Why would people delete their saved game files anyway? It's not as if they take up a ton of space. Seriously, it just befuddles me that people are so anxious to delete such a small item from their hard drives.

Oh Shit! Shepherd is dead! Oh the tragedy! Oh wait, this is just a clone, my bad, the real Shepherd is over there.

Anyone who's read the book knows that this is just a ploy for Shepard to infiltrate Cerberus.

TV rules: if you don't see the smouldering-but-still-unmistakable corpse, "KIA" is just another way of saying alive and well.

or... he could really be dead and the data is merely used to show what he looks like during his space-casket-and-bagpipes scene.

Well, you know, the standard stuff; old characters return as they were after ME 1, you get his (your old) equipment, perhaps if you choose to bring the save over you are his protege and so are the same class and have some bonuses to it already. Or maybe just so he can be used to flashbacks looking properly.

Or Stahlbrand is right and this is just an excuse for a rescue mission, or an epic escape or whatever to start the game with a bang. TBH, im leaning towards this, killing off player characters is rare in gaming.

I'll tell you why Shephard isn't dead, Bioware wouldn't waste a mind bending plot twist like Shephard dying on the first teaser trailer of a game that is one year out.

I'd really like it if Shepard wasn't playable. It's fine if s/he's dead, and it's fine as an NPC. But starting in an RPG with guy that already saved the universe once? What about extremaly high stats and loads of expensive stuff? Crashlanding where you loose ur posessions + amnesia ... AGAIN?

This heroe's story is IMO over. Lets make another one!

Hopefully it will remember which chick you slept with and make the appropriate baby.

SnakeDude is right. You'll be able to find and loot your old Shepard corpse, Nethack-style.

It seems we all forgot that Bioware said the save file would carry over certain choices in the game.

[OMG SPOILORZ]
Seeing as you can kill wrex, have anderson on the council or not, kill ashley/or that tosser. There's quite a few changes to the future you could make
[END OF SPOILORZ]

@Peteru - If you've played on Insanity it's not actually that bad. I started playing it at level 40 and got lots of new loot. The enemies were actually a challenge to defeat. I had to use basic tactics with my squad and switch upgrades on my weapons and armour to deal with tough situations/bosses.

@Kyousuke - Damn, is that the second book? It's been sitting on my shelf but I have yet to read it. I'm gonna get on that shit!

I hope they fix the inventory system. I would like to see something like a kit style system where you can assign upgrades to a kit, having 2 or 3 kits, and being able to swap them on-the-fly using your omni-tool. It would make battling drones and organics a lot easier.

Don't forget that our save files also determine the outcome of various things within the world, such as the Rachni Queen. Even if Shepard isn't in the second game, his (and our) actions in the first helped to shape the world.

Also, crap. I completely forgot about the second novel. I really need to get around to picking that up.

Shepherd not dead. Why would Bioware say, "oh by the way don't delete your Mass Effect 1 files, they still matter". lol.

I'm glad I'm not the only ones who enjoyed the books. The second one was really good, too. I like that each one explored aspects of the ME universe that the game didn't.

I've never been into sci-fi really at all, but I love the ME universe. I would be willing to have less open-ended gameplay for the sake of having better continuity for future books or even movies, if it gets to that point. For instance, how will they be able to have Shepard factor into ME continuity if all of our Shepards were different? They can only elude to him or her.

I can't wait for ME 2.