So I just picked up an Xbox this Christmas. One series I've always wanted to play is Mass Effect, and I literally never played a second of it before now.

I'm a couple hours in, and I think I fouled it up a bit already. It wasn't clear in the character leveling screen what I had and hadn't spent points on initially. So basically I've ended up putting points both into Assault Rifle and Pistol with my main character. That's probably not a good thing. Is there any way to reset your points in this? I'm not that far in, so maybe I can just restart it.

That does give me the opportunity to change my philosophy a bit now that I have SOME understanding of characters. What's a good character class to use for the first play through? Just go soldier, and get through so I can move to ME2? I understand you get the chance to change your class at the beginning of ME2 anyway.

Also, for Paragon/Renegade, is Paragon always the "top" choice when an option is presented? I usually play through my first time as a good guy, so I want to stick with that as close to 100% as possible.

Any other tips/advice are welcome! Thanks!

@Irishdoom: When there's a decision to be made, top right is always Paragon and bottom right is always Renegade.

As far as skill points go, you get a ton of them so double dipping in two guns might not be the worst thing ever. That said, the shooting in ME1 is so abysmal that I can't imagine playing it through as a Soldier. I went Infiltrator and Adept for my two playthroughs.

For me pretty much everything outside of the story, main quest line and side quests, is a chore. The combat is mediocre at best and the UI is awful when it comes to using your squad's powers. Unless you feel like you've made decisions you really regret then I wouldn't bother starting again. Even if you have I wouldn't anyway, I played through each of the games in the series on my first play through without trying to be "good" or "bad" and just going with instinct on the decisions and it really made the story develop fantastically well for me as I felt that further down the line I was really feeling the effects of my earlier choices rather than picking something major based on whether I'd decided to be "good" or "bad" when I first put the disc in.

For me, ME1 after the first playthrough was about blasting through the combat situations on casual and just enjoying the rest of the game to it's fullest, should have done it the first time through too.. It won't be a challenge, but upping the difficulty on the first Mass Effect wasn't like the latter two for me, it didn't make it a more enjoyable challenge, it just made it an incredibly frustrating one. God damn that game has terrible (non-existent mostly) checkpointing.

Also you don't get to change your class at the beginning of ME2 when you import from ME1, you're stuck with the class you chose at the beginning of ME1 (at least I was on the 360). Which is another reason I prefer playing through on lower difficulties because you're not punished for picking a class you will enjoy throughout the next game as well where combat is evolved hugely, is far more fun and the UI makes it far easier to use squad powers for combos and such meaning the power of classes like Adept is infinitely higher than it was in the first game.

I don't think the points-thing is a problem at all. It's been a while since I played Mass Effect 1 but I remember switching weapons quite a bit. In fact I think assault rifles are better against shields and pistols against armour, so you probably want both anyway. It definitely was that way from 2 onwards but I'm not positive if it was like that in 1 as well. I'm sorry I can't be sure.

Also I think you should just make the choices you feel are the right ones so that you really feel like it's your character. But hey I'm not gonna tell you how to play.

@Poyples said:

Also you don't get to change your class at the beginning of ME2 when you import from ME1, you're stuck with the class you chose at the beginning of ME1 (at least I was on the 360).

It is possible to change your class when importing a ME1 save into ME2 on all platforms as far as I know.

@Irishdoom: I would go with Adept since it's the most fun class to play in my opinion especially since the shooting in ME1 isn't as good as in the sequels. That's the class I played when playing ME1 for the first time and I'm gonna go ahead and say that ME1 is my favourite of all three games so I wouldn't try and rush through it as a soldier just to get to ME2 like you mentioned.

You should be fine points wise. I actually usually put points in two guns, though one not so much as the other. Also, I'm pretty dang sure you can change class in ME2, unless I'm totally just remembering wrong. And as others have said, Paragon is always top right, renegade bottom right.

@Irishdoom: Go for Vanguard and max out your persuasion (or intimidate if you plan on being a jerk) skill ASAP. The thing is: you can truck your way through difficult combat, but you can't truck your way through a persuasion check; you can end up missing out on a lot of really cool stuff if you don't have high persuasion, and some important characters may die.

I think I went with whatever the pure tech class was in the first ME, because I couldn't bear not being able to hack those geth terminal things.

I remember the combat being so easy it didn't really matter what class I played.

And agreed on the persuasion - basically max that as quickly as possible. Like any RPG -> max out speech first :)

So I did start over. I remember when I first started I didn't remember selecting a class. And in fact I really didn't, I planned on just keeping the main character Shepard and not change his look or anything, and only when I went to play again did I realize that auto selected the soldier class for me as well. :) I started over and went with Vanguard this time. :) I do plan to max the "charm" skill and keep it maxed throughout. I'll focus on pistols for now for a weapon, which biotic skill should I focus on? The Warp thing or the Throw thing?

Throw and Lift will incapacitate enemies. Which I think is more useful than the increased damage over time on Warp.

Edit - But, I personally would max Warp before worrying about Pistols or Shotguns.

Thanks. I went with Vanguard as I typically go for classes that combine magic and weapons in some way. Being able to have decent armor, weapons, and some of the "magic" stuff sounded right.

@StarvingGamer said:

@Irishdoom: When there's a decision to be made, top right is always Paragon and bottom right is always Renegade.

As far as skill points go, you get a ton of them so double dipping in two guns might not be the worst thing ever. That said, the shooting in ME1 is so abysmal that I can't imagine playing it through as a Soldier. I went Infiltrator and Adept for my two playthroughs.

i dunno the powers in mass effect don't bend and can be a pain in the ass but i never go soldier and i didn't here either, as StarvingGamer says though double dipping not really an issue and pistol/assault rifles not a bad combo since sometimes your Assault rifle is overheating and you need to squeeze out a few pistol shots to get out of a jam.

I only played once as Engineer, but I didn't see any real reason to use skill points to wear Medium or Heavy Armor. Instead I invested all my points in offensive spells and equipped gear to lower casting cooldown as much as possible. Didn't invest any points in damage mitigation. I played through the first Mass Effect on Veteran since it's the only one in the series that doesn't allow you to immediately pick Insanity difficulty.