough to get off planet). This I will allow to be attributed to this being the future and all species have concurred obesity, or whatever, but it's still weird. Also no old people or children. The kiddies make sense from a game-mechanic standpoint, more models to have to render, and maybe with the advent of space-age cosmetic surgery no one needs to look over 30. Certainly not the asari.

To continue my earlier tirade concerning attractiveness, ME2 is not winning any points from me for Miranda. At least she admits to being genetically engineered to be a knock-out. And they call her out in-game for that “uniform” of hers. Makes me wonder what the actress she was modeled after thinks about her “engineered good looks”. I miss Ashley, even if she did come in pink armor. At least she didn't come across as a stuck-up bitch. Miranda has a personal investment in my well-being, why does she have to be so stand-offish? Still, if anyone deserves an inferiority complex, it's Miranda. She gets better with time, but then so does Stockholm Syndrome.

My personal problems with Miranda aside, she seems more like a caricature than an actual character. Pretty to look at, but totally two dimensional. Granted, I'm not really the one being catered to, but that's no excuse. Ashley was a perfectly likable character, even if I didn't want to do her. I don't even dislike Miranda that much, but she's so uninteresting and so obviously over-sexualized that I immediately feel alienated.

In contrast, I really like Jack, and not just because she insists on calling Miranda “the cheerleader”. She's just as pretty, has a nice body, she walks around practically shirtless, and her attitude's worse than Miranda's. So why doesn't Jack bother me? She's abrasive and taciturn, and yet somehow more likable than certain operatives. Maybe I just really hate Cerberus, but in the end I guess it's because that while her physical features alone are very attractive, she's represented in the most conventionally un-appealing way possible. Her random hap-hazard tattoos, piercings and shaved head detract rather than add to her otherwise comely exterior. Or rather, they should. I guess it's just pandering without seeming to pander. Not much of a difference ultimately, but at least I don't feel put-out in the end.


Oh, and am I the only one who noticed that the female Shepard seems to suffer from Lara-Croft-itis? Her boobs are notably larger in ME2. Cerberus, what have you done?!

The Mass Effects

The current object of my affection for the past month or so has been BioWare's epic sci-fi series, Mass Effect. We'll start the ball rolling with blatant endorsement: I love Mass Effect. I love almost everything about it. I love the universe, I love the NPCs, the dialogue, the battle system. I especially love that fact that the action and dialogue remains unchanged (except those concerning romantic options) regardless of which gender you play, though really this is probably more due to the fact that they would have to re-script every single scene than any idealism surrounding gender roles and attitudes.

However, like all adults who love something, I recognize that it has its faults. My biggest beef: there are no ugly women in space. All the sentient females in Mass Effect (especially the aliens) are all attractive by human conventions. I notice that all males of all species are bound by no such restraints. This may seem like a small thing to nit-pick about, but think about it: no unattractive women in space? Even alien? Even ugly, reptilian or insect like aliens, of which there are many different kinds? None of them are female? You heard me. None. Not one. Well, ok, one. Let us not forget the Rachni queen, subjugated into a breeding machine whose only purpose was to pop out babies. So yeah, one ugly alien female.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with sexualizing characters. Doesn't bother me. I enjoy looking at pretty people as much as anyone. What does bother me is the unequal way it is commonly implemented. For every ten sexualized women in video games, how many male characters receive the same treatment? Three? Four? I don't have an answer. All I want is sexualization to an equal degree for both genders. All I want is that for every attractive, big-breasted, bodysuit-wearing female hottie there to be an equally attractive, athletic, bodysuit-wearing male hottie. If we're going to pander, let it be to everyone.

Mass Effect starts off well in the first game; your first two real companions are two relatively comely humans, a male and female marine. Each wears a skin-tight set of armor that leaves little to the imagination, though the woman is actually wearing heavy armor while the man is in light armor, so arguably his is marginally more revealing – ANYWAY; skin-tight armor: check. Both genders: check. But after that things get unbalanced.

The next two people you pick up are two alien men. One looks like a bipedal-hunchback rhinoceros-sans-horn and sounds about how you would expect an English-speaking rhino would sound. He's nasty, brutish, and AWESOME. But, in regards to my point, decidedly unattractive. Unless you're really into large scaly mammals.

The other alien, a turian, looks like a cross between a dinosaur and a bird of prey, with some kind of bony growth covering his entire face, like it's Halloween year-round. Coupled with pointed teeth and claw-like hands and you have the makings for the next AvP movie.

Now, both of them talk about females in their species, so we know they exist, but we never see them. Only vague references are ever made to an entire half of both species' population. And I haven't even started on the salarians, drell, volus, or batarians, all races confirmed to have females, but none of whom are ever seen. So where are they? They obviously exist. Do they just not let unattractive women into Citadel space?

Moving on, another companion you pick up is an asari. The asari are a race of mono-gendered aliens, all of whom appear as beautiful women of varying shades of blue and purple. I'm really not sure what to think of them. On the one hand, they are the oldest, most powerful, and most respected race in the galaxy. Their representative occupies one of only three spots on the governing council of the Citadel and their warriors are a force to be reckoned with. But on the other hand, is anyone else reminded of the first days of Star Trek, where beautiful and highly seducable green alien women were the norm? Incidentally, the asari companion is one of the options for romance in the game (for both genders; I admit that part is pretty cool). Seducable alien woman, what?

Also on the Citadel can be found a young quarian woman. It's hard to determine whether or not Tali is pretty, as she wears an environmental suit the entire time, but she does have a distinctly shapely and appealing feminine figure, and the features vaguely distinguishable beneath the mask seem attractive enough.

So we have three fetching young women, one fetching young man and two scary alien dudes. Anything seem strange about that? Pretty women: fine. Pretty men: good. Ugly alien dudes: great. Ugly alien women: disturbingly absent. I thought personality was supposed to count for something. Wish list for ME3? Ugly girls need screen time, too.

So the assessment of ME2 will have to wait for another day, as I'm tl;dring myself at this point.