Beautiful game. Bioware always makes beautiful games. (Even if their female characters are usually in pretty revealing outfits) But I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed again, Bioware.
Here’s some background info. Mass Effect 1 featured a character that you could customize, male or female, even their background to some extent. All of it effected the game a little. You also chose how you reacted to certain situations throughout the game as well–you could be a paragon of virtue, or a total prick to everyone you met. The same goes for Mass Effect 2. You make a character, customize them (or pick your character from Mass Effect 1 if you’ve beaten it), and make choices for how your character acts toward others. In ME1 you were able to make your female character gay with the alien Liara or the Consort, a sort of high-end alien prostitute on the Citadel. You could not make your male character gay.
I let it slide. Why? Because there wasn’t anything I felt I could do about it. But now I’m playing ME2, and you still can’t be a gay male. The claim has been made on the forums that you can be gay as a woman in ME1, but it isn’t really “gay” because the Liara’s people are unisex, thus not technically female (they still have “hawt boobehs,” soft voices for the most part, tiny waists, and basically look like blue women–they are also, apparently, the majority of strippers in the galaxy). However, in Dragon Age: Origins, I found out, you can be a gay women, or a gay man (with one character, a flamboyant elf of course.)
So basically… what the fuck, Bioware? Do you think a male character can’t be masculine if he fucks dudes? Or are you so inundated by corporate greed that you can’t see what you have the power to do with your games? Normalize homosexual relationships for gamers? Please stop doing this to your customer base. All Bioware has to do is go on their forums–they will see what their customer base has to say. A lot of people are disappointed, and I’m not the only one.
Thank you, Bioware, for being just another corporate asshat who exploits women and lesbians to make money, and who fails at not ostracizing your customer base. I won’t be purchasing any more games from you until I get my DLC Gay Garrus or my DLC Gay Jacob.
UPDATE: There’s a pretty good article on Kotaku called “BioWare Explains Why There’s No Homosexuality in Mass Effect 2″ with an interview with some of the BioWare staff in it. The problem with it, however, is that there IS homosexuality in ME2: female!Shephard can have sex with Kelly [Mass Effect 2 Romance Guide on GamesRadar]. A lot of the comments are along the lines of, “Well, duh, the characters aren’t GAY” so I decided to respond… My comment hasn’t been posted but I thought it was good, and since I have an ego the size of a small star, here’s my comment [sorry for the Huge Block of Text That is My Comment]:
“So, a lot of the replies here seem to be, “Well, not everyone is gay or bi, jeez!” … So, why the hell can the female Shepard be bi? They’re the same person, just a different gender. I don’t understand the concept of “Male Shepard just doesn’t seem like a gay character to me.” WTF makes a “gay character?” What, does he need to wear a pink scarf and tell everyone about his cake-decorating hobby? Can a male video game character be tough, gruff, and strong, AND happen to like men? In the game, if you are a woman, you can have sex with Kelly. But you cannot have sex with any of the male characters if you are male. This is the real issue. They [Bioware] claim that they just didn’t want to put in any gay characters, but in reality, they thought, “Hey, dudes play this game, and dudes like some girl-on-girl action, no matter how PG it is! Let’s just add in some lesbians, and forget about all those gay men! They are pansies and gross.” Not only is Bioware stereotyping 1) male gamers and 2) gay men, they are also assuming that girls do not play their game, and that if they do, they will just ignore that content. I’m aware this response is long, but I’m hoping I’ve made my point: two different versions of the same person, one male and one female, but the male doesn’t seem “gay” to you, while the female can ride whoever she wants, as long as you get to watch. Nice.”
Seriously, it’s the bullshit.
