commander-shepard
Latest
Joystiq Weekly: Intel's diversity initiative, IGF awards, GOTY roundtable and more
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. Talks of diversity within the technology and gaming industries has amplified over the past several months, encouraging a consideration for walks of life that are unfamiliar to personal perspectives. Intel added a noteworthy talking point to the discussion during CES 2015, announcing plans to invest $300 million into increasing diversity among its staff and within the general tech space. It's easy to forget about humans when we're closing the gap on robot chefs, but sometimes the basic stuff that has nothing to do with pretend wardrobes and curved screens is just as cool. Plenty happened outside of CES 2015 however, including the announcement of nominations for the IGF awards, the Joystiq staff's video (and audio)-based roundtable Game of the Year discussion, and a potential end to the "Who's the true Commander Shepard" debate. All this and more is waiting for you after the break!
See Commander Shepard's first steps
Straight from the Twitter feed of Mass Effect 1 and 2 Lead Animator Jonathan Cooper, Mass Effect protagonist Commander Shepard was a woman in the game's very first animation tests 10 years ago. Turns out, FemShep is the OG Commander. Ten years ago this month, my very first anim test for Mass Effect. Yup, Commander Shepard was originally a woman: pic.twitter.com/FhC2E0FSrA - Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) January 9, 2015 "For those asking, I repurposed mocap from Jade Empire," Cooper said in a follow-up tweet. "Shepard was always planned to be both male & female after JE's pre-set characters."
BioWare offers coy tease of next Mass Effect
BioWare celebrated its self-imposed Mass Effect holiday "N7 Day" yesterday with special Mass Effect 3 multiplayer sessions and livestreams. The game's developers also took to Twitter, compiled in one Storify post, to tease the next game in the series. There are five teaser images in total, though gameplay designer Manveer Heir noted on Twitter that there are "10 other pics on the internet from BioWare devs." The images show developers working on the next game's character and location designs as well as omni tool equipment. It's hard to glean anything worthwhile out of the images other than a reminder that another Mass Effect game is definitely in development and we should all be excited for that.
Next Mass Effect abandons Shepard, but won't 'feel like a spin-off'
When the next entry in the Mass Effect franchise inevitably arrives, it will feature a brand new story unrelated to Commander Shepard and his or her crew of sexually promiscuous extraterrestrials. Mac Walters, lead writer for the franchise, was asked by Complex where BioWare plans to take the series' plot now that it's been revealed that Commander Shepard is no longer leading things. "... the idea is that we have agreed to tell a story that doesn't relate necessarily to any of the Shepard events at all, whatsoever," replied Walters. "But throughout it all, one of the key things is that it has to be Mass Effect. It can't just feel like a spin-off. It has to feel like a Mass Effect game at its heart, at its core." "Just without the Shepard character or the Shepard-specific companions," added Walters. The writer was then asked for his opinion on fan backlash toward the ending of Mass Effect 3, a response that gave Walters and his colleagues at BioWare a greater appreciation for just how much people care about the pixelated people he writes. "I think that's one of the things we really underestimated, which was how much ownership people would take over a character that they could do that," said Walters. "You know, you've been given free choice to make all these decisions with this character, with the fates of millions of people, and then, you don't get to choose your own fate." "I'm not saying that our decision was wrong or right," said Walters. "I think we just underestimated the impact that would have on certain players."
Mass Effect 3 hosts a five-day multiplayer event this week
BioWare has announced another Mass Effect 3 multiplayer event, but this is no standard combat skirmish: Admiral Hackett says this is "the largest-scale attack in the brief history of this war."Instead of just a weekend special, Operation Lodestar will last from today through March 10, which means you'll have five days to complete all three tiers, and earn three Commendation packs and a special banner.To pick up all three rewards, players will need to finish and extract from missions against all four enemy factions on Platinum difficulty. Extracting on any difficulty wins you the first award, and beating Silver difficulty wins the second. It'll be good practice for taking on the Citadel DLC, which you can also find in Mass Effect 3 starting this week.
Fan-made Mass Effect adventure game surfaces
A Mass Effect fan-game by the name of Finding Shepard popped up on the Adventure Game Studio forums recently. Created by AGS forums user Nightfable, Finding Shepard is an in-progress game set in the Mass Effect universe that directly follows the events of Mass Effect 3.Without spoiling too much of the story from the series, Finding Shepard stars Jack, who is searching for Commander Shepard after the "destroy" version of the series' ending. The point-and-click adventure style of the game lends itself to some interesting takes on the climactic points of the series' plot, and gives fans that weren't thrilled with the ending (or the Extended Cut DLC) an opportunity to experience other stories that folks like Nightfable wish to tell in BioWare's universe.In other words, we'd totally play it. Check out screens from the project in our gallery below.%Gallery-162245%
Report: Mass Effect 3 face patch causing crashes for some folks
For those of you excited about dusting off the ol' ME1 Shepard and giving those Reapers what for, know that there may be one more hurdle between you and Mass Effect 3's intergalactic glory. Apparently, the patch that fixed the face import bug has broken things elsewhere – specifically, some players are experiencing crashes when connecting to EA's servers.Shepards encountering this issue are encouraged to post about it in this BioWare thread, where development is currently farming user data in order to better understand the problem and find a solution. The good news is that the error appears to be periodic rather than consistent, with some affected players able to connect via persistence and willpower. There are also reports that re-patching can resolve the issue, but for heaven's sake please be careful when deleting ME3's system cache from your Xbox's hard drive. Save files are precious, fragile things.
Mass Effect 3 'Mission Command' Facebook app offers in-game goodies
Microsoft has launched a Facebook app called Mass Effect 3 Mission Command, that both serves as promotion for the upcoming Mass Effect 3, and an opportunity to get some in-game items. You "log in" to Mission Command (which grants EA access to your Facebook account and email), and then you have to fulfill missions like recruiting your friends, posting pickup lines for Liara, downloading the demo, or sharing movies of you pretending to be in the game.The first prize on offer is an Xbox Live avatar prop of the Normandy (presumably the same one found in the Xbox 360 Collector's Edition), and later missions will give away an Xbox 360 console complete with the game and Kinect. Sure, doing missions for EA's promotional gain might not be quite as heroic as saving the universe from the reapers, but even Commander Shepard finds the time to sell out occasionally.
Commander Shepard is leaving us after Mass Effect 3
Unlike that other big space trilogy whose hero doggedly refuses to call it quits, Mass Effect's magnanimous (and/or tyrannical) Commander Shepard will be cashing in her Systems Alliance penchant and taking an early retirement after Mass Effect 3, according to BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzyka. "After this, Commander Shepard's story is complete," Mazuka told PC Gamer, adding that they were "correct" in suggesting that Shepard absolutely will not be present in any future games set in the Mass Effect universe. No clue as to how Shepard will be exiting the series, naturally, but we figure our Mass Effect 3 play-through will end the same way our Mass Effect 2 one did: completely forgotten and overwritten by hours and hours of endless ore prospecting.
Help pick female Commander Shepard's default look for Mass Effect 3
Though we're certain everyone reading this takes the time and effort required to truly breathe life into the facial characteristics of their Commander Shepard, BioWare is looking to change up the pre-made female model for Mass Effect 3. On the game's Facebook page, the developer has posted six images of potential prefabricated protagonists, asking fans of the franchise to vote for their favorite by "Liking" one of the candidates. The current vote leader is Shepard No. 5, featured in the center of the line-up above. We suppose she fits the part, though really, how many galaxies can Samus Aran save in one lifetime? She's being awfully greedy, now that we think about it.
Female Shepard will play a greater role in Mass Effect 3 marketing
For years, when confronted with Mass Effect marketing materials, you've been asking yourself, "Who is that dude?" Trailers, toys, boxart ... he's everywhere. Not only is that dude bland beefcake, but everyone knows that Shepard is a woman. With that said, BioWare's Director of Marketing David Silverman noted on Twitter that the company recently had a meeting about incorporating female Shepard into marketing materials and "are working on the look now." Silverman also stated that the Collector's Edition of the game will have both Shepard genders on the cover. We can't wait to see generic man Shep paired with a powerful, black female Shepard. What? Shepard is a black woman! Everyone knows this.
Mass Effect 2 presses reset on Shepard's abilities
Things are getting crazy with this Mass Effect 2 video game from Bioware. First, we're led to believe Shepard is dead, then he (or she) is not. Then we find out all of our decisions in the first game will affect the sequel. Now, Computerworld (via The Escapist) informs us that the Shephard we know, love, and have spent so many hours grinding won't have all of his (or her) abilities in the second game. During an interview, producer Casey Hudson said, "There's something that's happening with the story that explains what happens with your abilities. It's something we can't go into detail about for obvious reasons."It makes sense. If you're starting off an epic quest like the one we assume takes place in Mass Effect 2, it's not good design to have the player start as a jacked, unstoppable god of a man (or woman). It's not like this is Prototype or something ...[Via The Escapist]
OXM cover shows familiar face to promote Mass Effect 2 preview
The July issue of Official Xbox Magazine, spotted by Deeko News, features a Mass Effect 2 character that may actually be -- the supposedly dead -- Commander Shepard. To be honest, considering Mass Effect allowed players to customize the look (and even gender) of Shepard, who knows who this sleep-deprived chump is. Maybe it's a new character! Maybe it's a race of clones taking over the galaxy! Okay, to be honest, it probably is Shepard ... and he's totally a zombie.
Commander Shepard probably isn't dead in Mass Effect 2
Following the release of the Mass Effect 2 teaser trailer, we've all been nervous wrecks about the assumedly unfortunate fate of the first Mass' protagonist, Commander Shepard. We really do not want him to be dead. We spent so much time molding him, as if from clay, to look just like us, only much more attractive.Fortunately, at the end of a recent Mass Effect 2 dev blog post, the game's executive producer, Casey Hudson, responded to the notion of Shepard's corpsification, saying he "better not be." He continued, "we had a lot of big plans made, so if someone's gone and killed Shepard then things are going to take an unexpected turn." So, there you have it. Either Shepard is still alive, or some unknown, shadowy agent murdered him without Bioware's noticing. Either way, we should know more about Shepard's status when we see the game next month at E3.
Commander Shepard has never looked this good
They've teased over and over again, but the time has come for HyperChild to pull back the mysterious curtain and complete one final reveal.HyperChild just recently showcased the final sculpt for their upcoming Mass Effect Commander Shepard statue which not only comes with an $89 price tag, but comes chalk full of Mass Effect gaming cred. The statue (seen in the gallery below) is around eight inches tall, is limited to 2,500 pieces and will be available the second quarter of 2008 exclusively through online retailer HighDome. And with all this action figure talk lately, we must say this Commander Shepard statue is one of the best sculpts we've seen yet. But we guess that's why it carries an $89 commitment.%Gallery-16199%
