Oh hell yeah! Spectre Master Gear at level 35, I just spent 230,000 creds on an assault rifle. Now I need a nice suit of heavy armor.

EDIT: Wow, I just got the "Complete the majority of the game achievement" at about 16 hours into the game after I completed a minor quest. I wonder how it's calculated.

how long is this game supposed to be?

I think it is supposed to take around 20 hours.

I noticed with my save games that the time played was jumping around and didn't make any sense sometimes. Like I would save once and have a time of 9 hours 15minutes, and then save 30 minutes later and it would be 8 hours 50 minutes. Right now it is showing I have played a little under 10 hours, when I know it has been at least an hour more than that.

Shit tell me about... Guess Im going to have to put Assasin's Creed and The Umbrella Chronicles on hold for a while while I pick up Mass Effect. Im never going to get through these games.

22 hours, 9 minutes and 12 seconds. ;)

At least that's how long it took me on normal according to my save. I reached level 44 in that time and did a ton of sidequests. You could really blow through the main quest in about 14 hours on normal or quicker on easy.

Spoliers aside, that's was one of the best science fiction stories I've ever seen in a video game. The sheer amount of content is just astounding and the story rolls along at a nice pace. I'm going to start a new campaign with a custom character later to test out the "dark side".

How is the ending? Is it satisfying or just a big cliffhanger? Bioware has said a couple times that they have always planned on making Mass Effect a trilogy, so I fear they will cop out with an abrupt cliffhanger like most other big franchises.

Also, how many people join your party?

The ending is very satisfying. For a split second, you think it's going to be a cliffhanger, but they reel you back into the story pretty quickly. While it does do a great job of setting up another title, there is a clear and decisive ending to the narrative.

2 people can join your party as any given time. You can only change the party on the ship. Sensable, but is a bit tedious to run back and forth between the ship when you need to trigger another portion of the story.

watching that spaceship take off in the first mission was awesome!

i'm confused about a few things.

1. How do you switch to melee or switch to a different weapon when your weapon overheats? Are there any melee weapons?

2. How do you make Ashley melee since she is a warrior class. All she does is stay back and fire her rifle.

3. How many chars do you pick up in your group? Do you they stay will you the whole time or do they come and go?

1. There is no melee button. There are no melee weapons. There is no melee class. There are melee weapon modifiers though. The only time melee comes into effect is close quarters battle and it's controlled by proximity.

2. Ashley doesn't melee often, if ever. There are other characters that do though. (no spoilers)

3. There are a total of 6 characters to add to your group, most of which will join you very early into the game. As a good character, all my teammates stuck with me. Have no idea if it's different otherwise.

Did you like KOTOR1?

Is it really on par with that?

I remember when playing light/dark in KOTOR that you'd get a 'point' for light or dark specifically. Does it accrue things obviously like that? Does your appearance change to reflect alignment?

I absolutely loved KOTOR1 (the second was okay), and I think Mass Effect is better overall. I think the story is exceptional and you can tell they really took a lot of time setting up the back story and history of the universe.

Yes, I loved Kotor 1. I would say Mass Effect surpasses Kotor in most of the gameplay aspects that they share. While it's not a revolutionary step, it's certainly evolutionary. Plus it's much more accessable due to the real-time action based system rather than Kotor's turn based.

Yes, you get points for good and bad deeds. They are refered to as Paragon & Renegade. It opens options for futher charm and intimidation conversation choices as you progress. I don't think it alters the appearance of the character, which makes sense due to the absense of "The Force".

Here's a few thousand words on the subject: http://www.videogametalk.com/review.php?ID=778

Thanks Mike :)

Sounds great, now just gotta order this.

do you get to choose which chars to join you? Whenever a char asks to join you, an option is there for you to not allow him/her. What happens if you reject someone? Does another char comes along for you to join?

Actually there is a melee class - Soldier and there are talents like Assault Training take says "Increases melee damage".
how do you switch weapons? i.e. switch from pistol to rifle. My char only seems to use a pistol maybe because my class is vanguard?

Where can u buy medigel kits in the citadel? I'm running low and havent found a place to buy them yet. Also, how do you know how many medigels you have in your inventory?

One complaint i have is that the quest log does not record all the info you need. After talking to someone he will tell you who to find and where to find him but the stupid quest log only logs who you should talk to. Sometimes I forget the conversation because I dont do the quest right away. why did they do this?

Sometimes you can full out reject a character, but they usually keep at it until they have joined. No, another character doesn't replace them.

Switch weapons by holding down the left bumper. You can switch weapons for the entire crew there.

You don't purchase medical kits as they are free. You can find more in the medical section of the Wards. It's down past the Markets and Flux. Also plenty on the Normandy in the sick bay. But you can find those things in almost every mission level as well. Medical kits are shown on the screen when you have your weapon out. Vendors sell more storage capacity too.

Huh? If you scroll through the quest log, just click on the quest to bring up more information. It always has the location. Also, it will be on your map marked as an exclamation point.

doh, yes, i just realized this after i posted.
you can expand the quest log for more info.

Just finished the game at about 22 hours. Absolutely fantastic from beginning to end. It was possibly one of the best stories in a videogame I have played. I can't wait for Mass Effect 2. I'll probably play the game over again in a few months following the "Renegade" path.

I ended the game at level 47, and I am not sure how it could be possible to get level 60 as I did almost everything, except for a few remaning resources that I didn't bother gathering.

Flay,
Did you get any of those "Ally" achievements? I had Wrex and Kaiden in my party from the moment I got them until the end of the game, and didn't get either of their ally achievements.

I thought I had read that you can go through the game a second time with all your stats kept as they were when you first beat it. Is there any truth to that?

Perhaps, I didn't try that. I did go back to make a new character just to see what difficulty settings it unlocked, but I didn't see of a way of using my old character. Maybe the stats carry over onto a new character.

The stats didn't carry over for me, but I started a new character. I didn't see a section to continue. I'll give it a shot. I think the Spectre weaponry is immedatly available though.

Flash, I didn't any of those achievements either. I have no idea how to get those. Maybe you have to complete their sidequests as well?

Only 22 hours? I thought it was going to be longer than that.

I too am disappointed as I thought this was going to be about a 40 hour game, but I'm still picking it up.

I think I just solved the lamest quest ever.

If anyone wants to know what to do with the trinket, just ask.