am about to beat this game

beat it like Sharadamma beats her husband?

I just started this week, my Trilogy [first time] play-through. I'm like 20 hours in, just going to every planet doing side missions. Have all my squad, but I'm just using the first 2. Too much fucking talking, was bored in the beginning but now having a bit fun with it... see how it goes for me. Elevator ride is too long... playing it on normal, trying to get paragon points but messing up and getting Renegade so I'm like even field so far.

Just when ME2 came out everyone recommended playing ME1 first. I was glad I did. Yes, there are slow times, walking and driving but it all come together. In ME2 the pace, story and play steps up a bit. Good luck and enjoy.

Completed on Normal
53h42m 313 saves
[Default] Soldier Shepard
Level 50 [reached max on Virmire, before Ashley begins to arm bomb] [also sucks that after lvl 35 I believe, was only getting 1 point instead of 2... fucked up my plan on leveling up attributes]
Paragon
$9,999,999+++++++ [sucks it didn't count after max $]
59 Side Missions done [only credited with 58]
Ashley/Kaiden Ally Achievement [on Feros before grenading crazy people]
Scarified Kaiden
Liara


will go for Renegade and hardcore difficulty next time I play it [at a future date]... also just missing medi gel achievement.

Damn the side missions were a bit tedious but loved getting to lvl 50, so the game on main sotryline was a breeze. It was a good game, but not as great as I thought it would be..... until I started part 2

You put 54 hours in on one normal playthrough? Did you take a lot of piss breaks?

..... I rode the Mako thru every fucking planet inch by inch getting ever mineral, emblem, etc, etc ,etc... I like to explore.

Me too. I think I put in 120 in 3 plays, the third being very fast. 54 seemed a lot more than 48

1 was much longer than 2 and 3.

...yeah but Mass Effect 2 so far is much much better in every way. Will post about it tomorrow.

Well 1 also took like 6 years to make, same as Dragon Age Origins. As Bioware went on their games got much shorter.

Mass Effect 3 seems ridiculously short in comparison.

I think it has more to do with play style changing rather than content. 2 and 3 were more action than rpg.

You'd be wrong. Even Bioware themselves have said that there's far less content in the games than there used to be. EA imposes a strict 2 year development timeframe nowadays, whereas Bioware used to allow themselves as much time as needed to complete games. Mass Effect 1 had a 6 year development timeframe. Mass Effect 2 had 3 years and 3 barely had 2.

It should be fairly obvious to see even for someone who is completely ignorant to the production cycle.

And I'm guessing you haven't played Dragon Age at all because the problem is even more pronounced there.

Nope I haven't. It never looked fun. Happy to be ignorant about it all since it seems like it killed the joy in you.

I just don't like being a fool. It's actually to my advantage that not everyone minds being one.

Either way, your loss.

Maybe Dragon Age was decent on the PC but it was totally ass on the Xbox.

I'm really not sure what I did to offend you to call me an ignorant fool, but... Oh, who gives a fuck. I, for one, am glad they changed the formula so I didn't have to go through the same generic warehouse 60 times (times 3 playthroughs) in ME2 and ME3.

Sorry you feel like that hours/$ is a valid metric for gaming excellence. Hope that works out for you in the long run.

I agree that ME2 was hella better than 1. I am still undecided on whether I prefer 3 to 2.

The multiplayer was a really nice add on.

Considering it was a PC game developed specifically as an homage to old-school, isometric PC RPGs, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

The Xbox version is the shittiest version of the game. But that's also true for the Mass Effect series where, among other things, the Mako controls were never even patched as they were for the PC.

I just don't agree with EA continuing to force Bioware to dumb their games down for casual fans, to the point where they actually made Bioware assign fewer controller buttons for ME 3 because it "makes the game more difficult for casual gamers".

Finally replaying this great game! My Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 save games disappeared along with my Xbox when my house was burglarized early last year, so I decided to replay the first two games in anticipation of finally playing through Mass Effect 3 for the first time.

I'm having a lot of fun. My biggest gripe, though, which I completely forgot about, is entering/exiting cover. The cover system in general for the first game is pretty bad. I seem to recall it being much better in the second game. Also, your teammates are idiots.

The Mako has never bothered me as much as it has bothered other people I guess. I always found it fun.

I'm playing on hardcore; it's not too bad, really. One thing I discovered I love about this game is that it bases its unlocks on the achievements, not your save games! So I was able to start with hardcore and level up to 60* right away, which will be nice for playing Mass Effect 2. I also get a bonus to experience. I was always irritated that for the last 15% of the game in my first play through I was stuck at level 50.

I wonder if Mass Effect 2 also keys on achievements. I have the "Rich" achievement from the first game, but probably won't bother getting 1,000,000 credits this go-around. I wonder if I'll get 100,000 up front when I start that game?

Probably, but I'm guessing I won't get a Long Service Medal for the first game based purely on achievements.

* This turns out not to be true.

If I remember correctly, Master Immunity makes even the highest difficulty easy mode...you could stand in front of anything, for as long as you wanted and just take blast after blast...it broke the game really..

Adjust your character to reduce cool down, and you could keep it up forever..

It made all the Mako parts easy..just jump out and kill everything yourself..

I love these games, and I always change my mind on the game I like the most...1 or 2. The second game improved so much it really is hard to say what I liked about 1, but there was as charm and pull that even the second game lacked. Still, 2 is so well made and combat is about perfect.

I started Mass Effect for the first time today. I've managed to go all this time without knowing much about the game because I wanted to go in as fresh as possible. Question though, does it matter who I have in group? I know people have different abilities, but does it affect the story or encounters at all?

It will definitely affect encounters and some dialogue, but I don't remember it affecting the overall story.

Occasionally you'll have different dialogue, and it definitely matters for achievements if you care about those. In the second game it matters MUCH more who you choose for certain missions later in the game, from a story standpoint.

Not really. The dialogue changes in a few spots depending on who you have around, though, and there are one or two areas where the story reacts to who you've taken with you (a minor character gets killed at one point depending on whether you brought a certain someone on a mission).