The Glade 4.0

I wanted something cheap, fun, and well-reviewed. Knowing the praises I have read here of the series in general, I picked up Mass Effect.

Not too far into it yet, but definitely fun and I am looking forward to delving deeper into it.

Any tips on how to properly enjoy this game? Anything I should make sure to do so that if I finish and decide to play ME2, it will carry over?

Thanks as always.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

If you want to keep Wrex around in ME2, you pretty much have to play paragon.

If you want to max out XP gained fight enemies on foot rather than in the Mako. (or wear them down in the Mako, and then hop out to finish the job.)

If you want to earn the Ally achievements you need to pretty much keep one party together all the time.

If you're playing on a PC download a mod that fixes the $$#%$#% Inventory system.

The only weapons worth buying are the Spectre VII and X weapons.
Environmental protection from Sirta and...(can't remember which) armor is all but worthless as a special ability. You spend so little time moving between mako & protection its silly to waste time/money on it.

You can revive members of your team by hopping into the Mako.

Dont sell any item at the I-IV level. Just convert it to omni gel. 4 Omni Gel is worth far far far more than the 1500 creds you'd get back from selling things. By the time you're able to buy Spectre weapons you wont need to really worry about it.

Are you playing on PC? Use a save editor to give yourself max renegade/paragon, then play the game how you want without repercussion due to not having enough points in either tree.

Should have clarified....Xbox360 version.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Don't forget the Mako has a cannon in addition to the minigun. (Right bumper in the default config) I played through the game the first time without realizing it was there. Really the only time its worth using is on Thresher Maws. Knock down their life to just a sliver then pop out and finish the Thresher Maw on foot for 10x the experience.

Thresher Maws cannot appear under raised terrain. (If you're just rolling around in the flat areas sometimes the Threshers will just pop up and kill you without warning.

The Marksman ability (Pistols) is amazingly powerful.


Don't worry about overheat on sniper rifiles. Stack all the damage increasing mods you can, (explosive rounds when available)

Don't ever sell off your VI and VII Shredder/Tungsten ammo. This is the max level for these ammo types and you wont get more after you cross about level 40.

Its a good idea when facing Krogan to have Lift/Throw & Stasis on one party member. These abilities will allow you to stall the Krogan until Immunity wears off. Once they switch on immunity and charge you're in for a world of hurt.

This isn't true. You just have to max out charm or intimidate. OR Find his family armor.



Good advice. Though, enemies scale to your level. This is only if you are going for the level 60 achievement. Even then, it will take a minimum of 2 playthroughs to reach 60 since 51+ doesn't unlock until you finish the game once.



This is especially true for Liara. When you are going for her achievement, don't do any quests on the Citadel until after you recruit Liara.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Tip for maximum enjoyment: Don't play a sniper. The vast majority of the game takes place in tight corridors that are less than 20 meters long.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I disagree strongly.

Fortunately it's easy to max out sniper rifles and pistols, and have both options.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I have already started sinking points into Assault rifles for Shepard...bad choice? I am letting the auto level take care of my squaddies for now.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

ugh. I never let autolevel go.

FYI I think you're better off with a lot of smaller abilities (except electronics and decryption--get these so you can open any container) but because the abilities are on seperate timers you can cycle through them more effectivly


I JUST completed a playthrough with assault rifles. I found them... ehhhh. powerful BUT less fun than marksman. YMMV though. I've never played through and used shotguns. I prefer the accuracy of the pistols and sniper rifle.

Assault rifles are better for dealing with the Geth Snipers that hop around however in ways that the pistols and rifles are not.

in ME1, I'm an assault rifle person. Point gun, spray bullets until dead.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I used the pistol about 95% of the time in ME1. It was amazing.

Using AR's for Shepherd is fine. Really, you can't go wrong with any weapon type. And yes, take it off of auto-level ASAP.

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The Dude abides.

Pistol is the strongest weapon in the game because of how amazing a maxed out marksman ability is. Also, Sniper Rifles are amazing for taking out Colossus and Armatures from far away.

_________________
Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Randomly saw this in some article, thought I'd put it here...

It isn't so surprising. I've started countless playthroughs that I never finished. It is all counted as long as you have the data upload option turned on.

_________________
Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

I have only been able to get about 2 hours of playtime so far.

Despite this, a day or two later I bought Mass Effect 2. Oonagh and I were in the mall and she was spending some birthday money. I wandered over to the Gamestop and saw it on the shelf marked NEW and for $19.98. This appeared to me as a misprint and even if it wasn't I know the game is worth more than that in terms of gameplay that I will likely (Eventually) get out of it.

So yeah, now I got my work cut out for me. Pretty sure there is a ton to see and do in the first one before I get to the ton to see and do in the second one.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

ME2 is a different animal.

There are some very significant changes in ME2 that I actually HATE and a few others that I dont like.

A number of abilities only work if the target has a certain condition:
Incinnerate will not work on shielded targets.
Overload only works on Mechs or Shields
All timers are linked per character.

That being the case, its often better to specialize in one or two abilities rather than spread them out like it was in ME1.

My least favorite change in ME2 however, was not the ammunition situation (though thats annoying too) but rather the move to unlimited enemies. There are certain 'combat areas' from which new opponents are continually generated. Untill you cross a threshold location, the enemies are functionally unlimited. Ammunition is not. This prevents you from wearing down opponents at range, because they spawn nearly as fast as you can take them down, particularly on harder difficulties. There are a number of standoff points in the game where the best thing to do (and most nonsensical) is to charge in--hit that treshold spot and then take out the enemies behind you, else you will just whittle down your ammunition.

Compare to ME1, where this only occured in a VERY few spots and lack of ammunition was never the issue.

Can you specify which areas have unlimited spawns, maybe in spoiler tags? I've played through ME2 more than once and I'm drawing a blank.

Edit:
Ah, research suggests that infinite spawns only occur on insanity mode.

Off the top of my head the all of the Dr. Solis mission. Just before you get to him, you stumble on a pair of blue suns engaged with about 5 bloodpack and a Varen. The Blue Suns die quickly but the Bloodpack keep coming.

The first junction out of Dr. Solis's lab is similar. There are about 8 Vorcha and 1 Korgan--they'll keep coming until you make it to the back of the room.

The same thing occurs in the Air processing plant. Its less of an issue here, but still exists.

Also the "Seal the underground entrances" portion of the Archangel-recruitment mission. Until those doors get closed, the enemy just keeps coming.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I guess when you play Vanguard or Infiltrator it's pretty hard to notice those sections.. I never had a problem.

I actually like those sections--because I turn off ammunition tracking and it's free xp.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

The console version of Mass Effect 2 awards a fixed amount of experience per mission, regardless of kills.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.