Mass Effect

[maliciel]

Just went for Commando on my Infiltrator. Combat is a lot easier now, it seems like. Also helps that I finally got some decent tech skills.

[Tuffty]

See that's the thing, creating your own Shepherd is great and all, but it looks nowhere near as good as the default Shepherd so that's why I kept him. Even the default female Shepherd doesn't look as detailed as the male.

[Amplifier]

Just be careful twissie! The choices you make now affect your playthrough of ME2 should you continue with that character! Combat is not especially great in ME. Certainly not in comparison with the sequel.

Tali's was the best I reckon though, as a whole (and not just because of my bias for her <3)

Tali <3 I love me a woman with brains and can only survive by protecting herself with an enviromental suit.

I believe there are over 100 choices made by the player in ME1 that affect the story in ME2, if they take their save over. I didn't have my old save unfortuately (you just answer some Qs when starting ME2 then), so some things didn't turn out how I had them exactly..

Combat Protip:

ME1: Hide when you want to, shoot the shit out of everything, let the CPU handle the abilities
ME2: HIDE constantly, control all abilities yourself, primarily use the pistol, don't let enemies get near you, pray hard

[twissie]

You still have to control your own abilities right? I just discovered the abilities menu 8D ... I downloaded the game from Xbox Live Marketplace, so no instruction manual, lol... anway. I'm glad the gameplay pauses when you bring up the menus, but I still kind of forget about it/find it fiddly.

The Mako drives me absolutely insane Any tips on how to make combat in the Mako easier? Visiting small plantes trying to scavenge minerals and the like seems impossible, I just get blown up by stupid turrets 

I'm still really enjoying the game, but man.. Ashely is such a bitch 

.... ne? 

[Amplifier]

twiss

Yeah, you have to control your own abilities still, but honestly, I rarely used my own in the first game.

For the Mako: Try to blast turrets and enemies from long range. I did play on computer, not sure if that helped in that regard. I didn't bother with a lot of the minerals and other stuff


The Mako isn't even in ME2!
Ashley AND Kaidan are both useless!

[Tuffty]

Depends on what type of class you are twissie. I'm a Vanguard but even though I wasn't a pure biotic, I still paused the game throughout combat and lined up some abilities to try and turn the tide if only ever so slightly. If you're really stuck with the abilities, you can just have someone like Liara in your team who will be the strongest biotic you will have and Tali who can handle the tech abilities and you can just let the AI do the rest while you concentrate on shooting.

Don't worry about controlling the Mako, you're certainly not the first one to hit problems with it. I know I did! I remember really struggling with Geth Armatures, like no matter how much I tried I would eventually die. That was until I realised that, the Mako has a cannon. And a hugely effective one too. I thought the machine guns were the only weapon on the Mako! You might know about it already in which case you learned about it quicker than I ever did. Like I said, the cannon is hugely powerful and you shoot it using the right bumper that's below the right trigger. The big advantage about it is that you can zoom in with it using the left trigger (I think) and pressing down on the right stick goes even further, so you can park the Mako up on a cliff or something and use the cannon to pick enemies off from a distance. Takes a couple of seconds between each shot to recharge. Also if you're fighting up close, use the boost jets a lot with the A button. Missiles or those blue energy balls Geth Armatures shoot at you are slow enough for you to hold down on that A button and dodge them no problem, and you can still pepper away at your enemies with the machine guns too. Any enemy with shields you should use the machine guns to lower them quickly, then once those are gone, use your big guns. Just keep at it, eventually you learn to accept the limitations and work with it til those pesky turrets are mere cannon fodder! 

[twissie]

^
The above helped so much, omg. Now if only there were an easier way to navigate those pesky planets omg. I ended up doing all my Assignments one after the other, because I suddenly realised that I'd progressed the story so far that I wouldn't have a chance to do them later on I'm sure I missed out on a lot of side quests because of this. Oh well. I would never have had the patience to complete all those "COLLECT THIS AND THAT" quests anyway, so muh. Though I were pretty close to finishing some of them.   .... and I scanned 19 out of 21 keepers. WHERE WERE THE LAST TWO? FFFFF

One thing really bugged me about travelling the universe, though... not being able to look at your journal while in the Galaxy Map! and the fact that doing all the assignments in one bulk got kind of tedious. All the planets ended up looking the same :/

Anyway, I completed the game!

Which is further proof of how awesome it is. It usually takes me ages to complete a game, and end bosses are usually way too daunting for me to kill off T_T. It took me about 30 hours to complete this, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of it. I did play on casual, which I thought would get rather boring... some fights were, but most were just fun. Fun is better than boring or overly challenging, so I stuck with that. Might try a normal playthrough some time in the future~

My character's personality ended up being a bit wishy-washy, but I ended up with plenty more renegade points than paragon ones

I romanced Liara, ditched Ashley, and left Kaidan heartbroken

I also got the "Rich" achievement, because I never found anything to spend my credits on I think I've got the Casual mode to blame/thank for that one.

[maliciel]

Why you gotta hate on Kaidan, man.

The ability window is fuckawesome. If I'm ever in a pinch, there's nothing a Lift and Overload at the same time can't fix.

[Tuffty]

Congrats twissie!! You gonna hang back a bit or are you going straight into Mass Effect 2?

Why you gotta hate on Kaidan, man.

I realised that I don't hate Kaidan. He's just the least interesting party member IMO. The character I dislike the most now is Ashley. *ME2 SPOILERS*

Oh I'm so sorry I couldn't get into contact with you over the past few years like you wanted Ash. Could have something to do with the fact that I was dead though!

Can anyone remind me of why Ashley was deemed racist though? From what I remember from ME1, she had daddy issues, sprouted a bit of poetry and was of the mind that in order to make a standing in the universe, then mankind should be able to do it without the support of the council races. Don't remember if she said anything derogatory of other races though.

And I just heard Mordin's singing. Excellent, love the awkward silence afterwards

[THUNDERDUCK]

Anyone get Overlord for ME2?

[twissie]

Congrats twissie!! You gonna hang back a bit or are you going straight into Mass Effect 2?

Can anyone remind me of why Ashley was deemed racist though? From what I remember from ME1, she had daddy issues, sprouted a bit of poetry and was of the mind that in order to make a standing in the universe, then mankind should be able to do it without the support of the council races. Don't remember if she said anything derogatory of other races though.

Don't have money to spend on gamez right now, but I doubt I'll do a second playthrough before starting ME2. We'll see. 

I personally found Ashley to be racist @_@ in addition to being bitchy about having aliens onboard, she also said something about that human political party which I can't remember the name of (I have a horrible memory when it comes to names and stuff  ) and how it "used to have ideals". Heh. And of course she killed Wrex, which was completely inexcusable as far as I was concerned, so I sent her off with that other team and did nothing to help her out 8] Muahahahha. Though pretty much all the humans on Normandy keep going on about how they're reluctant to work with aliens, so aaaugh 

[Amplifier]

twissie, you might want to replay a certain major part of ME1 now..

Hint: Shepard.

I just started ME1 again, made a Soldier. Been playing on normal difficulty, on cruise control ATM. After complaining about the changes in ME2, i actually miss/prefer them now.

Kaiden, Ashley still completed useless

[twissie]

^
I have no idea what you're talking about, or at least what part you're referring to. Lol Seriously, I'm so bad at actually following what goes on in extremely story driven games. Which I guess explains why most of the big epic games I have are left unfinished. I lose interest after a while, because I can't remember what's going on, or any of the character's motivations I get the main plotlines, but background info and additional fluff picked up along the way is looked at and forgotten. Glad I had the time to sit and pretty much play through all of this in one sitting xD Made it a lot easier to follow the story, yay.

Oh and this reminds me, I was meaning to ask, who do you prefer to have in your squad? I kept my squad extremely balanced and had Liara and Garrus join me in battle    My character was a Vanguard.

[Asmodai]

Oh and this reminds me, I was meaning to ask, who do you prefer to have in your squad?

Tali and Garrus usually - cute and cool respectively.

[winner]

I had Garrus in the group most of the time in ME1 and ME2.
Pretty hard to top a lizardman turian space-investigator with a DBZ scouter.

But by the end of ME2, I changed to Jack and Legion. They should just be labeled the Kick-Ass duo.

[zoolander]

Oh and this reminds me, I was meaning to ask, who do you prefer to have in your squad? I kept my squad extremely balanced and had Liara and Garrus join me in battle    My character was a Vanguard.

Wrex and Garrus is the way I roll. Monster squad 4 lyfe. In ME2 its all about Mordin and Miranda (she isn't my favorite but her squad bonuses are too valuable)


Vanguard and Soldier are by far the best classes in ME1. Adept is the most fun though (Singularity = Good Times) -_^ In ME2 Sential is the best because of the Tech Armor and Infiltrator is also great. Of course Soldier is still powerful but still boring too.

twissie, you might want to replay a certain major part of ME1 now..

Hint: Shepard.

By the way I did end up beating Mass Effect 2 on Insanity. Died like hundreds of times. Never again.

[Amplifier]

ME1: Tali/Wrex and always Garrus. Intergalatic Badassery.
ME2: Tali, and then whoever I needed for the missions. Free choice meant Mordin or Thane, usually. Mordin has some sweet power later on. Miranda was useful at times, though, even if Tali didn't like that

Tali <3

[shirenuファクトリー]

Oh and this reminds me, I was meaning to ask, who do you prefer to have in your squad?

I don't have Liara yet btw o-o Avoiding missions while doing random assignments <3

I use Wrex and Tali mostly, sometimes Garrus and Kaidan too since I like to mix it up. Never Ashley.

Twiss and pika having already finished the game makes me want to take it slower I don't want to finish it that fast! Then again I'm really taking my time at the assignments, sometimes figuring out kind of late what I came to do there in the first place lol

[zoolander]

Speaking of Mordin and one reason why he always has a place on my team. He brings Animaniacs to Mass Effect.

[maliciel]

I roll with Wrex and Kaidan because I have an Infiltrator.