Dear 82% of Mass Effect gamers,
I'm tempted to tell you that you're doing it wrong.
According to The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3, the superb iPad app from journalist Geoff Keighley, the people who make Mass Effect say that only 18% of gamers play as a female Commander Shepard.
And that's not even the worst of it.
Look, I've only played as BroShep during some demos of these games that were given to the press. Maybe he's awesome. Maybe he deserves to have been the face of BioWare's series since day one. So what if Jennifer Hale's voice-acting performance is hailed as one of the most wonderful things in the series! It's not like the New Yorker chose to write about her, not the guy who voice-acts for BroShep.
Fine. I'm in the 18%. We play as FemShep. We reverse our Mass Effect 3 box covers.
But even if you play as FemShep, it doesn't mean I'm not shaking my head at you. I play as a FemShep engineer.
Look at that chart from Keighley's app. 64.59% soldiers!
What is with all of you soldier players? Did someone tell you that the Mass Effect games are shooters or something? If you play as en engineer, which it seems that almost none of you do, you get to send little flying minions out into the battlefield to kill the bad guys for you. Who doesn't like having minions to do their dirty work? Or is that just my inner-editor-in-chief talking?
I'm checking with Geoff Keighley to find out if these stats are pulled just from Mass Effect 1, 2 or from some platforms or all. Whatever the case, they make me a little sad even as they satisfy my not-so-inner snob. Almost none of you play Mass Effect the way I do, which means that I can now feel that my experience in this branching, malleable series is all the more special, all the more personal, all the more mine.
But, really. If you're not playing as a FemShep engineer, you are missing out.
Sincerely,
Stephen Totilo
Mass Effect Gender-Bending Minion-Commander
P.S. You'll find more stats like this in The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3, which is available now on iPad and is coming to PC soon.