Another game off the list

[nockergeek]

I finally finished my first Mass Effect playthrough tonight (after taking about a week or so off of the game). I loved it. The ending felt suitably epic and very personal at the same time. On this playthrough, I was very much the goody-goody, scoring more Paragon points than the meter would show, and only gaining Renegade points when I accidentally backed over a monkey on one planet. Sadly, I didn't get any of the "X Ally" achievements, nor did I score Scholar (thanks to missing one question in a conversation at the very beginning of the game). I did get the Assault Rifle Expert achievement, which should come in handy in future playthroughs.

On my second playthrough, I plan on playing an utterly ruthless asshole with a sniper rifle. tim_almasy would be so proud. I'll probably put that on hold, though. I have other games to play through, and I don't want to get utterly burned out on Mass Effect. It'll be a good game to kick around later, especially if they ever put any downloadable content in place. Instead, I think I'll be switching to either Front Mission 4 or .Hack//G.U. 3 on the PS2 for my next game; I have to finish up both of those.

Comments

[tainted-paladin.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the play through.

Do you have an xbox live account, was wondering if I could add you to my friends list? :D

Edit: And do you know how to get the X Ally achievements? They are a pain, but doable. Just requires a lot of... patience.

[nockergeek.livejournal.com]

Sure thing. I'm NockerGeek on XBox Live.

As far as the Ally achievements, I think I rotated people in my "away teams" too much. I used Ashley and Tali a lot, but I used Garrus a fair amount as well, all in varying configurations, so I probably came in just under the requirement for getting any one character's achievement.

On the other hand, Kaidan and Wrex were horribly neglected. :P

[tainted-paladin.livejournal.com]

Ally Achievements work like this:

Did you ever get the completionist award? Essentially you have to play with your ally's for 85% of the game. This generally is tracked through quest completions, though some might argue that it's tied into everything from codex entries to dialgue.

However, I've only unlocked these achievements after finishing a quest, so that's what I stick to.

From easiest to hardest as far as Ally achievements go...

Kaiden
Ashley
Garrus
Wrex
Tali
T'Lari

Essentially what you need to decide is who you are going to try and use and which ally achievements you want to get. You can only get two per play through, so keep that in mind.

So let's say you decide that you want T'Lari and Tali, biotic and engineer to compliment say... your soldier. Then what you do is only do the main assignments on Eden Prime AND Citadel Station. So expose Saren, don't pick up any quests or other assignments and once you become a Spectre go pick up T'Lari as your first order of business. Then head back to the citadel, pick up all the subquests and complete them. When that is done, go out into the galaxy and before you do any subquests get some paper and a pen. You're going to go to every star system you can and you are going to first survey everything. The reason you do this is because if you complete any collection quests while on the normandy your party members won't get credit for helping you complete it. So this way we collect nearly 90% of all surveyable planets thus when you find all the other peices to complete the quests you should have your party members with you planet side.

So essentially what you just need to keep in mind is that you need to not do anymore than what you need to do to advance the plot to get what you want as far as an ally achievement is concerned. It's weird, it's not how I would play the game at all to be honest, but that's how it works and so far I've got them all save for the Asari Ally which is a PAIN IN THE ASS.

[tim-almasy.livejournal.com]

I highly approve of playing the asshole with the sniper rifle.

And damn it, I need to get me a 360. I really want to play Mass Effect and since I've seen nothing of it going to the PC... :(