I've never played a Mass Effect game before and I plan to play through all three. If you can offer any advice for a new player on class, important side quests, ect. I would appreciate it. Please keep it spoiler light and thanks for your help!

Easier to play a soldier in ME1 i think but otherwise all classes are fun. Side quests? Simple : do em all!! the ME franchise is pretty great in that regard. The Mako segments in ME1 are not that great but stick through them, ME1 is still one of my favorite games of all time.

why would you stick through the mako section?

boring and no reward, but hey if you want to hate mass effect go ahead.

The side quests in the first one are not great. Using assault rifles at the beginning of the first one is near impossible as they overheat really quickly and have far too much recoil. Be prepared to use a pistol for the first 4-5 hours.

@stinky: The mako is fine.

Just play how you wanna play, each class is different in terms of abilities and each are rewarding on their own. I play as an adept because space magic is awesome. High throw and lift powers and topple enemies asap. As for important side missions, those that are on hub worlds are important or those that lead you to another planet from a hub world are important. That is a general rule

Read some stuff from the ME wiki (or codecs) about events in the timeline up until Shepard's story begins. It's actually pretty good stuff and sets you up with the universe.

The games have a lot of references to earlier events that you don't actually experience playing it.

Once you get to Mass Effect 2, remember that your paragon/renegade levels directly correlate to your charm/intimidate skills, instead of being something you put points into like ME1.

Other than that, just have fun with it.

just play them. i managed to play them both ok with no input from anyone on a forum.

Avoid wikis for story spoilers.

You don't have to do many of the sidequests in ME1 since they all pretty much play out the same way. But there are a few strings that maybe you should play because of little bonus scenes in ME2. An example would be Helena Blake's missions and Admiral Kahoku's missions in ME1.

http://masseffect.shockfront.net/?page_id=2

That site has links to checklists for ME1 and 2. I've used it on my later playthroughs. The checklist for ME1 is nice because it'll tell you exactly which quests play a larger role in ME2. It'll save you from doing some of the more monotonous side missions with the Mako.

Other than that, just dive in and have a ball, duder. Easily my favorite series.

Do one or two sidequests in ME1 just to say you did, and then skip the rest. They mostly suck.

Charm and Intimidate are not useless - make sure to fill up one of these bars.

Are you going to be Paragon or Renegade? Pick one and stick with it.

In the conversation wheel, the top right wedge is the Paragon option. Middle right is neutral. Bottom right is Renegade. The options on the left are either Charm or Intimidate and will be color coded, or they open up new dialog options that allow for more exposition on different topics. If you just want to get through with a conversation, avoid the left side of the wheel.

The first few hours of the first Mass Effect are bland. In fact, the game doesn't do a great job of telling you about all of its mechanics. Trust me, you want to press through them.

The first Mass Effect looks good in screenshots, but actually doesn't run very well on Xbox and doesn't always play so well, either. This is rather jarring if you're late to play it.

Pistols are not useless.

Play through the first Mass Effect on Easy the first time. I normally don't do that, especially on anything shooty, but I found that I enjoyed the first one way more when playing it on easy.

Play them all on the same console.

Don't be surprised when you fire up the second game and the RPG elements are scaled back to being almost not there.

You want to find and do all of the character loyalty missions in ME2.

@Bumpton said:

http://masseffect.shockfront.net/?page_id=2

That site has links to checklists for ME1 and 2. I've used it on my later playthroughs. The checklist for ME1 is nice because it'll tell you exactly which quests play a larger role in ME2. It'll save you from doing some of the more monotonous side missions with the Mako.

Other than that, just dive in and have a ball, duder. Easily my favorite series.

Note that you still don't know which ME1 side missions might affect ME3.

Personally, I just did everything... including gathering all the stuff from every planet with the Mako. But I'm just OCD like that.

Personally I'd advise not to play Soldier, the biotic and tech powers are great to play around with instead of just pewpew.
 
But it's your story, you'll be fine!

Don't do the Mako stuff, it made me drop the game the first time I tried to play it. It's that bad. Like... Reaaaaaally bad.

And don't play Soldier, it's really boring.

I say skip the side quests in Mass Effect 1. There pretty boring and usually result in you doing the same thing over and over as you are forced to run through the same damn base over and over. If you do end up doing them though make sure to return to the Citadel before completing all the story stuff they give you once leaving it the first time or youll miss out on a few quests.

@stinky said:

why would you stick through the mako section?

boring and no reward, but hey if you want to hate mass effect go ahead.

Plenty of those missions carry something over into 2.

If you get burned out on Mass Effect 1 (story is great but gameplay is lacking) for any reason you should still play Mass Effect 2. They improved a ton in the sequel and while the rpg elements are a little stripped down I still love that damn game to death. And hey maybe you will love two which could make it easier to go back and finish up on say the easiest difficulty.

Be a soldier and do all the side missions, also buy all the ME2 DLC. If you want to be good (paragon) always choose the top right blue choice after you get the most info from a person by selecting investigate on the left side of the wheel, if you want to be renegade, choose the bottom right red after you investigate. You'll understand it all once you get into it all.

Be a sentinel and do all the side missions, also buy all the ME2 DLC.

@believer258 said:

Charm and Intimidate are not useless - make sure to fill up one of these bars.

Are you going to be Paragon or Renegade? Pick one and stick with it.

Play them all on the same console.

You want to find and do all of the character loyalty missions in ME2.

These are great pieces of advice.

Play through the first Mass Effect on Easy the first time. I normally don't do that, especially on anything shooty, but I found that I enjoyed the first one way more when playing it on easy.

Also, I can't stress this enough. I played through the first ME on normal and hard and really enjoyed it, but upon coming back to it, the game's shooting segments only increase in duration rather than enjoyment on higher difficulties (This isn't true of ME 2 so much, but definitely ME1). Do yourself a favor and burn through the enemies. The gameplay is enjoyably improved in the shooting segments of the game in ME2, but it's a bit of a boring slog in the first game. Nevertheless, you'll want to experience the storyline in its fullest as the writing is stellar. Mileage may vary on the side quests, but I found them mostly enjoyable and was quite surprised to see some of their effects pop up in ME2.

As far as characters go, choose based on what sort of play style you like most. If you want to be an interstellar bad-ass who blasts away enemies with machine guns and heavy weapons, the soldier is for you. If you want to be a player who is careful, sticks to cover a lot, and pops out to shoot and use your powers, the biotic is for you. I never enjoyed the "in-between" style characters (the ones that mix biotics and weapons), so I would suggest picking an extreme and running with it. Choose carefully though because I believe you're stuck with that class in subsequent games. (Obviously don't know about ME3.) I have a Renegade Biotic and a Paragon Soldier as my two main play throughs. I think that's ideal, but that would probably also take a while.

I'm not sure about the advice to play on easy, but I'm not too keen on the higher difficulties. The way it works is, enemies have multiple health bars - barriers, shields, armor, and then health. Many enemies have two of these, and some harder enemies have 3. Now, that in itself isn't so bad, but the problem is that the more badass abilities in the game do not affect enemies who are not down to their last health bar. And on the higher difficulties, all enemies have multiple health bars.

So in a nutshell what this means is that the higher the difficulty is, the less badass abilities you can use. Sure, you can knock down their shields and then throw them, but oftentimes there's no reason to do this because the last health bar is flimsy and you probably have enough shots left in your clip to just finish the job you started. Leave the harder difficulties for when you get hooked and want to play through again.

What else... do not get trapped into thinking like a completionist when it comes to mineral gathering for either mass effect game. Mako in 1, scanning in 2. Both are important, the first for credits and the second for upgrades, but once you've got what you need, stop. And don't waste your time trying to strip mine a planet. Get the easy nodes and then move on - there's plenty more on the next planet.

And what else... you will regret it if you try to roleplay a morally gray character in ME2. You can get away with making a handful of renegade decisions if you're a paragon, and vice versa, but it's better not to try unless you feel very strongly about the decision. Consistently pick the top or the bottom option. Why? Because at two points in the game you will need to make a morality check to retain a squad member's loyalty, and that check becomes harder as you do more missions. And it's not really set at a reasonable level.

And what else - ask Miranda about upgrades to the Normandy as soon as you can talk to her in ME2. Because otherwise scanning will be a bitch.

That's all I got.

Don't forget to play through Star Control 2.

Thanks a lot everyone. You've all been super helpful!

You can skip the first one. Just get the PSN version of Mass Effect 2 for the plot content.

Don't ignore your Codex, there's a ton of interesting shit in there that shouldn't be missed. Also, as someone who just replayed through ME1 and who is in the process of replaying ME2, ratcheting down the difficulty to Casual makes the first game a lot easier but also a lot more enjoyable.

Start ME1 on easy if you're playing on 360. DO NOT PLAY ADEPT ON ME1. Soldier is always a safe bet. Infiltrator can be tricky but it's tons of fun. Rush to medium armor. Get HELL OF CODEXS. Free XP for talking to people. If you're looking for romance, go with Liara. Kaiden and Ashley both suck and Wrex, Garrus, and Tali are un-sexable. The dialogue option in the top left with proceed the relationship forward. Don't kill Wrex. Save the Council.

In ME2, if you're playing a class that does not have a fire biotic, choose Mordin.

For both games, pick a moral side and stick to it. The option in the top right will always be paragon and the option in the bottom left will always be renegade.

I'm surprised no one mentioned this already but SAVE YOUR GAME AND SAVE A LOT.

ME1 particularly has no check-pointing whatsoever and even if you have auto-save on, the points at which it does so is too far apart for comfort. Even on Normal I died enough where the infrequent auto-saves ticked me off a bit.

ME2 does a MUCH better job at this though. My first time through I never did a hard save as it was super generous with the auto-saves.

@SuperCabboy: Play the games at your own pace and don't get too caught up with min-maxing paragon/renegade.

I did one 100% run of ME1 and that made me really dislike it, since about 90% of the sidequests are carbon copy repeats that are boring. In ME1 you can mainline mostly and do only certain sidequests that set the foundations for ME2. For the second one I would say any mission the crew members ask of you should be done but part of the fun is disocvering so do whatever suits you. EXCEPT GOING FOR 100% IN ME1, that is mind numbing.

Go for the colonist origin, it gives you pretty nice sidequest. I guess Spacer could have potentially interesting effects in ME3, but that remains to be seen. However, if you plan on being a full renegade, then go for Earthborn because it gives you a boost to your renegade points.(Spacer gives you a Paragon boost, Colonist gives smaller boosts to both sides)

aeris dies

@Sackmanjones said:

If you get burned out on Mass Effect 1 (story is great but gameplay is lacking) for any reason you should still play Mass Effect 2. They improved a ton in the sequel and while the rpg elements are a little stripped down I still love that damn game to death. And hey maybe you will love two which could make it easier to go back and finish up on say the easiest difficulty.

I'd argue if he starts to get burned out just power through the main storyline. It gets better and better and the end is amazing.

Pick whichever class sounds cool in Mass Effect 1. That way when you get to Mass Effect 2, it'll actually make a difference. The classes in ME1 are varied, but not by anything big. Choose them based on which gun they are allowed to use or biotics, but the differences between classes are a lot more noticeable in ME2.

Don't listen to anybody about what class is 'best.' Choose whichever one sounds the most interesting to you. Some of the classes might make the game slightly easier, but none make the game hard. I.e.: they're all fun in their own ways.

@stinky said:

why would you stick through the mako section?

boring and no reward, but hey if you want to hate mass effect go ahead.

I actually liked the mako stuff, plus it was pretty much free leveling imo.

Speaking from experience here, probably the best advice anyone could give you is to back up your ME saves to a thumbdrive. Nothing worse than completing ME1, getting a few hours into ME2, then having your HDD crash on you, causing you to lose your Shepard for the continuing adventures in ME3. I mean, I managed to find a ME1 save that was pretty close to the decisions I'd made, and managed to visually make him pretty close to what I remembered him looking like, but it's still not completely the same.

So yeah, back up them saves, yo.

Keep running and don't look back

It sounds kind of mercenary, but having just played through ME1 for the third time to get a new character ready for ME2 and ME3, I would just go ahead and buy the interactive comic thing and make all the big decisions there. You'll miss some of the side-quests that travel over, but I think I would have preferred that 25 hours of time to use in ME2. Don't get me wrong, I love the Mass Effect series and am super-excited they've put more RPG stuff in ME3, but that first game is real hard to go back to. Also, like many others have said, pick whatever class sounds fun to you (they're all viable) and just have fun exploring the galaxy.

@BrockNRolla said:

As far as characters go, choose based on what sort of play style you like most. If you want to be an interstellar bad-ass who blasts away enemies with machine guns and heavy weapons, the soldier is for you. If you want to be a player who is careful, sticks to cover a lot, and pops out to shoot and use your powers, the biotic is for you. I never enjoyed the "in-between" style characters (the ones that mix biotics and weapons), so I would suggest picking an extreme and running with it. Choose carefully though because I believe you're stuck with that class in subsequent games. (Obviously don't know about ME3.) I have a Renegade Biotic and a Paragon Soldier as my two main play throughs. I think that's ideal, but that would probably also take a while.

You can change your class in ME2. It's all good