We roll through Mass Effect 2 and some non-spoilery ME3 discussion joined by guests Maggie Baird (voice of Samara) and Jennifer Hale (voice of FemShep). Ms. Baird introduces us to the world of voice acting and specifically the Mass Effect interview and recording process. And Ms. Hale offers some insight into breathing life into a character which the actor can’t see or control — all of which just gets us completely wound up to play our copies of ME3.
Is Chuck delaying posting these in the forum to try getting us to look at his graphics on the main page like he’s always complaining about on Eff This Week? 
Exactly what I thought when they were talking about the Hanar. Thanks for that Fenatic!
Chuck, I love that you brought up Walter Benjamin. Back when I pretended to maybe be a blogger, I dithered for months about some half-baked ideas I still have about Benjamin’s ideas and Cylons and reproduction in Cylon terms,etc. etc. Perhaps one day I’ll actually take the time to think it all the way through.
That said, for those interested, you can read the essay online, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. It’s hugely influential in the humanities, in my experience.
For one of my playthroughs (I did, like, 8 or more. I have a problem) of Mass Effect 1, I made a very ugly man when I got frustrated and couldn’t make my own face (no jokes!). I noticed about halfway through exactly what you talked about which was that NOBODY mentions how you look throughout the game. I don’t think until you meet Miranda does anybody even mention ANYBODYs looks.
I must say it was weird to have Ashely and Liara quiz me frantically about which one of them I really wanted to get down with.
My feeling regarding what gender Shepard is or what Shepard looks like was that once humanity started dealing with other species, those things became a lot less important. A Krogan is going to see a big difference between a human male or human female.
It’s really funny that Chuck, Audra, Sean & Juan mentioned the whole subject of alternate endings. There is apparently already a movement of people trying to pressure BioWare to create a different ending to the game because they were unhappy with the endings provided, using the raising of money for charity as a cunning lever. There are several articles relating to the controversy surrounding Mass Effect 3 at GameSpot.com here: http://www.gamespot.com/mass-effect-3/news/
finally got around to listening.
Very enjoyable.
To Sean’s point : Take the A Train is to The Humpty Dance… as … Mass Effect is to Leisure Suit Larry 
As an aside … to the “Fem Shep” discussion, here is another female gaming legend.
I immediately also thought of Lara Croft, but I suspect the crew were - without explicitly stating it - that they were trying to think of non-sexualized female characters. Samus is pretty smokin’ under the armor, but all that came later. Lara’s main selling point back in the 90s was her 8-polygon boobs.
I did that in one playthrough of Dragon Age and made my character ridiculously hideous, which was amusing since in DA they constantly mention how beautiful you are, and suddenly the dialogue feels a whole lot more sarcastic.
agreed, just enter “Ugly Shepard” in youtube and enjoy the results of an “aesthetically challenged” Shepard’s adventures and dialogs
OB
Finally checked out the interviews while on a 2 hour train ride. Baird gave out a lot of interesting tidbits for voice acting which was really interesting, and I now have such a girl crush on Jennifer Hale. She sounds like the most awesome person ever. (Of course it helps she’s a big BSG fan, :D). OSSIM!
But awwww, I feel bad for Mordin getting no love from the gang. I love his dialogue and his mumbly stuff.
Yeah. But with DA I think it’s easier to get a more, well, extreme, looking face. ME has fewer options so it’s more difficult to make ‘out there’ faces, at least compared to DA or something like Saints Row.
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