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[Ken]

CAUSE AND EFFECT

Mass Effect 3 will be upon us soon (releasing in five short weeks on March 6th) and will bring to a close the story that began five years ago with a covert pick up on Eden Prime.  With any luck, BioWare will deliver on the lofty promise of a "guns and conversation" choose-your-own-adventure concluded in grand and eminently replayable style.  Thus far, simply by playing through the games, players have not only shaped Shepard's personal story but also modified the Mass Effect universe itself into a setting of their own making.  By the advanced stage of this third and final act, many of the choices made have compounded and some have the potential to create rather different situations, opportunities, and outcomes.  I wonder how many different endings and variations on each sub-plot and supporting character's epilogue will be possible in ME3.  Hopefully at least as many as the difficult decisions Shepard has been forced to make in the proverbial "Story So Far"...

Which brings me to the subject of this thread.  I am interested in your "Story So Far" and in how it ends.  Plenty of folks have sat down for multiple play-throughs of the first two Mass Effect games, guiding several Shepards down different paths, be they Paragon, Renegade, or something in between.  While exploring many possible roads across multiple runs, was there one play-through that you consider to tell your Mass Effect "canon" story?  Or one that you intend to load into ME3 first for some particular reason?  Will you be playing through ME1 and 2 again now with a new Commander in preparation for 3?  If you have a personal "canon" Shepard, what background did they come from and what choices has he or she made?  What sort of hero have they become?  Was it a simple choice of taking one moral path to an extreme or something more nuanced?  I've read that some players hold tightly to the idea of choosing as they think they themselves would in a given situation.  How did you do it?

In addition to swapping stories, how about a challenge?  For those that are interested, I invite you to join me in a marathon play-through of the entire series.  If you don't have a personal "canon" Shepard or haven't played the series, there may be no better time to pick it up and start building one.  As you play, post updates here as you encounter and resolve situations.  Optionally, provide a first person narrator (Shep or another character) or a third person omniscient perspective to illuminate your Shepard's thoughts, motivations, and actions as the story progresses.  I'm curious as to how you'd spin things to give the story the connective tissue that a narrator's reflection (omniscient or otherwise) provides.  I think it adds important context that goes largely unspoken in some video games and which is sadly missing in the otherwise character-driven Mass Effect.  If there's any group qualified to frame the pulp sci-fi saga of Commander Shepard in such a way, it's the roleplayers in this forum.

How about it?

Welcome to Alliance Military Database...

[spoiler]Should go without saying, but apply spoiler tags liberally when discussing plot details.[/spoiler]

[Morwen Lagann]

Alright, I'll bite.

But you're a complete bastard for posting this two days after I started my own.

I'm not particularly inclined to start over again so I'll have to yoink things from this playthrough's journal in the morning.

[Random Sentience]

Starting a new playthrough on Friday as my "canon" Shepard to import into ME3. I think I will enjoy this challenge. 

[Mizhara]

Got some HDD trouble so I can't play through the two at the moment, but I'll be ordering a new computer the twelfth, so I should get it in time for a ME1/ME2 marathon.

[Milo Caman]

For those that are interested, I invite you to join me in a marathon play-through of the entire series.  If you don't have a personal "canon" Shepard or haven't played the series, there may be no better time to pick it up and start building one.

Excuse to play ME + ME2 through all over again?

Excellent.

[lallara zhuul]

What I noticed with both ME and ME2 is that your choices are pretty much meaningless.

No matter what choice you pick, the story will go on, the great saga will be completed no matter what you do, you are completely powerless and cannot affect a single thing as a player.

So, on the second playthrough of ME I stopped progressing the main plot and saved the universe from the Reapers.

[Mizhara]

What I noticed with both ME and ME2 is that your choices are pretty much meaningless.

No matter what choice you pick, the story will go on, the great saga will be completed no matter what you do, you are completely powerless and cannot affect a single thing as a player.

So, on the second playthrough of ME I stopped progressing the main plot and saved the universe from the Reapers.

So the fact that you and your entire team can die horrible deaths at the end of ME2 doesn't count?

Edit: Actually, this is a topic that warrants more discussion. I really don't get the argument of 'not making a difference' in games like these. You're quite patently making a massive difference depending on choices. People live or die as a result. You kill or save Wrex. You leave Ashley or Whiney McBitchPants to die. You aid a crime syndicate and then turn on them, or just take their money and go on. There's dozens of these decisions and they all have an effect. Do you somehow manage to stop the galaxy from turning and completely halt the narrative the writers wanted to tell? No, but that's not exactly something one should be expecting either.

In these games... you're one person. If anything, you have way too much power over the narrative and how things will progress.

ME1 and ME2 (ME2 in particular) is offering you fairly ridicilous amounts of narrative power as far as I'm concerned. More would break the games.

[BloodBird]

My ME and ME2 saves, not to mention the games themselves are gone from my drives due fuckingsoftwareupdatesIdidnotfuckingwant so I'll do a small marathon at a later point, about a week or two before the launch of ME3. Guess I know where I'll stick the logs then. This could be allot of fun. As usual

[Alain Colcer]

I would play this game if it was possible to buy a single pack with all the DLCs out of steam and not use EA shit.

[Myrhial Arkenath]

I've started on this too. I've drafted up two Shepards, one 'canon' male that is basically the default option from ME1, and will be going all out good guy. Then, I have a custom female, who's going to be a renegade.

I've played both games on xbox before, but I got them on Steam now due to losing access to the xbox. I know there is some urgency to starting this marathon, but I'm not sure I'm happy with my drafts. I know you need multiple playthroughs to see it all, but can the game basically be reduced to full paragon / full renegade? Or do I need a third neutral character?

I've searched for walkthrough and guides but I can't find good info on what all the choices are that you make, and how many options of them are possible. I seem to recall ME1 having two endings. Can't recall what it was for ME2.

Also, is there even something like an official canon guide?

[Mizhara]

You'll need about three characters for a 'full' ME1 playthrough. ME2 DEFINITELY needs three or more due to more complex choices and endings as a result. This isn't really a problem though, since that allows you to play with all three 'main' classes as it were. While in ME1 that's not all that much of an impact outside of the highest difficulty settings, ME2 becomes very different games depending on 'class'.

You don't need a third 'neutral' character, but I personally went for the two extremes on the non-canon characters as it were, and on the 'canon' Shepard I just went with what felt good and natural. Your options in romances also require you to play a few characters if you want to see several of them. Hell, ME2 forced me to play a male Shepard so I could romance Tali. While the Voice Actor is kind of crap compared to the female one, it was so worth it. Best romance in the games.

For those who (like me) have played ME1 a hundred times and yet lost all the saves, there's always Mass Effect Saves to play with. There should be uploads of pretty much every conceivable ME1 choice constellation there, and since [spoiler]you essentially get to remake the char in the beginning of ME2 anyway[/spoiler] that should do the trick. There's also the ME2 DLC that essentially lets you 'quickplay' through ME1 in an interactive comic book fashion so you can just quickly get all the choices you want and start ME2 directly based on that.

[hellgremlin]

A strange question:

Let's say I wanted to play through ME1-2 (and eventually 3) as the most unreliable dickhead of a teammate as possible. How many of my companions could I possibly kill/get killed in the first two games, if I was going for highest number possible?

[Myrhial Arkenath]

I must have entirely missed that ME2 DLC. Thanks for the info Miz.

[Mizhara]

A strange question:

Let's say I wanted to play through ME1-2 (and eventually 3) as the most unreliable dickhead of a teammate as possible. How many of my companions could I possibly kill/get killed in the first two games, if I was going for highest number possible?

If 'eventually ME3' I don't know for certain. In ME1 you can lose two and in ME2 you can lose ALL of them, but that means you can't officially go on to ME3. I'm not entirely sure how many you can lose and still survive ME2 by canon. Sorry.

Myrh: No problem. I assume you know where to get the various ME2 DLC, yeah?

[kalaratiri]

A strange question:

Let's say I wanted to play through ME1-2 (and eventually 3) as the most unreliable dickhead of a teammate as possible. How many of my companions could I possibly kill/get killed in the first two games, if I was going for highest number possible?

About 11 I think. Including yourself.