James Vega is a fictional character in BioWare's Mass Effect media franchise, who is a party member (or "squadmate") in the third game of the series.

[1] The basic concept behind the character is a blue collar military officer who happens to be "a heavily muscled tank of a man"; his armor is given a lot of heft to imply that he is "an unstoppable force".

[4] Preston Watamaniuk, lead designer of the Mass Effect series, suggested that James is concepted as a "defensive soldier who focuses on survivability rather than fire power" in combat situations.

[5] He described how soldiers like James often have to put their feelings aside as a coping mechanism and deal with it after the fact, as they get bombarded with a lot of visual and physical information during intense life and death situations.

[7] James Vega escorts Shepard before an Alliance defense committee during the opening sequence of Mass Effect 3, but the hearing is interrupted when the Reapers attack Earth.

James' time being stationed on the remote colony of Fehl Prime with Delta Squad, an Alliance special forces unit, is depicted in 2012's Mass Effect: Paragon Lost anime film.

The leadership vacuum left by team Captain Toni after he falls in battle is filled in by James, who has to make a choice between either saving the colony or the intel the squad had recovered that could potentially be used to defeat the Collectors.

[9] Robert Purchese agreed that James has met with a divided opinion, whom he noted as "not the most handsome bloke on the block, nor does he sound to be particularly exotic or exciting".

[4] Paul Ryan from GamesRadar said there is plenty of discussion among fans over his appearance, with comments such as "male eye candy" or "the next Jersey Shore cast member".

[3] Evan Narcisse from Kotaku noted that besides the Jersey Shore comments, some fans had taken to speculate as to whether James would be the same-sex romance option for a male Commander Shepard.

[10] Owen Good also from Kotaku felt that the final design of James unveiled by Hudson In July 2011 looked much better than his original reveal in the May 2011 issue of Game Informer.

[15] Conversely, Samuel Roberts, also from PC Gamer, said James is overly grumpy and he does not recall enjoying his company much, "aside from beating him up in the shuttle bay of the Normandy".

GameSpot staff criticized the developers as well as publisher Electronic Arts for their handling Mass Effect as a transmedia franchise, and complained about the difficulty of following James' story arc within the context of Mass Effect 3, as too much background information about the character is only available in other media forms, which leads to the game's opening unfolding in a "ham-fisted, blundering way".

[23] Pedro Cortes said he grew to like James by the end of Mass Effect 3 as he found him to be "amusing, charming and quite useful on the battlefield", and that he felt bad for the character after knowing what he went through during the events of Paragon Lost.

Kyle Hilliard from Game Informer commented that while Prinze may not have been the first choice for most to play a "muscular military dude", he took note of his genuine passion and good understanding of the intellectual property.