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I am trying to get ready for ME 3, assuming I played to win, and not for completion. However I have never played the earlier two games before, nor do I have a strategy guide. How long would it reasonably take to complete them and be ready for ME 3.

Alok
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Ashterothi
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  • Just for another data point: It took me about 50 hours for each. And I side-quested the hell out of both, and explored many non-critical conversation paths. – Iszi Jan 11 '13 at 17:01

1 Answers1

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How Long To Beat has cross-platform averages for Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, shown below (although I would I consider these to be a bit high, it's all very dependant on the player, obviously):

                Main        Main Plus    Completionist
Mass Effect     17:11:56    30:44:28     48:26:54
Mass Effect 2   26:09:34    36:48:34     47:19:13

Main is the barebones main quests, no side missions etc, so is what you're asking for.

However, Main Plus includes additional side missions, etc, so if you just play "normally" instead of speeding through (and you should, a lot of ME1 and ME2 side mission results are carried forward to influence the later games so if your aim is to play the series it'd be a waste to skip these) then this is probably more representative of what you need.

DMA57361
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  • So average to good gamers would consider these "no greater then" times. – Ashterothi Mar 03 '12 at 18:56
  • Wow, those averages are much higher than I would've thought. I just recently replayed ME2 in preparation for ME3 and my completionist on hardcore is definitely not nearly as long as 50 hours. – l I Mar 03 '12 at 18:59
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    @yx. Did you skip over any dialog that you'd already heard? Did you run around your ship after every mission talking to everyone just in case they had new things to say? That sort of thing adds up. Prior knowledge of where to go and who to bother talking that will say interesting things can cut down on even completionist play time significantly. Also, if you click the link, you'll see that platform makes a pretty big difference. 39 hours for a completionist playthrough on PC, versus 57 hours in the 360. – Sterno Mar 03 '12 at 19:07
  • @DMA57361 Btw, +1 for the link. Never knew a site like that existed! – Sterno Mar 03 '12 at 19:08
  • @Sterno no problem; I only know of it myself because of a similar answer elsewhere on this site. – DMA57361 Mar 03 '12 at 19:11
  • @sterno that's probably it, having prior knowledge and skipping of dialog certainly helps – l I Mar 03 '12 at 19:42
  • This answer is incredably accurate. I just finished ME1 yesterday and it took 30 hours to do all the main mission and as many others as I could find. A bit shorter than I'd hoped (after playing Skyrim) but still a great game. – Coomie Apr 16 '12 at 01:00
  • Pssst @DMA57361 you've got 404s on those links. – ian5v Oct 17 '13 at 03:25