No Need To Politicize What You Choose Shepard To Be

Earlier today, over on Twitter, I stumbled across an article written by Evan Urquhart, which you can read here (https://slate.com/culture/2021/05/mass-effect-legendary-edition-ps4-xbox-pc-femshep.html) and in it he does everything possible to politicize why players should choose to play one gender of Commander Shepard over another. Yes he does make mention of Jennifer Hale's performance, but the fact that he links the majority of his reasoning to his own political views is a sign he wants to kick the hornet's nest and piss people off. 

As many of you know, over on my Twitch Channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden) I've played a lot of video games that have featured a female protagonist or if I'm given the choice, I'll freely choose to have the lead character be female. The way I select the genders of these characters is based on what basic details I learn about the game's story and how I would envision the character to be.

Case in point, knowing the Mass Effect has Paragon and Renegade personalty path, that leads to me figuring out how I want my version of Commander Shepard to be, and that is a kick-ass, mostly abrasive military grunt who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Based on that, I pick Shepard to be female because it falls better in line with how I picture the character to be.

So I'm not making a political statement, I'm just making a decision based on actually thinking about the game and the way I want to experience it. And I think that's how most people should make their choice, go with what your imagination tell you. If it doesn't work out, you can just restart the game and choose differently.

Granted this will be where people will point that I've only done one BroShep run on stream of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, to which I say it's because Mark Meer doesn't have the 'voice' to carry the lead role of a video game. If you check out his credits, he's more often than not, providing the voices for NPCs and such and that his performance is not as good as Jennifer Hale's. 

Of course that's just my opinion. 

Today's Notes 5/19/21: Mass Effect, Mortal Kombat & More

Good morning everybody,

You know how it is you expect to do something, but when you wake up and check something out you realize that you won't be doing something because of bad notifications because someone said 'expect' to do something? Yeah that happened to me this morning.

ANyway, last night's stream of Mass Effect Legendary Edition saw a big focus on actual story progression as we tackled Noveria and Feros, plus a handful of side missions which meant we got the story achievements associated with both major story areas as well as completing the majority of the game. Here's the full list of achievements done last night.

1. Honorarium of Corporate Service: ME1: Complete Noveria
2. Completionist: ME1: Complete the majority of the game
3. Recruit: Kill 250 enemies in Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3
4. Principled: ME1: Accumulate 75% of total possible Paragon or Renegade points
5. Medal of Heroism: ME1: Complete Feros

Now in terms of changes, probably the most notable was on Feros, where the Asari Clone actually spawns as an enemy when we're running around blasting the Thorian tendril connector. I make note of that because on the PC and 360 versions of Mass Effect, I don't think it ever spawned in fully. Also, since I had the VII level Specter gear, namely the shotgun, that entire area was basically a series of one-shot kills. Which leads me to point out that while there were some changes in Mass Effect for the Legendary Edition, they are very few and far between.

We also have a few clips from last night's stream as well

Twitch Clip: You can't tell that I've done this before

Twitch Clip: Shoot Her!

Twitch Clip: Achievement: Recruit

Twitch Clip: This is my Boom Stick! It Goes Boom!

Twitch Clip: Wrex What Are You Doing Up There?

Following last night's stream, I put in some more work on Mortal Kombat 11, I'm about half way towards the Tower Champion achievement (which is to complete 125 towers), which means I'm a quarter of the way towards the Master of Time achievement (which is to complete 250 towers), made some progress towards the Have We Met Achievement (2 out of 5 intros equipped). It wasn't totally pointless last night, as I did get one achievement.

1. Not Dead Yet: Show MERCY 10 times

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was about 28 minutes, after 5 days of 40+ workouts, I needed a light day... which meant today was kind of normal for a Wednesday anyway. We're up to 46 points for Martina's Best Friend Achievement, so the progress is going to probably be a little more gradual, unless my theory is right in that you get 3 points for a 30 minute plus work out. I say that because the game does ask if 30 minutes is enough for today any time you're doing a longer session. 

I am expecting a couple of things in the mail, but it hasn't arrived yet, which means any announcements in terms of things being added to my collection will have to wait for tomorrow. Needless to say I believe I tracked down the only baseball games on the PlayStation One that would have featured Lenny Dystrka and Darren Daulton. 

For tonight's stream, we'll be back to the Division, as we'll be roaming around, doing things, finding collectables and such. More than likely we'll be joined by Iceman to really put some progression into things for my one character and his secondary one. 

And so on that note, we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!