Been noticing this trend for awhile now; on Mass Effect forums many male players prefer playing as femshep; playing Dark Souls online with some female but once in chat it's of course some sausage blabbering in the mic; see PewDiePie stream player unknown 3x and of course he plays as a girl.
In this topic, Thief discovers the true meaning of Girl on the internet...
I can't see ME with fem Shepard. Maybe on my second playthrough? But then again, I've already reserved 2nd and 3rd plausible playthroughs for other female encounters.
The same goes for Fallout 4. A female lead just doesn't feel like the same character motivation.
These kinds of games are primarily meant to be played as yourself. Hence why in fallout you can virtually recreate your own face. To each his own, I guess.
On that note, I prefer a game that already has a character, named and all, already set for the main story. Male or female, don't care. I love female lead characters in games. Aloy, Lara Croft, Nariko, Tyris Flare, Samus, you name them.
I voted female, but it really depends on the characters and game. I played as a male Cmdr. Shepard, but only because I figured the default character would offer the better experience. I use Edie in Elevator Action Returns (Jad is too slow; glam rock has a weird jump), but I don't care if I'm playing Leila or Albatross in Rolling Thunder 2 because they're effectively the same. I mained Chun-Li in the original SFII but use Dudley in SFIII. In Skullgirls, a game dominated by women, I play Big Band, but that's just because Big Band is so awesome.
I think I gravitate toward female video game characters since they're typically faster and more nimble and pleasing to look at, but I won't tolerate a bad/worse character all the same.
I instinctively choose to always play as the male character simply because that is how I identify, even in a virtual video game environment. I do like female characters and female leads in games, my favourites being Jill Valentine from Resident Evil and Blaze Fielding from Streets of Rage, but given the choice I'm always having a personal sausage fest. ;)
I pick whichever. Now I'm not playing life simulators or whatever. Just arcade and action games and such. Most games I play all the characters.
I can certainly recall and say that back in the day there was never any stigma against playing as a female character. It was always just about what skills and attributes the characters have.
I would say I go 50/50 with games that allow you to pick. I will sometimes re-play the game later on as a different gender, especially with bethesda games.
For games that don't give you the option, I never really care. I would rather a game have a single strongly written male/female only lead than two lamely written player choice leads.
Tried to play as femshep once just for some extra differences on a game I've replayed countless times and couldn't do it.Quote:
Originally Posted by QuickSciFi
And yes, I too prefer preset characters.
Jill Valentine is the only time I picked a female over Chris first time through because she was basically normal mode and Chris was hard mode. And since you have to play both to experience all of RE2, makes more from sense to go from normal to hard instead of vice versa. ... Though second playthrough will always be harder regardless because of...Quote:
Originally Posted by Mega Drive Bowlsey
That's not the same as I'm asking in this thread. Don't care if you pick Ken or Chun Li because they are different enough. Talking when it's mostly cosmetics.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prince Talmit
Welcome back, bultje112.
I'm with the (so far)majority on this one. As MDBowlsey said, it's about how you identify. I have no issues with female leads(unless it's specifically for "diversity." Alys was my favorite part of PSIV, for example), but given the choice I gotta go with the one I can identify with.
This reasoning has always been puzzling and incomprehensible to me. Whether I can identify with the character I'm playing has always been a complete non-factor me. That's just down to differences in individual values and brain wirings I suppose. But there's also another element to this where I've noticed that these arguments only ever seem to be brought up with regards to sex/gender and ethnicity of human protagonists. I've never seen people argue over not being able to identify with regards to characters that are fantasy races like dwarves and orcs, space aliens, robots or anthropomorphic animals.Quote:
Originally Posted by midnightrider
You pretty much summed up my feelings for the most part as well here.Quote:
Originally Posted by ComradeOj
Though, I will sometimes choose a female main if they are easier on the eyes than the male main. Some character designs are just waaaay out there.
In games where you have multiple fantasy characters to choose from like orcs and elves and such I always choose to play as the human. Again probably because personally identifying with a character makes my journey with said character deeper. As you say it's how we're wired up I suppose.Quote:
Originally Posted by GeckoYamori
If the female character has anything to offer that the male character doesn't, I'm certainly open to choosing her. Otherwise, if it's 100% cosmetic and there's zero gameplay difference, I'll normally default to the male character.
Why? Dunno. It's true that, as a kid, I remember seeing other boys/guys get made fun of for choosing the female character; later, as graphics have improved, I've seen people insinuate that playing as a female character is somehow pervy or masturbatory (and, in truth, some games sure make it seem that way). So maybe those things are disincentives.
But for me, I think more than anything it's because, in the genres I tend to play, female characters are often faster/more versatile but weaker/less powerful than the male characters. I tend to favor slower but powerful players, so when I play a new game I assume that the male character will be more in tune with my gameplay style. Plus my wife tends to pick the female character anyway when we play 2P, and there's often only one to choose from.