Powered by the new Mass Effect 3 engine and featuring 6 hours of bonus missions (that DLC that Xbox 360 owners had to pay for separately!) it is looking like a very tasty proposition. Exactly what improvements using the Mass Effect 3 engine brings to the game is unclear at the moment, possibly some extra shine to the shiny spaceships maybe?

Although you can play as a male or female Commander Shepard you wouldn’t know that listening to the trailer’s voice over:

One man might be all that stands between humanity and the greatest threat of our brief existence.

Replace the word “man” with “person” and it would sound much better. Although it is hardly surprising that Commander Shepard is portrayed as a man in Mass Effect 2 given the gender based marketing that we are seeing and have seen before with the Mass Effect cover art.

Mass Effect 2 is released on the PlayStation 3 on the 21st Jan 2011 and is out now on Xbox 360.

Now let’s talk about games. Over the weekend, a load of game trailers premiered at the Spike TV Video Game Awards. Among them were the first trailers for two brilliant role-playing franchises, Mass Effect and The Elder Scrolls. Quite apart from the thoroughly fleshed-out universes and epic storylines available in both series’, I love these games because they don’t shoehorn me into the default male grunt role. Don’t get me wrong – I’m very much looking forward to playing Adam Jensen in Deus Ex: Human Revolution – but any game where I’m referred to as “he” will always lose a degree of immersion.

BioWare is one of, if not the most progressive triple-A developers in the world. They’ve consistently created female-inclusive games since at least 1998. NPCs respond differently depending on your gender and you are never disempowered for choosing to play as a woman. Mass Effect 2 even has female cannon-fodder henchwomen, which was practically unheard-of in games until very recently. IIRC, Morrowind and Oblivion by Bethesda Game Studios are more gender-neutral – most character interactions are the same whether you are male or female.

When releasing sequels in two of the top-selling RPG franchises in the world, you would think that this might be an opportunity to stick your heads outside the 18-35 male demographic, wouldn’t you? Bioware have already put a tremendous amount of investment into making female-friendly games. Mass Effect is filled with male and female romance subplots. The Dragon Age series is making a respectable attempt with homosexual options.

Yet the teaser trailers for both Mass Effect 3 and Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim both seem to cast the protagonist squarely as a man. Skyrim’s is very subtle – “But, there is one they fear. In their tongue he is known as…” The line could have so easily been “The one they fear is known as…” Yes, it’s just a teaser and for all I know the entire game is going to be about how the dragonborn dude failed everyone and that it’s up to me to save the world. I’ll come back to why that subtle line is important.

With Mass Effect I understand the argument that the franchise has been heavily branded towards this particular John Shepard for years now. I’ve blogged about that approach to Mass Effect’s marketing before (albeit facetiously). The thing is, both games so far have received incredible critical acclaim. The people who have bought and loved the first two games will undoubtedly buy the third. Mass Effect already has a core user base – why not continue the winning streak of breaking down design barriers by tackling a few in marketing as well? With the proven success of the franchise so far, EA have as close to a risk-free environment as any game is ever likely to get.

I’m certainly not calling for some insipid “find-and-replace John Shepard with Jane Shepard” tactic. Marketing can be far more nuanced than that.

Trailer editors take it upon themselves to summarize and sell the most commercial possible product, whether it bears even a fuzzy resemblance to the film it’s ostensibly promoting. Oftentimes, that means cutting different trailers for different demographics. Consequently, the same film can be marketed as a raunchy teen sex comedy, a heartfelt romance, or an earnest coming-of-age drama.
- AVClub.com

As with Skyrim, yes this was only a teaser trailer but this time last year I was hoping for more inclusiveness around the marketing for Mass Effect 2 as well. The closest we got was Miranda’s character trailer, rampant with male-gaze camera angles and talk of her following “him”. Yup, the ass-kicking female heroine will submit to the mighty John Shepard. You don’t even need to win her loyalty. With Dragon Age 2 also prominently featuring male heroes, I think it’s pretty clear what the EA marketing strategy is for 2011.

Stepping outside the world of games for a moment. If you’re a man, you’re probably at least somewhat interested in your health, right? Maybe you could do with some info about maintaining a steady weight? Perhaps you’d be into learning an abdominal workout or two that you can do in the privacy of your own home?

There’s a yearly London show that offers all this info. If you are a man, I’d put money on your never having looked at the posters twice:

It’s not for you. The marketing makes that pretty damn clear from the outset.

Every time games marketing is geared solely towards men, your average woman will hear that same phrase – subliminally or otherwise. The foretold saviour of the world is addressed as “he”? It’s not for me. The game where every single piece of marketing features a burly man staring me down? It’s not for me. The browser-based game that allows me to create my own dungeon and play socially against my friends? It’s. Not. For. Me. Though to be fair, that one may be appealing to lesbians as well. I couldn’t possibly comment.

All I’m saying is that it would nice if games marketers could stop marketing AGAINST women, especially when the games themselves are clearly designed to appeal to both genders. Is this all you need to be a labelled a rabid feminist these days?

Actually, I take it back. I might well buy a game on the strength of its cover art if it looked like this:

But otherwise, not so much. The thing that changed 3 years ago was the release of Mass Effect. Now long-time readers of this blog will know that I have a long history of computer-RPGs, all the way back to the Gold Box games. I played Baldur’s Gate and all its sequels. I played Icewind Dale. I played KOTOR. I played NeverWinter Nights. And yet, with all that gaming history from BioWare, I still had serious doubts over whether or not I could play Mass Effect. Why’s that?

The cover art. And the screenshots. And the character art. And the marketing videos. And the merchandise.

Who the hell is that? I don’t want to play a BOY!

Yup, even with all the previous BioWare games, the sheer onslaught of John Shepard imagery gave me serious doubts as to whether or not this game was for me. I honestly don’t understand why this was seen as a good idea. It’s an RPG, ffs. You’re supposed to BE the title character, not identify with him. Hell, probably the most popular lead character in the history of gaming is a first-person mute. Fortunately for both BioWare and Microsoft, I did a little research because I had faith in the developers. I discovered that I could indeed play someone of my own gender and wound up buying an Xbox 360 specifically to play Mass Effect :)

Cover art be damned. It gets in the way of real gaming.

This post was part of Gamer Banter, a monthly video game discussion coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part of this, please email him for details.

Other takes on cover art for games:

• Silvercublogger: Don’t Cover The Art, Unless…
• Aim for the Head: Browsing the Aisles
• SnipingMizzy: In the eye of the beholder
• Extra Guy: On Books and Covers
• Zath: How Important Is A Game’s Cover Art?
• carocat.co.uk: Cover art? No, thanks!
• Pioneer Project: The game box’s big moment
• Man Fat: How Important Is A Game’s Cover Art?

Or check out previous banter posts on The Average Gamer.

14 clues were sent out last night, with instructions to search for body parts from 9am and get them to Westminster Bridge by 11am:

1. Hidden near a pub? Elementary, my dear Watson…
2. More drinks, this time with digging sailors
3. A Standard location on Villiers Street – and it’s a laughing matter…
4. A Proudly photographic display
5. Samuel Pepys dwelled here, his street a palatial namesake
6. Rubbish? Find out, where Chandos and Bedfordbury cross
7. 8 Bedford Court
8. Rubbish? Find out, where Bedfordbury and New Row cross
9. Make a call on St Martin’s Lane
10. London’s narrowest street
11. Sir Isaac dwelled here, with a view of the National Portrait Gallery
12. Captain Scott’s memory is keeping this safe
13. Take a seat between (IC)Art and the Arch
14. Seek out the pub with no name on Warwick House Street

Some serious Googling got us this map and route.

View Larger Map

Despite getting to Embankment at 8:50am, we didn’t find any body parts on Villier’s Street, nor the Sherlock Holmes pub. In fact, we cleared all 14 sites by 9:38 and didn’t find a single head, torso or limb that wasn’t firmly clutched in the paws of fellow socially-conscious individuals… The first ones we saw were in the hands of a couple of guys at 4 minutes past 9 who had found at least 3 (THREE!) parts already. Hmm… :|

No matter, it was a great way to spend the morning. Much more fun than a normal Thursday. Plus, everyone who turned up on Westminster Bridge got a free RE5 bag, copies of the game and photo ops with the body parts ;)

Met a friendly couple on Northumberland Avenue – Ricky Smith and Katherine Halls:

Ricky, risking himself to keep London safe:

Evidence, but no joy:

The winners:

The losers:

The Infected:

Resident Evil 5 is out in the UK on Friday the 13th (Ooooo!) March 2009.

Most amusingly, Gamezine reports that a bunch of the body parts were taken by people who didn’t then bring them to the drop-point on Westminster Bridge. What would you do if you found a bloody fake torso stinking of raw chicken liver?

First we had the bizarre PSP advert featuring 2 “Mexican” dustballs and now Sony has given these 2 dustballs a website called dustballs.tv.

On this website you can find:

• 2 dustball TV ads – 3 more coming soon
• Sign up for Dustball newsletter
• Info about PSP Wi-fi, online gaming, media manager and game sharing

Apart from the ads there’s not a huge amount of content on this site, but it is worth a view just to hear the witty banter between the 2 dustballs. They are quite funny, especially in the Tekken: Dark Resurrection tv advert. Roar!

Edit 27th Jan 2010: The dustballs.tv site is no longer maintained (shocker, I know) but plenty of YouTubers have uploaded the videos. My favourite:

You can see all the old PSP Dustball ads in this video.