So in anticipation of the culmination of a great sci fi story (remember when we said stuff like this about Episode 3?), let's use this opportunity to discuss our various Shepards, their actions, etc...

First things first, let's see those Shepards.



As you can see, I am almost entirely paragon, but much like reality, while I have a strict moral code, that moral code also prevents me from taking any bull**** at all from literally anyone, regardless of their position of authority.

Going back to important decisions made in the first game, I kept Wrex alive on Virmire because of course I wanted to run into him in ME2 and 3, but I ran into a problem with the whole Ashley/Kaiden scenario in the fact that I decided that going into Mass Effect 3 I wanted to be banging Miranda, yet if I allowed Ashley to survive the game seemed to automatically assume that I was involved with her, and Mass Effect 2 put a photo of her on my desk. I am not a cheater, so I couldn't deal with that. So I had to go back and let her get killed, which I somehow justified, even though I feel bad about doing it, because even though she is a racist and a godbotherer, I still like her more than Kaiden, who is just a tool. Anyway, it looks like I'm stuck with Kaiden as a squad member in ME3 ( it shouldn't matter anyway, since according to the leaked script, the Virmire survivor becomes Ambassador Udina's bodyguard and both of them fall under the control of the Reapers, forcing you to kill both of them ) That's the main reason I decided against going with Ashley as my romantic interest. As far as I'm concerned that's as important as any other part of the story, and god dammit, it's my story.

So anyway, beyond that, I saved the council at the end of Mass Effect, after sacrificing them the first time. I just didn't really give a **** about them. The bastards spend the entire game telling you how the Reapers don't exist and then at the end of the game they expect you to save them. Well, once I got into ME2 I was pissed off that everyone treated me like an ******* over it. I thought they had gotten what was coming to them, but whatever. So I went back and saved them, then started ME2 yet again. Obviously I suggested Captain Anderson as the human member of the council. Side Note: My feelings about the council were later vindicated by the fact that they still treat you like a dick in Mass Effect 2 after saving them from a Reaper. What is it with those jackoffs?

I'm not entirely sure what decisions made in ME2 really have an impact on ME3, but I know that I took my sweet time and upgraded the hell out of everything. I did all of the loyalty missions, and managed to keep the loyalty of both Miranda and Jack, as well as Tali and Legion.

Everyone survived the suicide mission, including the non-squad crew. That was good. It gave me a few scares here and there making it look like someone was going to die, but it all turned out well, so I was pleased with that. I blew up the collector ship at the behest of TIM. Screw him. Apparently he sends Cerberus after you no matter what in ME3.

So there you go, folks. Post your Shepard, and let's hear about who you let live/die, who you banged, who you pissed off, and if you punched any reporters (I didn't this time, sadly).

We'll also go ahead and convert this into Mass Effect 3 discussion at midnight on the 6th. Please use spoiler tags when discussing the plot of the third game, but I figure the first two should be fair game by now. No need to hide plot details.

I'm running into a problem similar to me 2 .. I can't I just hope I remember to reply the correct game

I don't care what you did, Antony! Don't lie and tell me you'd read more than 1 or 2 posts of similar length to yours, discussing the all the same stuff with minor variations.


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would!

I guess I'm just a dick! Carry on

Here she is:



(Sorry for crappy TV-shot quality - her eyes look blue here, but in reality they're purple-ish/magenta-ish)



This is my first Shepard, which I started on ME1 and imported into ME2.

Earthborn
Sole Survivor
ME1: Level 60 Vanguard - Paragon
ME2: Level 30 Vanguard - Paragon

ME1:

- Romanced Liara T'Soni
- Saved Wrex
- Rescued the Rachni Queen
- Saved Kaidan Alenko, Ashley Williams dead
- Saved the Council
- Put Captain Anderson on the Council

ME2:

- Romanced Kelly Chambers (Took her to my room, got the lapdance and all that), but it doesn't seem to affect my 'relation' with Liara, because it didn't unlock the 'Paramour' achievement, nor did Shepard turn over Liara's picture
- Gained loyalty for every squad member and maintained it (including Legion, Tali, Jack, Miranda)
- Overwrote the Geth Heretics instead of destroying them
- Kept the data of the Genophage 'cure'
- Kept everyone alive throughout the suicide mission, including the Normandy crew (after a second try, the first time around Mordin Solus died because I accidentally picked the wrong person for the 'hold the line' part, I think - however I didn't let Mordin do anything specific on the suicide mission)
- Gave The Illusive Man the finger and destroyed the Collectors base

Have u herd of the prnt scrn button, orjzjos

He's on a console.

Obviously =)

I prefer PC gaming though, it's just that I've had an old PC for a long time, and no money for constant upgrades, so at some point I just hijacked my roommate's 360. xD

ME2 and 3 run on the UE3 engine, the ME3 version is p.much the exact same as the ME2 engine, it'll doesn't take a monster rig to run it.

I had the same issue with the ME romance carrying through to ME2 even though I never followed through with it in the first game. In fact, I only got Ashley coming into Shepard's quarters before Ilos because I had just been talking to all the crew members between each mission and, despite not flirting in any of the conversations, I guess that was enough. So I started a new Paragon run and only talked to Tali, Garrus, and Wrex because they were the best ones anyway. It's worked out though, since now I have a faithful romance save (no-one in ME1, Tali in 2), one where I can see the repurcussions for "cheating" (original Paragon file), and also one where I have a romance going through all three (Liara on my Renegade file). Seriously can't wait for this game, and so very happy to find out I have the 9th off work. Just gotta finish up Kingdoms of Amalur before then, did not expect that game to be quite so big and I want to give ME3 the attention it deserves.

I'd go into depth with my characters but I kept the default look on both male and female Shepards and only mixed things up a little bit on my second Paragon run where I occasionally busted Shepard's inner badass.

Oh, I forgot about the Rachni queen. I saved her, too. I didn't know you could do the Kelly romance without affecting your actual one. I would have definitely done that since I hear you can get her to feed your fish for you. I went through like 9 sets of those.

I also rewrote the geth and kept the genophage research. And I put Mordin on the escort position on the suicide mission. From what I understand there's a small chance that anyone else will die randomly on that part. I think my assignments on the suicide mission were: Vents: Tali. 1st alt team leader: Miranda. Shield: Samara. 2nd alt squad: Garrus. Escort: Mordin. Final team: Miranda and Grunt.

I'm interested to see what all actually has an impact on the third game, since Bioware said that there are roughly 1000 decisions in 1 and 2 that will alter the story of the 3rd. I remember when I skimmed the cluster**** that was the leaked script there were like 19 different versions of almost every scene.

EDIT: I would also like to point out that getting screenshots of ME2 is virtually impossible unless you run it through Steam. It doesn't matter if you actually own it on Steam. All you have to do is just add the launcher to your steam library and use F12 to take shots. Otherwise you have to edit a bunch of crap in config files, and you can't use notepad otherwise it'll ruin your game.

It was difficult killing Ashley, but really it seemed like the best decision. She was the most capable one to send with the Salarians, and then Kaiden really needed to set off the bomb. It just didn't make much tactical sense to have Ashley live. It didn't matter a whole lot either way since I did the romance with Liara (Femshep).

Bobbette is pretty much all paragon. I just feel like a jerk doing much renegade stuff. Sometimes they had it coming like damaging the flyer when getting Archangel.

I might have changed her appearance some more in ME2, but it seemed like you either had to start from scratch or just import your old character. They had a perfect chance to justify some appearance change with all of the reanimation work.



Man, it is totally worth running ME2 through Steam to get screenshots. I've got some cool desktop backgrounds out of it.

Yeah, Kelly's feeding my fish!

I've found a flow chart for the suicide mission... I don't recommend using it if you haven't played it yet though. I used it to figure out why Mordin died on my first run.

Is there a Kelly romance option for Femshep?

Edit: looks like it. Huh, I thought I chatted her up plenty often.

Yeah, Kelly, Samara, and one other one (I forget which) swing both ways. From what I understand, nearly everyone in ME3 swings both ways.

I've never been able to romance Kelly ..I've actually played just to try. I've tried every conversation possible guess I have no luck with the ladies

Also orj.. No disrupter ammo?

I'm a Vanguard... those don't get disruptor ammo. I suppose I could do the 'Advanced Training' option and snatch Zaeed's special ability (which I believe is Squad Disruptor Ammo), but I kind of like my Improved Barrier.

All my weapons have been upgraded to the max (5/5), so I don't really need it anyway. I'm blazing through everything as it is, haha. I haven't tried Insanity yet though.

^ Just looked it up... Zaeed's special ability is 'Inferno Grenade', so I can't get the Disruptor Ammo for my Vanguard. No other character has 'Disruptor Ammo' as special ability, so I can't snatch it with Advanced Training either.

I suppose I could go for the Inferno Grenade, but Barrier is really good for Vanguards, since you need to get up close to the enemy to be effective.

Did you keep fish for long at all? I thought I'd talked to Kelly lots too, but I didn't keep any fish (good model collection, though).

My fish died once, then just when I bought new ones I invited Kelly over for dinner. Then she asked if she should feed them.

I have no idea why people can't romance Kelly. Perhaps it's because you happened to ask her if she's attracted to aliens, which is kind of a renegade thing to do. She sort of responds with a lecture on how the outside isn't important. I reloaded when that happened. Maybe if you ask her that question it's sort of a turn-off for her.

Anyway, I think Kelly is more considered casual sex than romance, because it doesn't unlock the Paramour achievement on 360.

All I know is that I just finished ME1 last night and still have to play through 2. I lost my file in a critical HDD failure. I do recall the only person I lost was Mordin. I was kinda saddened.

Need to pick different people for the final confrontation then. I left all the heavy hitters behind to hold the line and took Mordin and Miranda with me. It worked! You need all of them to be loyal though.

Mordin is great. I was lmfao when he started singing at some point.

Yeah, I figured that out. I was hyped when I found he played a critical part in the demo. Also pretty cool that Captain Kirrhe was back as well from the first game.

I don't think that question bothers her. As far as I remember, if you ask her about Jack's psychological profile she tells you something along the lines of "being attracted to bad girls", so Renegades shouldn't need to worry about that. I think as long as you use the flirting option with her when you talk and obviously if she's saved from the Collectors then you can't miss her "romance" (see: pretty slutty dancing :P)


Me too! In fact, I think it bears posting:

^ Haha, awesomeness.

If you didn't get Kelly to do the dance for you, then you probably neglected to flirt with her once or twice when you recruited a new squad-member. (Because every time you do, you can flirt with her)

You probably need to flirt with her on every single occasion.

Oh, well maybe that has something to do with why I couldn't get that option. I'm not gonna go manwhoring around the Normandy! I'll just have to take my genetically engineered Australian slut and be happy with it.

I was so bummed to find out female Shepards can't do her Grand Genetical Goodness Miranda.

Kelly's awesome though. I was glad she was around, because Liara somehow turned into a total douchebag overnight.

i still need to play ME1 and 2

maybe someone will have a sale this week

Oh btw Antony, I don't think Kelly will do the dance for you if you're currently doing Miranda (or any other ME2 squad member for that matter)... She won't mind ME1 love interests though.

Welp.. I broke down and pre-ordered the digital deluxe edition. I never got to finish my 2nd play through of ME2 though but oh well

Same, even though I have ME1 CE for the 360, regular edition for PC and ME2 CE for PC as well. I was actually thinking of getting the same for ME3 as well but it's way more expensive than the earlier ones.

I don't really know why I haven't been able to play through those games, I mean, I've been stuck at the part when you go to the Citadel for the first time for like 2-4 years now.... I guess I haven't got into the catchy parts yet (after all, the part in Deus Ex where I really got hooked was just 'round the corner when I stopped playing the game in 2000 and resumed in 2004) but eh. Maybe after DXN I'll finally be able to unleash a ME-extravaganza.

I kind of got caught with my pants down, here. I was kind of meh about Mass Effect 3 until I saw the launch trailer. (it was actually the same with ME2) I just couldn't give a rats ass about it... then I watched they trailer and I just exploded with hype. Now I *NEED* to play it.

The problem is, I realised that I left off back in 2010 with the intention to do a final "ideal" run for ME3. In this run, I had intended to not cheat on Ashley, to keep everyone alive, blow up the Geth and urge the Quarians to war with the Geth.

I loaded the save game I thought was right this weekend to play through Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival. I realised after I had completed both that Miranda was sitting in my quarters. It turns out I had romanced her. Loaded another save, where I had been faithful to Ashley, only to find out that Kelly and most of the crew had been melted. >.<

I'm going to go ahead with the run where I beat the game on the highest difficulty, am level 30 and have completed the DLC. I'll just try to convince Ashley that John Shepard isn't a total heartless *******.

Right now, I'm just worried about the ending. Scuttlebutt around the web is that its just terrible. I'm crossing my fingers that's not the case.

I can see that. The small side missions on the citadel are sort of overwhelming in the beginning, I had that too.

Here's a great tip. Don't do all the little sidequests on the citadel straight away. I always stick to the ones that directly advance the main story-plot so I can fly around in the Normandy and start doing interesting stuff as soon as possible. So get off the Citadel as soon as possible. Go to Artemis Tau cluster to get Liara T'Soni first or do Feros or Noveria. Then later when the story's in full swing and you're in the rhythm of the game, you can go back to the Citadel whenever you want and round up those sidequests at leisure.

I agree completely with ORJ_JoS on this. I stopped playing it for like 6 months when I got to the citadel because I didn't have any idea what I was really supposed to do, and I just got kind of lost. It doesn't help that ME1 has one of the worst map/navigation systems in the history of videogames. There seriously might as well not even be a map. I was so lost and confused that I just lost interest after a few hours. I picked it up months later and played straight through over the course of a few days. I was amazed at how much better it got once you left the god damned citadel.

My major gripes with ME1:

-Inventory handling... oh man, it's so bad. I'm not even going into that. Glad it was completely solved for ME2
-Repetitive maps/bunkers/mines for all the sidequests, they really did a great job in ME2 on this as well. Every mission has a unique map/environment.

In terms of gameplay, ME2 is a huge improvement.

Story was really great in ME1 though. As for actual roleplaying, ME2 felt more real somehow, more emotional. Maybe it's just me.

Yeah I agree entirely. I just honestly felt more for the characters in ME2.

As far as the inventory goes, jesus... It was really bad. I think my biggest complaint about it was that it had the ridiculous limit. You could hold dozens of weapons and suits of armor, but it eventually tapped out. Why the hell even put a limit on it at that point? I could never seem to figure out how to tell if it was almost full, either. It was just stupid. And having a thousand different weapons that are all barely different didn't help, either.

Agreed... and then the way they were listed, haha. I mean they could've just said:

Sledgehammer Rounds X (8)
Inferno Rounds X (3)
Snowblind Rounds X (3)

...right?

Instead it says:

Sledgehammer Rounds X
Inferno Rounds X
Snowblind Rounds X
Sledgehammer Rounds X
Sledgehammer Rounds X
Inferno Rounds X
Snowblind Rounds X
Sledgehammer Rounds X
Sledgehammer Rounds X
Sledgehammer Rounds X
Snowblind Rounds X
Sledgehammer Rounds X
Sledgehammer Rounds X
Inferno Rounds X



I converted ALL that crap into credits, and then into Omni-Gel.

I've literally spent my entire second playthrough walking around with an almost constant 999 Omni-Gel and 999999999 credits...

By the end of my 2nd playthrough, my entire crew was walking around in Colossus X armours...
(Got the rare ones by completing 'Bring Down The Sky' twice)
And every weapon they used was Spectre gear X... madness.

Yeah it's just ridiculous. I don't know if I exactly prefer the non-existent inventory of ME2, but god damn, you know? How about something in-between?