How much would I be missing out on if I were to forego the Mass Effect feature of taking user data from one instalment to the next? Argos are doing a good price for Mass Effect 3 on the Wii U and I'd like to get it, the one thing holding me back is I know the PC version uses 'choices' made by the user in the previous instalment to affect some stuff in the next. Wii U can't do this because ME1 & ME2 have not had Wii U versions released. I have ME1 on Steam but still haven't played it yet. I still intend to play 1 & 2 before 3, but just wonder if the user continuity is worth having or just a gimic.
ME4 will have a new protagonist and quite likely to draw on the Dragon Age Keep design of having big game decisions changeable via a cloud based personal world state if it follows on chronologically from ME3. It'd be worth you acquainting yourself with the ME universe, but I think this having a save game will affect much.
I was really wound up in all of the decisions from ME1 and 2, but I don't recall them making significant differences in ME3. I guess if in your game one of the key characters died, and you didn't want them to appear in ME3, that would be an issue but it seems a bit unlikely. For most of the "Choose A or choose B" choices in ME2, I remember ME3 used to say something like "well, actually you tried B, but it didn't work, so A is what happened anyway". I think there were just too many potentially divergent storylines to really cope with the changes and represent them all in ME3, so they abandoned many of the choices. TLDR: I don't think it will actually make much difference, unless you want certain characters not to appear. You can read about all of the variables here (inevitably with big spoilers): http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Save_File_Transfer I think Tangster's point was that you probably won't need a savegame from ME3 to enjoy ME4, but I'm not sure.
ME3 for Wii U apparently has DLC in the form of an interactive comic that lets you choose what happened WRT previous games. At least for some events. http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_Effect:_Genesis_2 - again spoilers I don't know if the Wii U comes with any other DLC, but I'm pretty sure I've seen ME3 for PC at £3, definitely £5. Edit: £5.08 on G2A
To an extent it's a gimmick, although if you don't play 1 and 2 the best endings of 3 are impossible from the moment you boot up. There are hundreds if not thousands of cool little easter eggs and asides in 2 and 3 that make it worth playing in order.
I wouldn't lose any sleep over it personally, it makes a few character differences but the game play is largely identical.
Thanks for all the input. The Wii U version seems well liked due to having the map always available etc., and off-screen play is always a big plus for me, so I guess I'll pick up the Wii U version and look out for the PC version in a sale some time. One would hope that that only applies to the PC version and that they've found a way to incorporate all of the endings into the Wii U version. I started playing ME1 this evening and seemed to get on with it better than I did on my first look at it back whenever it was when I first bought it. Looking forward to a new epic trilogy in my life. Though how I'm going to keep at it with all my awesome Wii U games distracting me I don't know.
