• 2010 and 2011 VGAs trailers
  
• E3 2011 trailer
  
• "Reinstated" femShep trailer
  
• "Take Earth Back" manShep and femShep trailers

• Soldier
  
• Engineer
  
• Adept
  
• Infiltrator - NihilCredo made a helpful chart to explain how to play!
  
• Sentinel
  
• Vanguard - The original, the classic, the Vanguard chart. Just remember: Always Be Charging.

• Roleplaying - The regular Mass Effect experience. Enemies are normal strength and all conversations are directed by the player.
  
• Story - Conversations are unchanged, but combat is significantly easier, for those who want to play the game for the story, not the shooting.
  
• Action - All conversations play as cutscenes, with a mix of Paragon/Renegade options. Combat is unaffected.

• Garrus - One of two party members who has been in Shepard's squad for all three games, Garrus is an ex-C-Sec turian who led a vigilante gang on Omega during the years Shepard was dead. After Shepard helped him escape the three gangs hunting him down, Garrus re-joined Shepard's squad.
  
• Tali'Zorah vas Normandy - The other three-game party member, Tali is a quarian, a race forced to flee their homeworld after their robotic creations the Geth rebelled against them. They now live on the Migrant Fleet. Tali hopes to help her people retake their homeworld from the geth.
  
• Kaidan Alenko or Ashley Williams: Whichever one survived Virmire has been promoted - Kaidan is a Major and commands a covert-ops biotic company, while Ashley is a Lieutenant Commander.
  
• Liara T'Soni - A Prothean expert and biotic, Liara became the Shadow Broker, a powerful information dealer, and helps everyone out behind the scenes.
  
• James Vega - A lieutenant in the Alliance, Vega has a quick temper and hotly defends Commander Shepard. After the events of Arrival when Shepard blew up a relay, Vega was recruited by Admiral Anderson to guard the brig and its prisoner, Commander Shepard.
  
• EDI - The AI of the Normandy, EDI takes over a robot body and joins the squad in ME3.
  
• Javik - Included in the DLC pack "From Ashes," Javik is the last living Prothean, locked in a stasis pod for 50,000 years. He's a badass warrior dude, but also kind of a dick.

• Wrex - Wrex is now the leader of most of the krogan clans on the krogan homeworld of Tuchanka, if he survived Virmire in ME1.
  
• Miranda Lawson - The woman who used to help run the Cerberus cell that brought Shepard back to life, Miranda left Cerberus at the end of ME2.
  
• Jacob Taylor - A human with biotic abilities, Jacob is a former Alliance marine who worked with Cerberus, but he didn't always agree with their methods and definitely didn't trust The Illusive Man.
  
• Mordin Solus - The very model of a scientist salarian, Mordin is a genius who helped modify the genophage to keep it working, and stopped his old student from curing it in ME2. He also has a lovely singing voice.
  
• Grunt - A young krogan whose skill at killing his enemies is only bested by his enjoyment of it. He was made in a lab by a krogan warlord and considers himself the "perfect" krogan. You should be in awe.
  
• Jack aka Subject Zero - An incredibly powerful (in cutscenes) human biotic who has plenty of issues with everyone and everything due to her difficult childhood, during which Cerberus experimented on her.
  
• Thane - A drell assassin, trained by the hanar to do so since he was six years old. He is dying of a drell-only illness and feels guilt for all the people he's killed. He's also really not a fan of vents.
  
• Samara - A Justicar, Samara took a sacred oath to punish the wicked and protect the innocent. Shepard helped her track down her evil Ardat-Yakshi daughter in ME2 and earned her trust.
  
• Zaeed Messani - A human mercenary hired for the team by Cerberus. He's good at waxing guddamn nostalgic and getting his teams killed.
  
• Kasumi Goto - A human and master thief, Kasumi is the only one who gets to call Shepard "Shep" and had a bar in her room on the SR2.
  
• Legion is a geth with a personality - a thousand of them, in fact.

• The Illusive Man - The leader of Cerberus. Few people meet him in person, and nobody knows who he really is. As far as you know, his goal is to further humanity's interests in space and to prevent their destruction by the Reapers.
  
• Joker - The wisecracking pilot of the Normandy in all its incarnations, Joker has brittle bone disease, which makes walking difficult. But he's the best pilot in the fleet and always has a joke about the adventures Shep goes on.
  
• Anderson - A career soldier, Anderson was the human representative on the Council (or the assistant to the councilor), but the red tape and general powerlessness frustrated him so much that he quit. He's now back in the Alliance, kicking rear end full time.
  
• Udina - Yooumanity's representative on the Council since Anderson's resignation. I still think he deserves everything he gets.
  
• Admiral Hackett - The top-ranking Alliance official, Hackett and Anderson are two of the only people who support Shepard in pretty much everything she does. He's a real badass and does everything he can to help you fight the Reapers.
  
• The Citadel Council - The leaders of all known space, the Council is usually made up of a representative from the asari, turians, salarians, and humans (added at the end of ME1). They are not exactly the most helpful bunch and tend to dismiss all claims makes.

• Need saves from ME1 or 2 so you can see the result of different choices? Goon Annakie runs Mass Effect Saves and Mass Effect 2 Saves. All saves are organized by Shepard's gender, Paragon/Renegade, and major decisions made. She also has a list of mods for download.
  
• Want to edit your ME2 game or create custom ME1 saves to play with? Download Gibbed Save Editor. It works for both PC and xbox. ME3 one coming soon. His save editor supports .xbsav's if you use a program like like Modio. Here are gibbed's website and twitter.
  
• Have a question about characters/quests/basic game mechanics? Please read through the next two posts. Keep in mind that we talk about these games a lot so your question has probably already been asked.

• For everyone (especially PC players), here is a list of players and usernames to add, and here's the page to add yourself to the list.
  
• For 360 players, we have a coop metatag, send friend requests to EDIpous Wrex. After you're added as a friend there, you can look at the friends list of that tag for other goon players to invite.

Count Choculitis fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Jun 27, 2012

• Any contributions to the tips, Readiness/Assets, or quest help sections would be appreciated, just post them (with my username in the post if possible) and I'll hopefully catch it and add them.
  
• There's now a Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread: Blasto kills Harbinger for ending discussion!
  
• The Mass Effect Datapad app is now available for iPhone/iPad. The codex, Alliance News Net, some Galaxy at War stuff, and messages from characters commenting on quests you've done (as long as you hook it up to your EA account) are all included.
  
• The SA front page did an article (warning: spoilers) about ME3.
  
• The free Extended Cut DLC is coming out on Tuesday, June 26. It will (HOPEFULLY) provide clarity and closure on the endings. They're still saying that the endings will not be changed, only clarified. So far we know that no one starves to death, the Relays didn't blow up, and the Citadel wasn't destroyed.

• Some sidequests will be failed if you don't do them before a certain point. After your first really important mission (maybe five Priority missions after Earth - you'll know it when you hear about it) where you deal with the genophage on Tuchanka, the sidequests you got before that will be grayed out. So make sure you do sidequests first.
  
• New quests on the Citadel unlock at these points: after your first visit; after Palaven; after Sur'kesh; after Tuchanka (see above - completing this will gray out many sidequests); and after Rannoch.
  
• If you look at the map, important people's names will come up under a number and tell you the general area where to look for them. This includes quest NPCs and is really helpful on the Citadel.
  
• You can also scroll through all maps for an area (like the Citadel and the Normandy), so you can see all of them even when you're not in them.
  
• Highlighted/flashing clusters on the galaxy map mean you have a quest there.
  
• Your crew moves around and interacts with people other than you(!) - check the map when you're on the ship or the Citadel for extra (awesome) conversations with them.
  
• If a crew member says they want to talk with you privately, head up to your cabin and select the Intercom button on your desk, next to your computer.
  
• Go to Shepard's room and choose the third option (Squad) at the terminal. Now you have an "Info" button. It will show you that each appearance has a slightly different bonus (for instance, Liara can choose either +25% damage on her biotics or +25% recharge speed).
  
• You can buy an automatic fish feeder on the Citadel so all your fishies can survive!

• Buy and play the first two games. Obviously this is the best choice - you'll appreciate the story and callbacks (of which there are a million) in ME3, plus get things to happen just as you want. ME1 is available for PC/Xbox, while 2 is on PC/Xbox/PS3. ME1 can be beaten very quickly if done on Casual, especially if you know which quests affect the next two games, and while the combat is a bit dated, it's still a great game.
  
• If you're on PS3 (or buy it as DLC), you can use Genesis to make a few ME1 decisions (love interest, Rachni Queen and Wrex's fates, whether Kaidan or Ashley survived Virmire, whether or not to save the Council, and who the new Councilor is).
  
• Download a save from Mass Effect Saves or Mass Effect 2 saves. Run by the amazing Annakie, you can find saves with every possible choice - including romance, Paragon/Renegade, DLC, etc. You can also convert these saves from PC to Xbox.
  
• Custom-edit a save with Gibbed's Save Editor, for PC or Xbox. Download the fan-made updated version or the original. Here's some info on how to use it.

• Your War Assets score is the combination of all the fleets, people, and resources you gather in ME3. Depending on your actions, these point values will change.
  
• For example, telling some NPCs on the Citadel to volunteer in the Alliance will make certain Alliance assets stronger. Other decisions may lower point values. You also gain War Assets by doing quests like N7 missions and the "Citadel: find [random item]" ones.
  
• Your choices in previous games will affect the assets as well. If you saved the Council in ME1, the human fleets will be weaker because you sacrificed them to save the Destiny Ascension; however, you'll also have the Destiny Ascension war asset.
  
• Obviously you want your War Assets score to be as high as possible.
  
• Your Readiness score is based on multiplayer. It starts at 50% and goes up a few percent at a time when you play the different maps because you're securing various areas that were lost in the war but retaken by Shepard.
  
• War Assets are affected by Readiness. If you have 6000 Assets and 50% Readiness, your total assets in the end will be 3000.
  
• You do not have to do multiplayer to "win" at the end of the game. However, the ending does change depending on how many Assets you have, so the more the better.
  
• Here's a list of all the possible War Assets and War Assets organized by cluster. And here's a handy image version.
  
• Hopefully I will find a list of how to get the most possible war assets from ME1+2 decisions.
  
• In order to get the "perfect" ending, you need 4000 if you persuade The Illusive Man successfully in your final confrontation (see the FAQs for how to do this), or 5000 if you fail to use the final renegade or paragon option. Reaching this mark is impossible without doing multiplayer not that it really matters anyway...

Count Choculitis fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Jun 22, 2012

• The quests Grissom Academy: Emergency Evacuation and Tuchanka: Turian Platoon/its followup Tuchanka: Bomb are on secret timers - if you wait too long to do them, you fail.
  
• Citadel: Hanar Diplomat: The locations are a pain to find until you've memorized them. Also it bugs if you leave the Citadel before finishing it, so do it all in one run. 1) Talk to Jondum Bau outside the Spectre offices, then go inside the office to meet up with Kasumi. 2) Head to the Spectre Terminal and enable "Hanar Embassy Tracking." 3) Go to the far other side of the Embassies zone near the Office Suite (#5) and use the terminal there. 4) Go to the Docks Holding Area, there's a terminal to your left as you enter. 5) Run to the opposite side of the Docking Bay near the number 4 for your next terminal. 6) Go back to the terminal from step four, the one near the elevator. 7) Head to the Office Suite, where your first terminal was, to do the last stage of the quest.
  
• Aria: Blue Suns: Talk to Darner Vosque in the Docks. To Renegade finish this, you can kill the general (Oraka, in the Commons). To Paragon, you need to talk to Oraka (#4), who says he needs new weapons; then talk to the shopkeeper Kannik at the far end of the Commons, who wants artifacts. Go scanning systems (it'll pop up on your galaxy map telling you where to go), then return to the shopkeeper, then the general, then Aria.
  
• Aria: Eclipse: Aria wants you to release the leader of Eclipse, but she's nuts. Talk to Bailey in the Embassies. He'll send you to the Commons to talk to C-Sec Assistant (#5) who will hook you up with the merc leader Jona Sederis. She'll reference her second in command, Sayn. Paragon: You can go to the Holding Area and get Sayn to take command of Eclipse. Renegade: Make Bailey let her out anyway.
  
• Benning: Evidence: This guy's son has vanished and he needs to know what happened. Once you receive the mission on Benning, look around the area to the right of the landing pad - near the back, there are some dogtags on the ground.
  
• Matriarch Aethyta (the asari bartender from Illium in ME2) can be found on the Citadel at the Apollo restaurant in the Commons, but only after completing Citadel: Biotic Amp Interfaces, which you hear about in Huerta Memorial Hospital. This must be done before (spoiler warning) Priority: Tuchanka and the events that follow it.
  
• Priority: Rannoch: To fight the Reaper at the end, use the targeting gun, point at its "eye," and hold the right trigger down. Keep in mind that the gun takes time to recharge. Start on one end of the platform. As the laser shoots at you, roll in one direction and keep the trigger pulled as the targeting beams close in, they will fire automatically once it's been long enough.
  
• End of Priority: Rannoch: The ability to broker peace between the geth and quarians is based on a point system. With five or more points, you can get the two groups to cooperate.
  1) Did you do the mission to save the admiral? (+1)
  2) Did you save the admiral, rather than saving the civilians? (+1)
  3) Did you destroy the Geth station in ME2? (+2)
  4) Did you stop Tali from getting exiled in ME2? (+2)
  5) Did you make peace between Tali and Legion in ME2? (+1)
  If so, allow Legion to begin the upload, then pass a Paragon check to convince the quarians to stand down.
  
• Endgame: Talking down The Illusive Man: In order to talk him down on the Citadel, you must have taken every single Paragon/Renegade option while talking to him, including ones from previous conversations. The most-missed one is on Mars, when an "Investigate"-type question to him will unlock another Paragon/Renegade response. If you don't hit every one of these (and have high Para/Rene and Reputation scores), you will be unable to talk him down.

• Garrus usually has unique lines on quests that involve squadmates from Mass Effect 1+2. If you're romancing him, make sure to bring him to Grissom Academy.
  
• Grissom Academy: Take Garrus if you romanced him. Take EDI, especially if Jack survived ME2 and/or if you completed the Project Overlord DLC.
  
• Sur'kesh: Liara and Garrus have great lines with Wrex and others on this mission.
  
• Tuchanka: Turian Platoon: Garrus and Javik have interesting banter.
  
• Priority: Tuchanka: Liara has unique comments, and Garrus has some great lines with Wrex.
  
• Attican Traverse: Krogan Team: Javik has some interesting comments.
  
• Priority: Geth Dreadnought. EDI has a lot of good lines and interaction with Tali and Legion there.
  
• Thessia: Liara is mandatory, and Javik has a ton of special lines here.
  
• Sanctuary: EDI has interesting comments if you check out the video consoles.
  
• The Illusive Man's base: Take Kaidan/Ashley, especially if you're romancing them.

Count Choculitis fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Apr 1, 2012

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Mar 6, 2012