The Mog Blog » Cheating Your Way Through PC Mass Effect 1

Mass Effect and its sequel Mass Effect 2 are both great games from Bioware. However, one will realize that after playing both of them, the two games are really different in design. Mass Effect (or ME1) has more RPG-like elements while Mass Effect 2 (or ME2) feels more like a third-person shooter with less RPG tossed in. As such, there will be players that prefer ME1 over ME2 (like myself) or perfer ME2 over ME1. For the former, some might not want to go through ME1′s battle system again especially with all the improvements ME2 offers. If one wants to get the full effect of Mass Effect (see what I did there?), multiple playthroughs will be required for both games, especially with Mass Effect 3 over the horizon. If you are playing on the PC version, you’re in luck as you can overpower your character so you can breeze through the game.The reasoning behind the multiple playthroughs for ME1 and ME2 is that the save files are transferable. All major and minor decisions made in ME1 will be transferred and reflected on in ME2. This includes any romance options, paragon and renegade rating, major decisions in the game that would affect a character’s standing in ME2, and some added bonuses when starting a new ME2 game. ME1 and ME2 are detailed and different enough to warrant multiple playthroughs, especially with different classes. However, if one were to start playing ME2 and enjoy the many refinements of that game, ME1 will start looking a little plain. Though one can finish ME1 in about less than 10 hours and probably sooner than that with a New Game+ file (lets you import an ME1 save file in ME1 to start with what you had and opens more things), there it might not be fast enough for some people out there.

So, for those playing on Xbox 360, unfortunately you’re just going to have to deal with what you got. But if you got yourself a completed game, just simply start there with New Game +, especially with the bonuses you would get in New Game+ anyways. If you’re on PC, ME1 actually has a console mode. Consoles are usually what you would see in any PC first or third person shooter out there and lets you manipulate the game so you can customize things in any way you want. In our case here, we want to zoom through the game as fast as we can.

Please Note: If you have not beaten ME1 yet, I highly do not recommend using the console to cheat through the game. Mass Effect 1 and 2 are both great games but with any game out there, deserve to be played the way that they were intended. Cheating through these games on your first playthrough will only ruin the experience and may end up giving you a very false impression for the series itself.

Also Note: This requires a little bit of computer knowledge to do properly. If you’re unsure how to do it, either ask a friend or read a bit later down for an alternative.

First thing’s first, you will need to locate your Mass Effect profile folder. This is located under your documents folder. This is not to be confused with where Mass Effect is installed. You’ll find a Bioware Folder with Mass Effect in it. I suggest backing up the Mass Effect folder just in case something goes wrong.

Next go into your Mass Effect/Config folder and locate the “BioInput.ini” file. Open this with notepad or some sort of text editor. Search for “[Engine.Console]” and right under that, there will be two lines:

[Engine.Console] MaxScrollbackSize=1024 HistoryBot=-1

Right under HistoryBot=-1, type in:

ConsoleKey=Tilde

You can also replace Tilde with another button, just make sure that button isn’t being used for something in Mass Effect already. Make sure to save the ini file and load up Mass Effect. Once you’re in the game, either make a brand new Shepard or load an existing file, doesn’t matter. Once the game loads, hit the Tilde (~) button or whatever button you have assigned and you’ll notice that half of your screen will be filled with the console.

When you have the console opened, you can type in specific “codes” that will let you control the game. To help you breeze through the game, type in the following into the console and hit enter after each line. I’ll explain what each of those lines do (note the spaces):

GiveXP 9999999 – This should cap you out at level 60, the level cap of the game.
GiveSuperArmor - This will give you a light armor named “Survivor X” and has 8000 shield, you’ll be a walking tank!
GiveItem Self 1 Qa_SuperGun Manf_Geth_Weap – This weapon will pretty much one shot everything in the game.
SetParagon 330 or SetRenegade 330 – This will cap out your Paragon or Renegade rating.
AdjustCredits 9999999 – This will cap out your credits: Useful to get the Rich Achievement to get extra credits in ME2
SuperSpeed – This will make you run really fast, however you will move really slow with your weapon out. You can type the code again to disable it.

After typing each code, hit the tilde button again to close the window and play the game through. This should help you get through the game a lot faster and also lets you mess around a bit.

Now, if you don’t want to ever play ME1, even with cheating methods, you can also download save files from ME1 that will transfer to ME2. There is a website that specifically offers ME1 game saves that you can use to transfer to ME2, check out http://www.masseffectsaves.com/ for more information on this.

MogKnight

Hanh "MogKnight" Nguyen is owner and Editor-in-Chief of The Mog Blog. A fan of pushing buttons and making things happen. He has recently been seen going around random GameStops to slowly rebuild his Dynasty Warriors collection.