I’ve decided, against my better judgement, to play through Mass Effect’s 1 and 2 before I play through 3 and I’m going to document the experience. Why, you might be asking? Well there’s a few reasons, which I’ll go through for anybody who might be interested.

Reason the first: As of yet I haven’t contributed a huge amount to the community outside of forum posts and a review of a book that, judging by the comments (zero) wasn’t exactly on anyone’s radar, so this will be a good chance to have a regular blog that I update...uh...regularly.

Reason the second: I’ve played through both games already but have recently gotten a new gamertag, so my saves aren’t available. I know there’s a way to transfer those but I had already sorta decided on doing this before I found out about that route, so i’ll just barrel ahead. Plus achievements. Those sweet, sweet chievos.

Reason the third: Unfortunate things happened in my playthrough of ME1, things that remain a sore point with me. By things I mean one thing. Wrex didn’t make it. I loved Wrex, he was one of my favorite characters an when Ashley decided to put a bullet in him (that damn dirty wench) it seriously bummed me out. Then I found out from a friend that was avoidable cause HIS Wrex was just fine. At the time I didn’t feel like playing through again so ME2 was Wrex-less. This is a situation I intend to rectify. No Wrex left behind!

So those are my reasons, and that’s my plan, I’m setting aside all the other games I’m playing right now (Deus Ex, Skyrim, MK, Resident Evil 5) to power through these games. The hardest part is going to be having ME3 staring me in the face for however long it takes me to get through this. That and avoiding spoilers. I plan on writing a new blog post once a week, nothing too crazy, some story updates, where I am, the feel of the mechanics, etc, in as entertaining a fashion as possible. As far as DLC goes, I’ll probably skip it for ME1, but since I have it all for ME2, I’ll probably play through it. I still haven’t played Shadow Broker or Overlord yet so it’ll be a brand new experience.

Unless I hear otherwise, I’m not gonna worry about spoilers for 1, for 2 and 3, I’ll try to limit them or use spoiler tags. If I make it that far. I’ll be honest, my willpower may not hold out that long but I’ll try. By god, I’ll try...

Once more, unto the breach...

I’ve decided, against my better judgement, to play through Mass Effect’s 1 and 2 before I play through 3 and I’m going to document the experience. Why, you might be asking? Well there’s a few reasons, which I’ll go through for anybody who might be interested.

Reason the first: As of yet I haven’t contributed a huge amount to the community outside of forum posts and a review of a book that, judging by the comments (zero) wasn’t exactly on anyone’s radar, so this will be a good chance to have a regular blog that I update...uh...regularly.

Reason the second: I’ve played through both games already but have recently gotten a new gamertag, so my saves aren’t available. I know there’s a way to transfer those but I had already sorta decided on doing this before I found out about that route, so i’ll just barrel ahead. Plus achievements. Those sweet, sweet chievos.

Reason the third: Unfortunate things happened in my playthrough of ME1, things that remain a sore point with me. By things I mean one thing. Wrex didn’t make it. I loved Wrex, he was one of my favorite characters an when Ashley decided to put a bullet in him (that damn dirty wench) it seriously bummed me out. Then I found out from a friend that was avoidable cause HIS Wrex was just fine. At the time I didn’t feel like playing through again so ME2 was Wrex-less. This is a situation I intend to rectify. No Wrex left behind!

So those are my reasons, and that’s my plan, I’m setting aside all the other games I’m playing right now (Deus Ex, Skyrim, MK, Resident Evil 5) to power through these games. The hardest part is going to be having ME3 staring me in the face for however long it takes me to get through this. That and avoiding spoilers. I plan on writing a new blog post once a week, nothing too crazy, some story updates, where I am, the feel of the mechanics, etc, in as entertaining a fashion as possible. As far as DLC goes, I’ll probably skip it for ME1, but since I have it all for ME2, I’ll probably play through it. I still haven’t played Shadow Broker or Overlord yet so it’ll be a brand new experience.

Unless I hear otherwise, I’m not gonna worry about spoilers for 1, for 2 and 3, I’ll try to limit them or use spoiler tags. If I make it that far. I’ll be honest, my willpower may not hold out that long but I’ll try. By god, I’ll try...

Once more, unto the breach...

Cool beans. I'll read along. Godspeed.

i've always had a certain respect for people who have decided to do this and can carry it through. i always intend to do this with game and/or movie series, but never find myself able to do it for whatever reason. good for you, duder. have fun.

Have been wanting to do the same but couldn't due to finals this week. I read through the wikia to catch up on all the books and stuff before 3 but I will check out your blog. Good luck! Even if you only do this to keep Wrex alive...that is a good enough reason in my mind.

I look forward to this. Good luck. I don't think it will take you multiple weeks to finish both. They are not amazingly long games but I guess that depends on your play style. I still think it may be easier to do daily updates. These can be shorter and we can get a better idea of how you feel at the beginning of the game compared to the end.

I thought about doing this the weekend, except speeding it all the way through for monday, as my Shepard died in 2. I played about 3 hours of ME1 before I found out that motion comic is on 360. I bought that and did 20 hours in 15 minutes. I'm about 5 hours into 2 now.

Best of luck to you, I find one is really hard to play after playing 2, but still playable.

Dude, let Wrex die. Fuck Wrex!

I'm with ya bro. Just realized I lost my ME2 to save. I'm gonna try to finish my paragon femshep save before Tuesday. Godspeed

lol I'm trying to do the same

@DonChipotle said:

Dude, let Wrex die. Fuck Wrex!

Don't listen to him! Grunt's "Shepard"s are nothing compared to Wrex's "Shepard"s.

If you look up all the things that import, you can beat Mass Effect 1 in around 14 hours if you just stick to stay away from stuff that won't effect Mass Effect 2. Going through Mass Effect 2 again last week took me around thirty hours will all of the dlc. So good luck and hope you have fun!

Good luck with your endeavor. However, if your doing this, why not go whole hog and document your experiences with the whole Mass Effect fiction? That is the books, comics and all the DLC.

You can check out a Eurogamer article that looks at all the other content. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-02-mass-effect-the-stories-so-far

@Blackout62 said:

@DonChipotle said:

Dude, let Wrex die. Fuck Wrex!

Don't listen to him! Grunt's "Shepard"s are nothing compared to Wrex's "Shepard"s.

What if they both say it at the SAME TIME! Oh my goodness I just came and my dick's still flacid!

@Everyoneingeneral: Also, I downloaded a completed evil Shepherd save for ME1 (as I originally played ME1 five times for achievements on 360, then I played ME2 on 360 but later sold my 360, and now I'm playing ME2 on PC for fun. Along ass paraphrase, sorry about this...) I've imported it to ME2 and I'm now powering through ME2 on Insanity on PC. (PC insanity difficulty is considerably easier than Xbox insanity. Very strange as I was expecting it to be harder.)

My playthrough of ME2 is about 3/4 to 4/5 of the way through, hopefully I'll have it finished before next friday when ME3 comes out over here in the UK. I'm glad for the two extra days worth of time as I work so I can only do it after hours. (Recently splitting from my crazy girlfriend has kind of helped in this endeavor. Sweet freedom, sweet release!)

I might do the same, except only because I want Ashley to be the one to shoot Wrex.

Glad there's some people interested!

I may actually update more then once a week depending on how quickly i blow through the game.

@Blackout62: I agree. I like Grunt but Wrex will always be the first Krogan in my heart.

@Masha2932: I'd like to check out some of that stuff after, I don't think I could put of playing 3 for that long though. It'll break me.

I'm curious to see the shock of going back to ME 1. I finished my insanity playthrough in 2 earlier this year, so playing the demo got me a good idea of what changed.

At this point, I can't even imagine how crappy the first plays, and I don't want to sully my nostalgia by trying.

I started a bumrush run-through of Mass Effect 2 last night. I have almost all members and three loyalty missions down. I'm trying to get almost all content cleared when twenty hours hit.

I'm curious to see the shock of going back to ME 1. I finished my insanity playthrough in 2 earlier this year, so playing the demo got me a good idea of what changed.

At this point, I can't even imagine how crappy the first plays, and I don't want to sully my nostalgia by trying.

Best thing about 1 is the per enemy XP.

Getting to level 60 while on my way to the final mass relay.

Getting out of the mako to kill everything for the extra XP.

Gotta love it gotta love real RPG bullshit, ME1 is pretty ugly dew.

For someone who doesn't "contribute much," you wrote a good blog! Mass Effect is a great series, but I'd never go back and play the old ones for save purposes. I beat both ME1 and ME2 on different consoles I've since sold. It'd be a nightmare to play through them again just for a few neat scenarios in 3. But hey, more power to you.