Lets Play: Mass Effect (Updated - Ch 6 Part 2 - Virmire)

[AD-Stu]

[http://s20.photobucket.com/albums/b233/stu270/Mass%20Effect%20Lets%20Play/?action=view¤t=Boxart.jpg]

Having enjoyed a bunch of other people's Lets Plays of late, I've been inspired to get off my butt and try making one for myself. The subject? Mass Effect, the first episode in Bioware's epic space-RPG trilogy. I've chosen it because I thought it'd be interesting to go back and take a look at where it all started in the leadup to the release of ME3.

What is it?
For those not familiar with the game, Mass Effect is an RPG very much in the mould of the Bioware games that came immediately before it (KOTOR, Jade Empire), but set in space with full player-character voice acting. We play as Commander Shepard and, naturally, we'll be saving the galaxy.

What's being covered?
I'm planning to cover all the main story content, both DLC packs, and cherry pick some of the best of the side quests along the way since the others have a tendency to be repetitive...

What's the format?
This will be a screenshot Lets Play for a bunch of reasons, ranging from my total lack of experience with video editing and recording to my desire to spare anyone following this thread from having to listen to my voice for large chunks of time.

I plan to be updating as often as possible, and will try to get through everything before Mass Effect 3 drops at the beginning of March. No promises on that count though

Reader input
There will be lots of opportunities for reader input along the way, and I'd like to start right now with the character build. Please let me know what your preferences are for the following:

- Gender
- Paragon or Renegade
- Background (spacer / earthborn / colonist)
- Psych profile (sole survivor / war hero / ruthless)
- Class (soldier / engineer / adept / infiltrator / sentinel / vanguard)

Aside from cosmetics, gender only really affects the romance plots that become available. For anyone who hasn't played the game looking for an overview on all the other options, <a href=http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Commander_Shepard>this page gives a good description of the effects of each.

As far as the Paragon / Renegade choice goes I'll use whichever one gets voted up as the default choice for everyday stuff and put the big choices to the readers as we come across them. I'm also open to choices such as the popular "Paragon with the crew, Renegade with everyone else" model if people want to go that way.

EDIT: So the results are in, we'll be playing an infiltrator / colonist / war hero FemShep and try to walk a mixed paragon / renegade path.

[HEADING=2]UPDATES[/HEADING]

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13788398>Chapter 1, Part 1 (Normandy) - Introductions, exposition and eau de turian
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13800791>Chapter 1, Part 2 (Normandy) - Grunka attends a management meeting
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13819617>Chapter 1, Part 3 (Eden Prime) - Extorting farmers for fun and profit
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13832506>Chapter 1, Part 4 (Eden Prime / Normandy) - Protheans are into weird stuff...


<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13849690>Chapter 2, Part 1 (Citadel) - Why couldn't they have elected Arnie?
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13874370>Chapter 2, Part 2 (Citadel) - I was promised strippers and booze...
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13917094>Chapter 2, Part 3 (Citadel) - A human, turian and krogan walk into a bar
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13960599>Chapter 2, Part 4.1 (Citadel) - Faff...
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13960607>Chapter 2, Part 4.2 (Citadel) - ...and the Citadel faffs with you
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14006722>Chapter 2, Part 5 (Citadel) - Grunka gets a promotion

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14114014>Chapter 3, Part 1 (Artemis Tau) - Cheap exploits and hovering asari
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14249416>Chapter 3, Part 2 (Artemis Tau) - The slaver and the giant worm
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14443678>Chapter 3, Part 3 (Various) - Do rogue VIs dream of electric pyjaks?

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14476414>Chapter 4, Part 1 (Feros) - Of Darwin awards and structural engineering
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14614711>Chapter 4, Part 2 (Feros) - A road safety announcement from the Prothean Empire
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14774211>Chapter 4, Part 3 (Feros) - Tonight on Worst Workplaces: ExoGeni Feros
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14891152>Chapter 4, Part 4 (Feros) - Little Shop of Horrors without the singing
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14969439>Chapter 4, Part 5 (Normandy) - The curious case of the krogan testicles
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15172857>Chapter 4, Part 6 (Citadel) - Adventures in media relations and amateur psychiatry
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15266323>Chapter 4, Part 7 (Pinnacle Station) - If you can't spot the sucker at the table...
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15498328>Chapter 4, Part 8 (Various) - Hades' dogs and ExoGeni's morons

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15610341>Chapter 5, Part 1 (Noveria) - Oh no, not the protectionists and communists!
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15736183>Chapter 5, Part 2 (Noveria) - Holy flying space lobsters, Batman!
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15945984>Chapter 5, Part 3 (Noveria) - Space lobster mornay
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.16144923>Chapter 5, Part 4 (Noveria / Normandy) - The smell of neutron in the morning
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.16474864>Chapter 5, Part 5 (Various) - Grunka, Garrus and Wrex go big buck hunting
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.16736572>Chapter 5, Part 6 (Asteroid X57) - Frak the laws of physics
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.16839941>Chapter 5, Part 7 (Various) - Biotic odds and ends

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.17131075>Chapter 6, Part 1 (Virmire) - Salarians suck at sneaking
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.20210098>Chapter 6, Part 2 (Virmire) - Confrontations and hoverboards

 

[piplink]

- Gender male
- Paragon or Renegade renegade
- Background (spacer / earthborn / colonist) colonist
- Psych profile (sole survivor / war hero / ruthless) war hero
- Class (soldier / engineer / adept / infiltrator / sentinel / vanguard) soldier

that would be my character if i had the game, but i only have KOTOR.

 

[Zhukov]

Sure, why not?

- Gender: Doesn't matter that much. Basically, go female if you want the better voice actor or male if you want to do the Ashley romance subplot thingy.
- Paragon or Renegade: Going paragon usually involves less silly choices. Can't you just mix it up as you see fit?
- Background: Colonist. It gives the best side quest.
- Psych profile: Doesn't really matter at all.
- Class: Doesn't matter since you're not making gameplay videos. Soldier if you're boring, adept or sentinel if you want to spend the game watching ability cooldowns, engineer if you want to be borderline ineffectual, infiltrator or vanguard if you're intelligent and attractive.

 

[AD-Stu]

Depending on the choices our psych profile (and background for that matter) does influence how quickly we accumulate Paragon / Renegade points. Spacer / war hero give us a Paragon bonus, earthborn / ruthless give us a Renegade bonus, and colonist gives a small bonus to both. Sole survivor affects neither. That said we'll have plenty of opportunity to max out our chosen path with or without the bonuses so yeah, in the end it doesn't make a huge difference.

Interestingly, default Shepard is an earthborn sole survivor - conspiracy nuts, feel free to ponder whether that means the default Shepard is also "meant" to be a renegade

 

[The Pinray]

I say Male, Mix it up, Colonist, Sole Survivor, Doesn't matter since there's no gameplay.

Also,

Spoiler: Regarding Virmire

Leave Ashley. But I guess that's jumping the gun.

 

[Rusman]

Female
Renegade
Colonist
Ruthless
Infiltrator
Looking forward to reading it

 

[Pegghead]

Female, call her dog-bollocks. Make her bald and put her eyes as far apart as possible. Make all her armour hot pink and make her the baddest ***** in the galaxy in terms of moral choice. Maybe make your let's-play a video whilst your at it.

 

[Erttheking]

Female
Paragon
Colonist
War hero
Soldier

That's my two cents on the matter

 

[putowtin]

Female
Paragon
Spacer
War Hero
Soldier

Spoiler

On Vermire Leave Ashley, but don't date Alenko, save her for Garrus in ME2

Interestingly, default Shepard is an earthborn sole survivor - conspiracy nuts, feel free to ponder whether that means the default Shepard is also "meant" to be a renegade

where's it said that he was ment to be renegade?

 

[hazabaza1]

Female
Paragon
Spacer
War Hero
Soldier

Spoiler

On Vermire Leave Ashley, but don't date Alenko, save her for Garrus in ME2

Interestingly, default Shepard is an earthborn sole survivor - conspiracy nuts, feel free to ponder whether that means the default Shepard is also "meant" to be a renegade

where's it said that he was ment to be renegade?

Well, if you make a new character in 2 then Shepard seems to have made all the 'massive dick-end' choices.
OT: I don't think I'll be keeping up with this, but I say that you should create a male whose sole focus is on Big Stupid Jellyfish.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Female
Renegade
Spacer
War Hero
Infiltrator

Just my $0.02

 

[AD-Stu]

Interestingly, default Shepard is an earthborn sole survivor - conspiracy nuts, feel free to ponder whether that means the default Shepard is also "meant" to be a renegade

where's it said that he was ment to be renegade?

It's not stated as such - I just thought it was interesting that the default background Bioware chose (earthborn) is the one that gives a renegade bonus when there was a balanced option (colonist) available. I'm sure there's nothing much to be read into it, but people shouldn't let that stand in the way if they want to get their conspiracy theories on

And as hazabaza1 mentioned, a default Shepard in ME2 does seem to have made mostly renegade choices. But there could be all sorts of reasons for that and I don't want to get a full game ahead of ourselves when we've got the opportunity to make our own dickish choices in this game

Thanks for the feedback so far guys, I'll leave suggestions open for a bit longer and then start work on the character build and first update tonight.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Welcome to the LPer club. Cookies to the left, punch to the right. Enjoy your stay.

- Gender
- Paragon or Renegade
- Background (spacer / earthborn / colonist)
- Psych profile (sole survivor / war hero / ruthless)
- Class (soldier / engineer / adept / infiltrator / sentinel / vanguard)

Female
Paragon (Basically, selfless lawful good)
Spacer
War Hero
Any is good. I'm partial to Soldier, personally.

 

[Bocaj2000]

Male shep
be mixed (make a flawed hero/nice douche)
colonist
sole surviver
Sentinel (soldier is very boring. sentinel will give the most interesting playthrough)

I'm trying to make this interesting for you. everyone else is pushing the shepard that they made and played with.

 

[AD-Stu]

OK, let's get this show on the road!

Thanks to everyone for their input so far. The votes in three categories are pretty conclusive, so it looks like we'll be playing a colonist / war hero FemShep.

Paragon / renegade / mixed is pretty much a wash, so I'll go for mixed and see if I can run both up high enough to get the special missions at the end of each path. I've never tried it before, but I know theoretically it's possible.

As for the class it's pretty close between soldier and infiltrator - I'd like to go with infiltrator purely because being able to do our own decryption and electronics work will give us a lot more flexibility in choosing who we take on each mission. I'll probably take assault rifles as my bonus talent as a nod to those who wanted soldier though

I'll get started and be back with part one in a while.

 

[Seaf The Troll]

Male shep
Paragon mostly
Colonist
Sole surviver
Infiltrator

now the Infiltrator makes the back story for Sole surviver make more sence cause he was in the back of the battlefeild at the time. The colonist back story make out thats why he became a Infiltrator class because he is used to being left on his own.

Just the way i see it.

 

[woodaba]

I love Mass Effect, so i'm definitely following this. Favorite'd. Sad I missed the character creation, but I'd probably be boring anyway.

Looking forward to this!

 

[Weaver]

Let's plays are supposed to go in the user reviews section.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.284840-User-Reviews-Forum-Rules

 

[woodaba]

Let's plays are supposed to go in the user reviews section.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.284840-User-Reviews-Forum-Rules

There have been plenty of LPs in Game Discussion that the mods have never even looked at the wrong way, and even took part in. I'm not entirely sure you're correct.