[Ashley Hill]

I found the story around femshep to be better than male shepard, i found her to be a stronger character, and the voice acting to be alot better, in ome when you were discussing Liara's life i thought was excellent.

[Genocidal Cry]

Completed Bring Down The Sky for the first time. I have to say that I would have picked the Renegade option if I did not know I'd see Balak in ME3 again. Then I will kill him.
+24 Paragon points is a bit of buzzkill though. Halfway through the game and they are the first Paragon points I get.

I found the story around femshep to be better than male shepard, i found her to be a stronger character, and the voice acting to be alot better, in ome when you were discussing Liara's life i thought was excellent.

Agreed with that.

[Brandon Bernardi]

Completed Bring Down The Sky for the first time. I have to say that I would have picked the Renegade option if I did not know I'd see Balak in ME3 again. Then I will kill him.

If you do take that option...

Spoiler

And spare the other batarian that confronts you earlier, he will be at the Citadel, using those codes to get help for his people. You can persuade him to get the same assets as Balak. No clue what happens if you kill them both

I found the story around femshep to be better than male shepard, i found her to be a stronger character, and the voice acting to be alot better, in ome when you were discussing Liara's life i thought was excellent.

I too agree.

[April]

Haven't beaten SP yet. Been playing a lot of multiplayer.

Spoiler

I just finished the quest at the Sanctuary where Miranda kills her father and dies. Next up is Cerberus HQ I believe.

[Elizabeth Falvey]

Haven't beaten SP yet. Been playing a lot of multiplayer.

Spoiler

I just finished the quest at the Sanctuary where Miranda kills her father and dies. Next up is Cerberus HQ I believe.

Spoiler

Cerberus HQ is the beginning of the end. Go in with hopes low. Very. Low. Hopefully Shields can save you from the horror that awaits...

[Erika Ellsworth]

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzdKil3j5jw&feature=relmfu

[Marcus Jordan]

If you do take that option...

Spoiler

And spare the other batarian that confronts you earlier, he will be at the Citadel, using those codes to get help for his people. You can persuade him to get the same assets as Balak. No clue what happens if you kill them both

Spoiler

Balak is better at leading his fleet. The substitute will provide less points.

But my point is that now that I saved the hostages I can achieve both Paragon and Renegade endings when I waste Balak later. He dies and the hostages are alive. Win-win.

Haven't beaten SP yet. Been playing a lot of multiplayer.

Spoiler

I just finished the quest at the Sanctuary where Miranda kills her father and dies. Next up is Cerberus HQ I believe.

Spoiler

You can save her - just warn her about Kai-Leng when you meet her in Citadel for the second time (through video chat)

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzdKil3j5jw&feature=relmfu

My favorite is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uorR5Cn4a-Q.

[Lizs]

Why does Jennifer Hale's voice lack emotion? Never played a Female character just cause of her VA.
Plus she sounds like a guy.

Also, my idea for a Geth in MP:

Spoiler

So I've been toying around with this idea for adding a Geth class in.
The numbers will need refining, but I think its sound.
Keep in mind this would be assuming they add a "Platinum" diffuclty.
1. Geth Trooper (Soldier)
Health: 250/500
Shields: 1000/2000
(min/max)
Powers:
1. Pulse blast-
Rank 1: Unlocked, does 250 damage .5m radius, 6 sec CD
Rank 2: Damage Increased by 20%
Rank 3: Radius increased to 1m
Rank 4a: Deals 100 Damage to synthetics over 10s or Rank 4b: 50% more damage to shields.
Rank 5a: Allows shot to home in on targets or Rank 5b: Knocks over any unshielded targets caught in the radius.
Rank 6a: Launches a second follow up shot which does 50% less damage.
or
Rank 6b: Allows you to use shields to power up the blast at the rate of 1 shield for an added 1 damage.
Unable to move while charging, takes 4 seconds to use all 2000 shields.
2. Networked Intelligence (Cannot stack)
Rank 1: Unlocked, allows player to buff allies shields/damage by 5% while reducing their own by 10%, last 10s, 16s CD
Rank 2: Increases duration by 50%
Rank 3: Allies gain 10% shields/damage at the cost of 15% of your own.
Rank 4a: Allies tech damage increased by 10% or Rank 4b: Allies tech CD decresed by 10%
Rank 5a: Decreases allies shield recharge delay by 5% (won't affect barriers) or Rank 5b: Increases allies thermal clip capacity by 20%.
Rank 6a: Any biotic/tech explosion caused by two different players does 100% more damage.
or
Rank 6b: 10% chance that the CD for biotic/tech powers will decrease by 100% after use.
3. Advanced targeting
Rank 1: Unlocks, allows player to see through smoke and cloaked targets. 20s duration, 4s CD
Rank 2: Increase duration by 30%.
Rank 3: Reduces CD by 20%
Rank 4a: Does 5% extra damage to cloaked targets or Rank 4b: Allows allies to see cloaked targets.
Rank 5a: Can shoot through .5m of cover at 70% reduced damage or Rank 5b: See enemies through 2m cover.
Rank 6a: Accuracy increased by 100%
or
Rank 6b: Allows allies to see all highlighted enemies.
4. Advanced platform (passive)
Rank 1. Unlocks.
Rank 2. Increase damage by 5%
Rank 3. Increase Accuracy by 10%
Rank 4a: Increase damage by 10% or Rank 4b: Reduce recoil by 20%
Rank 5a: Increase Assualt rifle damage by 40% or Rank 5b: Increase spare ammo by 25%
Rank 6a: Increase damage of Geth pulse rifle by 100%
or
Rank 6b: Increase damage of all geth weapons (Javlin, plasma shotgun and GPR) by 30%
5. Sturdy construction (Passive)
Rank 1: Unlocks.
Rank 2: Increase DP by 25%
Rank 3: Decrease hacking time by 10%
Rank 4a: Increase DP by 75% or Rank 4b: Removes stun after being hit by a melee.
Rank 5a: Adds a redundant field generator or Rank 5b: Has a 50% chance to resist staggering.
Rank 6a: Allow health to regen to full
or
Rank 6b: Cannot be stunned while reviving and ally gains a 500% health boost for 5s after being revived.
The missle launcher is replaced with a Geth spitfire, 1 missle=100 rounds.
Probably OP, but ya never know!

[Add Me]

Random MP matches do expose you to some "interesting" players. Like the two guys I was just with who, right as it announced "the shuttle has arrived", ran out of the LZ. Getting more ammo? Fleeing in terror from the shuttle? Who knows......

(Then there was the guy with the "kick me!" sign.... lv1, N7 lv1, and a Shotgun Rail boost. To go with his pistol and rifle. Heh.)

Why does Jennifer Hale's voice lack emotion? Never played a Female character just cause of her VA.
Plus she sounds like a guy.

[Kit Marsden]

Why does Jennifer Hale's voice lack emotion? Never played a Female character just cause of her VA.
Plus she sounds like a guy.

Repalce "Jennifer Hale" with "Mark Meer", "female" with "male", and "guy" with a "robot" and you have my opinion

[*Chloe*]

Repalce "Jennifer Hale" with "Mark Meer", "female" with "male", and "guy" with a "robot" and you have my opinion

Agreed. Hale fits her role like a fist in the face. So well it hurts.

[Madeleine Rose Walsh]

I know I keep going on about wee things I keep discovering so sorry and bear with me. But I've started playing an adept in ME1 and wow, when you join up with Kaidan and Liara it's a bit overpowered no? I'd imagine more so in 1 because each power has a cool down time rather than your powers combined. Seems pretty damn lethal

[phil walsh]

I know they are trying to show that we cannot save everyone and sacrifices must be made but I feel like I'm watching a movie with the occasional 3rd person cover based romp rather than playing a Mass Effect game. I mean, where are my options? It seems more often than not I just watch someone sacrifice for the cause rather than help them out.

Also, my squad choices this time around are pathetically limited.

[Erika Ellsworth]

Pardon my sudden out-of-nowhere post, just want to say something.

I actually 'like' the ending, not hate, not love, just that it's not that bad that it deserves to be hated by the Internet.

I must have screwed up somewhere with Ashley, she didn't join me after that

Spoiler

Udino

incident. Since I don't like blue alien, nor am I homosixual, and I can't bed Tali because I didn't port my ME2 save, ME3 is the first game with six that I didn't have six. I find that amusing. At least better than accidentally sleeping with a male companion just by talking (DAO). I'm going off-topic there...

In the end, my only complains about the game are:
- Am I playing a game, or watching a movie? This is like ME2, where BW can't decide if they want to make a RPG/FPS or just FPS.
- Seriously, not porting a ME2 save affects so many things? Maybe that's why I only have so few companions to play around with. (A quick Wikia tells me that ME3 naturally have few squad members...)
- ME3 has the worst in-game fire animation.
- The Citadel can't get any more lifeless, and to think I once thought Skyrim cities are boring.
- Too few different types of enemies.
- Day One DLC.

Now, what I like about ME3:
- Combat is better (than ME1&2)
- Story is better (than ME2)
- Skill sets are better (than ME2)
- No more mining! Though exploring planets are still a chore and boring.

FYI, my final score is 2777, 23 points away to unlock the third ending option. Blah.

End rant.

[Lil Miss]

Though I haven't even finished the last one I started a new ME1 game. This time I do everything different: MaleShep, romance Tali, do Paragon whenever the chance. Going paragon makes me wanna puke once a while, since I believe in the Greater Good, but massacring everyone playthrough after playthrough just doesn't cut it anymore.

Rachni I will still destroy though. I will do my best to cure Genophage but the Rachni is something I will never, ever tolerate.

I know they are trying to show that we cannot save everyone and sacrifices must be made but I feel like I'm watching a movie with the occasional 3rd person cover based romp rather than playing a Mass Effect game. I mean, where are my options? It seems more often than not I just watch someone sacrifice for the cause rather than help them out.

Also, my squad choices this time around are pathetically limited.

Sans the ending ME3 definitely offers more choice. You have multi-endings on virtually every quest. Kill Balak or persuade him, Quarians or Geth, Genophage or no, to cut life support from Batarian terrorist or no.

If one thing I prefer ME3 over the two others is indeed the vast amounts of choice. Too bad it's all in vain of course, but here's some hope for us yet.

Squad choices are intentionally limited. They wanted to have less squad mates so you would "connect" with them better. I say this works just fine.

[Ana Torrecilla Cabeza]

I know I keep going on about wee things I keep discovering so sorry and bear with me. But I've started playing an adept in ME1 and wow, when you join up with Kaidan and Liara it's a bit overpowered no? I'd imagine more so in 1 because each power has a cool down time rather than your powers combined. Seems pretty damn lethal

Biotics were so rediculus in the 1st game, that I would put singularity on anything I played as just for the free kills.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So now I'm well into my 1st playthrough of Mass Effect 3 (still on insanity....this is a [cencored] cakewalk btw), and I really really hate this disc data storage. In mass Effect 2, I had to swap the discs 5 times over the course of both of my playthroughs. On 3, I'm already at 4. Who did they assign to this, and have they been smacked in the back of the head yet?

[I’m my own]

Spoiler

Uggghh, I'm seriously having seconds thoughts about my full commitment to the Genophage. I'm so tempted to help the Krogan now that I know there is a slight possibility for them to straighten up with Wrex and Eve. But I feel I'm dooming the galaxy for another great war against the Krogan. I'm in Virmire, having to decide whether or not to off Wrex. If I kill him, I will commit to the Genophage. If I spare him I will do my best to help the Krogan. It's a tough choice.

[Invasion's]

Sans the ending ME3 definitely offers more choice. You have multi-endings on virtually every quest. Kill Balak or persuade him, Quarians or Geth, Genophage or no, to cut life support from Batarian terrorist or no.

We will see if I get the chance to do multiple play throughs, but it just feels like people needlessly sacrifice themselves, maybe I'm doing something wrong, I didn't import so maybe thats it.

[Floor Punch]

Spoiler

Uggghh, I'm seriously having seconds thoughts about my full commitment to the Genophage. I'm so tempted to help the Krogan now that I know there is a slight possibility for them to straighten up with Wrex and Eve. But I feel I'm dooming the galaxy for another great war against the Krogan. I'm in Virmire, having to decide whether or not to off Wrex. If I kill him, I will commit to the Genophage. If I spare him I will do my best to help the Krogan. It's a tough choice.

Spoiler

It's time for the Genophage to be cured. The Krogan have learned from their mistakes. With Urdnot Wrex as the leader of all Krogan, they will be under control. Wrex cares about the future of his species, and not mindless bloodshed. He cares about all Krogan and genuinely wants them integrate into the galactic community.
"Speak when spoken to, Uvenk. I'll drag your clan to glory whether it likes it or not."
But if Wreav is leader he will totally [censored] things up.

[ONLY ME!!!!]

We will see if I get the chance to do multiple play throughs, but it just feels like people needlessly sacrifice themselves, maybe I'm doing something wrong, I didn't import so maybe thats it.

If you do everything right only three important people/companions die

Spoiler

Mordin, Legion and Thane

Speaking of a Paragon playthrough of course, Renegade will get you a lot more dead. Not importing is your problem since ME2 companions won't be loyal, thus their Lemmings attitude.

Spoiler

It's time for the Genophage to be cured. The Krogan have learned from their mistakes. With Urdnot Wrex as the leader of all Krogan, they will be under control. Wrex cares about the future of his species, and not mindless bloodshed. He cares about all Krogan and genuinely wants them integrate into the galactic community.
"Speak when spoken to, Uvenk. I'll drag your clan to glory whether it likes it or not."
But if Wreav is leader he will totally [censored] things up.

Spoiler

Hmmhh, I suppose that's true. For now I don't regard the current ending as the "real" ending so I will for now ignore the fact that all Krogan males are stuck on Earth for the time being.
I guess I'll make an exception with this Renegade playthrough. Already stacked up ridiculous amounts of Paragon points on Feros, just giving food to the poor jumped my bar from 0 to 50%. Might as well abandon the pure Renegade plans and do Paragade

[Conor Byrne]

I decided to give the multiplayer mode a try last night. Have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I don't usually go in for multiplayer in most games. My gaming time tends to be pretty erratic. Generally, I only get a chance to play while my son is taking a nap. And as he can wake up at any time, it usually doesn't seem fair to anyone else I might be playing with, that I might have to drop out of the game at any time, without warning.

I had fun with it, though. Fits the series much better than I thought it might, when I first about them including it with ME3. And of course, the RPG and unlockable customization features are going to be pretty addictive. It does feel like they put more thought into that mode than they could have.

I happen to have a smartphone, so I have the Datapad app installed. Which includes a mini-game that allows you to raise your Galactic Readiness score. So I don't have to worry about playing multiplayer just to get my rating up. (Still not sure how I feel about that whole element. I actually think the concept of a cross-platform game concept tying into the single player is an interesting idea - but I'm not convinced this was the ideal manner to incorporate it.)

Anyway - more fun that I thought it would be. As the new guy, I still basically just pick someone to tag along behind, and try to stay out of the way. But it was neat.

Also been playing my way back through ME1. I always forget how much I dislike the combat in that game. Didn't really bug me too much when it first came out - but the AI in that game just drives me crazy. Not so much with my squad-mates (I really don't pay that much attention to them in combat. So long as I can make use of their powers on occasion I generally don't care what they're doing.)

But the enemy AI drives me crazy. It's set out to be a cover-based action game. Which I can get behind. But the thing with any game is that you have to adapt your strategies to the enemies you're encountering. So if the enemy is just frantically running around like crazy, worrying about sticking from cover to cover just feels like a waste of time to me. (And don't even get me started on how ridiculous Insane or hardcoe difficulty is - chasing a named enemy all over the planetary map as you blast him across the landscape with the Mako with negligible effect is comical at first, but tedious every time after that.)

And I actually enjoyed the Mako segments in ME1. I find it at least more interesting than scanning planets in ME2. Made me feel a bit more connected with what I was doing, and the resources I was trying to track down and gather. Can't say I really miss it, in the other games. But at the same time, I don't feel like they ever managed to replace it with something that was any more fun...

Also, I find I do prefer the ME1 Galaxy Map. I found the whole "fly your spaceship around the map" thing in ME2 and ME3 to be a bit gimmicky. I actually prefer just moving the cursor around the map and being able to zoom out on the fly.

And on a related note, I'm also one of the (apparently few) people who preferred an elevator ride to a loading screen. (ME2 especially had what - from an artistic background - seemed like really lazy and uninspired graphic design work for it's loading screens.)

[Red Sauce]

I agree with the elevator over generic loading screen, at least you got snippets of conversation or news.

Combat though, I disagree, I actually like me1 the most because you don't need to be in cover (I generally hate cover based shooters)

[Bambi]

Also, I find I do prefer the ME1 Galaxy Map. I found the whole "fly your spaceship around the map" thing in ME2 and ME3 to be a bit gimmicky. I actually prefer just moving the cursor around the map and being able to zoom out on the fly.

And on a related note, I'm also one of the (apparently few) people who preferred an elevator ride to a loading screen. (ME2 especially had what - from an artistic background - seemed like really lazy and uninspired graphic design work for it's loading screens.)

I'm glad it's not just me: I also thought the ME2/3 galaxy map was a bit gimmicky and I wished they'd stuck with the much cleaner design of the original. I was also endlessly amused by the terrible lift music and often offbeat conversations during the lift rides; I didn't object to ME2's animations so much but they did get a bit tedious after a while so I eventually replaced them with the mod that just shows a brief splash-screen instead.

The Mako is underrated, I think. I found it entertaining to drive in the silliest manner possible and it was certainly better (IMHO) than the never-entertaining planet scanning or cat-and-mouse with the reapers. The only thing I wasn't so convinced about was the bizarre need to decrypt a rock in order to mine it...

[Philip Lyon]

Ha! Well, I'm glad I'm not alone with the elevator thing. I mean - if you're going to be in a loading scene anyway, it did feel a lot more seamless to just have it integrated into the world. And yeah, that way you're at least getting a little bit of news or extra conversation, etc. (And once I finally figured out that they were playing Muzak versions of the regular dramatic sound tracks, I thought that was rather comical.)

[Javier Borjas]

... And once I finally figured out that they were playing Muzak versions of the regular dramatic sound tracks, I thought that was rather comical.

I never noticed that. Something for me to listen out for in my upcoming ME play-through!