When a game developer is so close to being representational it just hurts that much more when they're not. This is the case for Mass Effect. As a person who has played both as Maleshep and Femshep I can honestly say the difference in game play is at times painful. Consider that Femshep was always treated by Bioware as "the alternative" rather than an equal option - Femshep in the game is a woman who is taken seriously by everyone around her, she can be sexual but that's not the defining part of her. She is a woman who will stop at nothing to save humanity from the Reapers. She's a seriously inspiring role model, and extremely unique. Yet playing as the strong female lead causes many of the issues with in mass effect to haze over, and they become more apparent during a male Shepard play through. Maleshep should be inspiring, but it's distracting how every woman is magically into him. I mean really into him in a creepy stalker way. Femshep gets dumped, has love interests die on her and much more. Maleshep never seems to have any obstructions to the viral line "We'll bang later, ok?". This is more annoying than anything else - especially to lore fans who found the lack of female Turians an irritating contradiction to the codex. The more troubling aspects of Mass Effect is the growing inequality between Maleshep and Femshep outside of the game. In a game that was supposed to be shaped by the decisions each player made (therefore unique to the player) a movie proposal seemed to cause Bioware to decide on a cannon. This almost seems a betrayal to the game's initial concept, and is even more troubling considering how Femshep never even seemed to be considered for the movies. Considering how popular she is and how incredibly inspiring her unique character could be to billions of people it seems almost cruel to instinctively stick with a Captain Kirk like character in Male Shepard. I personally love Captain Kirk, he's one of my favorites. But the movie industry already has Captain Kirk including the amazing re-boot. But the movies does not have Femshep. Maleshep was featured as the "standard" in the games and featured in the majority of the marketing. It would be perfectly equal to save featuring Femshep for the movies and Maleshep for the games marketing. Even if Femshep wasn't selected, she should have been considered. There are other aspects of the game that sheds light on inequality. Such as Miranda's rear. The problem with easter eggs like the ability "investigate" Miranda's behind is there isn't an similar experience for Femshep. Being able to investigate Miranda's rear as Femshep would be enough. Or perhaps an option on Wrex, if you catch my drift. The romance options for Male Shepard are by far more elaborate and often include more content . Femshep has a much less appealing selection with much more of them not ending well. Also there's lots of strip clubs with only female dancers. The "unattractive" female aliens don't appear until the 3rd game. The body types of the older characters are extremely inaccurate and at times humorous. I couldn't help but laugh at Matriarch Benezia because even while dying she had massive cleavage that made everything seem silly. I couldn't help but wonder how they didn't fall out. Does she use biotics or something? Yet despite all these issues Mass Effect definitely has some of the best female characters out there, and Bioware games as a whole are a lot more inclusive to a female audience (and also a homosexual audience). As I said before, it just hurts that much more when they are not.