@ Fredrik Bendz:

I think what Jack really responds too is genuine friendship. Just being supportive, non-judgmental and genuinely interested in getting to know her as a person without any sexual overtones. When you try to be direct she bristles up and pushes you away, because she assumes all you want is sex. Unfortunately I genuinely wanted a friendship with Jack and romance with Tali but that did not work out because Jack kinda got attached, and then got really, really mad when I turned her down.

I didn’t really even think to try with Samara. She seemed so distinguished and mature that I figured she was completely out of Sheppard’s league. Also, her personality completely did not fit the outfit with the mega-cleavage. And yeah – I love how half the time the stuff that comes out of Sheppard’s mouth has nothing to do with the chat wheel. :P

Miranda was my least favorite character in the entire series. She annoyed me to no end, had terrible personality and constantly reminded me of that whole Cerberus thing that I was trying not to think about while doing cool missions.

Tali was always my favorite. I actually tried to romance her in Mass Effect 1, but ended up with Ashley because I was always going to the engine room to talk to Tali and if she had no new dialog options I would stop by Ashley on the way back. :P

I’d liked to have a romance with Jack. Like someone said, once you get behind that facade she’s upholding, she’s a very vulnerable young woman. I liked her both for her tough attitude and the humanity behind the mask. Unfortunately, I literally fucked up that relationship.

Samara seemed reluctant to have a relationship so I asked about her thoughts on casual sex. What came out of Shepard’s mouth wasn’t really what I wanted to ask, so I fucked up that one too. I didn’t know you couldn’t have several romances so I romanced Miranda. Had to load a save to pick Tali instead. I didn’t find Miranda attractive at all. Her personality was rather unattractive, she had a flat ass :-) and she wasn’t particularly beautiful either. Tali was much more interesting, even though you couldn’t tell much about her looks.

If I played a female Shepard I would probably have pursued a romance with Thane (the lizard guy). I liked that he was such a philosophical guy. I didn’t expect those kind of deep thoughts from someone who kills for a living (pun intended). If I were female IRL I believe I would go for Jacob. I don’t know which male characters you can romance, but Mordin was kind of creepy, and who would romance Grunt?

Liara is the best romance in the game hands down tali is annoying IMO Miranda is ok I cheated on liara wit her b4 the dlc lol but that dlc was perfect really I hope da next game has more missions with that cinematic quality that puts sum movies to shame

Tali. For the reasons you mention, mostly. She also had a soothing voice; she was fun to talk to.

My Shepard was fond of her in a platonic way until her loyalty mission. You really get to bond with her after you defend her in court. I think the moment I finally realized she had a thing for Shepard was when you say “You deserved better” (than her father screwing over both the Geth and the Quarians), and she replies: “I got better, Shepard. I got you.”

Man, that was some good writing!

[…] talked about most of the female characters in the romance post so I’m not going to repeat myself here. I liked Jack and I was always fond of Tali. That […]

@ Luke Maciak:
Not really cringe worthy, but nothing really deep either, some parts are a little bleh, but others are quite interesting. I did feel they were a little short, I plowed through both in one evening, but that may just be from how fast I read, so your mileage may vary.

@ Zel:

Jack is a bit emo, that’s true. But I kindoff liked the fact that once you get through the bitchy exterior there is a vulnerable, young woman inside. If you talk to her enough, you realize that she is the way she is because everyone she has ever trusted has fucked her over big time. Of course it is partly her own fault because she tends to associate with precisely the kind of people that would use and abuse her.

I don’t know – she didn’t seem that shallow to me. She seemed like a well designed character. Initially I was sort of expecting a tough psycho-chick but was pleasantly surprised that she was not just a criminally insane individual. I was sort of able to see how she became who she was – I could relate to her story.

I don’t know – maybe I just like this character archetype.

I sort of liked the snake boy too. Then again I have a soft spot for the hit-man with morals type characters ever since I watched Leon the Professional. :)

My favorite character out of the whole game must be Mordin though.

Oh, and I never really considered Wrex to be evil. He was just a Krogan. If we must talk about his alignment he was more like chaotic neutral to me.

I don’t know what you saw in Jack that can be considered interesting. She’s a fairly typical emo bitch with a touch of psycho and some bland justification for her act (:sob: she was a lab experiment, life was tough for her :sob:). She’s not an interesting ‘evil’ character to talk to like HK47 or Wrex, she’s just going on and on about how her life sucked and how she has and will make the world pay for that. She doesn’t seem insane, which would be interesting, she’s just being a bitch on purpose. I don’t know what she says if you romance her, but I doubt it flies any higher.

Anyway, back to your question: on my first playthrough (female paragon Sheppard), I romanced noone, because Jacob is too generic, Garrus is just… no (even if he has reach), and assassin-Drell-whose-name-escapes-me too angsty. On my second playthrough (male renegade Sheppard) I romanced Tali just to see what was behind the mask, you can imagine my disappointment.

Maybe that’s why I don’t find the characters interesting, I’m just not into any of them. At least in ME1 most of the recruitable NPCs provided exposition for the universe, whereas in ME2 they mostly talk about themselves.

@ Macedoneus:

Agreed. She was my favorite character from Mass Effect 1 as well. I pretty much completely ignored Garrus and Kaiden in my first playthrough and basically chatted with Ashely, Tali, Liara and Wrex.

I haven’t actually considered reading these novels because I usually stay far away from such publications. You almost never see a book based in a video game based universe to have any kind of literary value. Are the novels any good? Or are they cringe worthy?

I romanced Tali for many of the same reasons you did, though I have to admit I was always fascinated by Tali and her culture. While I would skip conversations with other crew and team members in ME1, I always took time to visit Tali between missions. She always had something interesting to say, a unique viewpoint on things that the Sheppard, and myself as a player, tended to take for granted (The Normandy being ‘too quiet’ for instance). Seeing the Migrant Fleet in ME2 was a real treat, and interacting with other Quarians was just cool.

Also, for a bit more background on the ME universe, I highly recommend the two ME novels, Revelation and Ascension, set before and after ME1. Both give detail to the universe, and each reveals details about certain events mentioned in both games.