D.A. fan is back for an ME1 Text Only 'Let's Play' (page 51)

Well, it's the "in some form" part that's the substance of the debate. Is any AI installed in the Normandy and named EDI actually EDI? The personality will be randomized. (And the soul will be different, if you think that souls are actually a thing.)

Are you going to pick different classes for each?

It might depend on if you have happened to unlock any of the weapons bonus talents in your first attempt (by shooting 150 enemies with, say, an assault rifle).  If you haven't, the infiltrator is restricted to only using the sniper and pistol, the vanguard can only use pistols and shotguns, and the engineer, adept, and sentinel can only use pistols.  The soldier can use any weapon.  If you have unlocked the assault rifle bonus talent, then you might consider tacking it on to the pistol only classes so you have an alternate weapon.  There are missions where the enemies will agressively sabotage you... causing you to be unable to shoot or use powers until after the weapon goes through an extended cooldown.  It's handy to be able to just switch weapons at that point to keep shooting.

I like the infiltrator (which is most like Garrus), but TBH, it's not a whole lot different from playing a soldier for me.  The biggest difference is that the soldier has to take 1 squadmate with decryption (sabotage power) and electronics (overload power) abilities with them at all times (either Kaidan or Garrus) or else you can't unlock the crates.  The infiltrator has these skills in their own skill tree, so it's possible for them to take, say, Ashley and Wrex on the same mission and still be able to unlock everything.

For the biotic classes, the Adept has singularity (like Liara), which is very powerful, probably the most powerful in the game.  The vanguard (like Wrex) doesn't have that power, but can use a shotgun in addition to a pistol.  The human vanguard can wear medium armor (if you have a tendency to take a lot of hits); whereas, the adept can only wear light armor.

The sentinel class is most like Kaidan and the engineer class is most like Tali.

Biotic is fun when using singularity and lift.

That's right.  Just be aware that Infiltrator in ME1 doesn't have a tactical cloak; and ME1 vanguard does not have charge.  MaleShep, as a vanguard would need to take either Garrus, Kaidan or Tali (sorry, I forgot to mention her before) to have both decryption and electronics available.  With Ashley always along, you won't be able to use Wrex or Liara, although you might want to consider leaving Ash behind on Wrex's LM (even though you aren't actually required to take him along).

If you want to try an Adept (it's fun), you could wait to start your playthrough until you have unlocked another weapons talent.  Once you get the achievement (150 kills with that weapon), you can add the bonus talent to any class that doesn't naturally use that weapon.  That means any weapon other than the pistol can be added to an adept class if you start the file after you've gotten that achievement.

I should add, I know you're playing on PC and have access to mods.  You might want to check if there is a mod and unlocks all the bonus talents right away then you don't have to worry about waiting to start the second file.

With the vanguard (who also has neither decryption nor electronics), Ashley/Wrex team will not be able to open any crates; Ashley & Tali will work OK.  For Wrex's LM, you won't want Ashley and Wrex, you'll want Wrex and either Garrus, Tali or Kaidain (sorry if I wasn't clear on that before).  For Garrus's LM, you'll want to consider taking Garrus and Ashley for the Vanguard

With the Soldier, taking Kaidan will work throughout regardless of who else you have with you.  So take Wrex and Kaidan on Wrex's LM and then take Garrus and Kaidan on Garrus's LM.

In either case, you may want to consider taking Liara during the mission on Noveria (for dialogue reasons).  Again, it's not actually required.  Liara has electronics; but no other squadmate has just decryption, so you'll still need either Garrus, Tali or Kaidan (who have both) along with her.

For dialogue reasons, you'll also want to do a round of the Citadel with each different pairing.  They have different dialogues with each other in the elevators and at certain points around the Citadel (such as the Krogan statue and the Relay Statue).

Keep in mind that there really isn't any combat banter in ME1 like there is in ME3 and certainly no "Mako banter" like the "Nomad banter" you get in ME:A.  There is some banter in the elevators that can reveal some personal things about the squad (but you can usually catch everything between any two of them by doing a single round of taking elevators and clicking on them at various viewpoints..  Everything else you're going to learn via the conversations on the ship, of which there are only about 4 each for non-LI's, with a total of 3 more related to the romance itself).  With Garrus and Wrex, one conversation is completely about acquiring their LM.  There is one dispute possible, depending on how you play out your romance dialogue choices.

In short, I don't think you're going to miss much in the way of getting to know Garrus better by not taking him... but you're also not going to learn much more about Kaidan by taking him with you on absolutely every mission.  If you're getting bored with the combat and want to mix that up a little, don't be afraid to change out your squads.

Oh, this is good to know. Banter seems so Bioware, it's weird to go in expecting hardly any at all.

yeah, vigalante revenge stories don't much entice me, Thane had finished his revenge stuff by the time I met him even if he was still killing people. Additionally, the save file I'd imported made Garrus think I was being really OOC. He's all like "Shoot people!" and I'm like "Don't shoot people!" and he's like, "WTF, you used to tell me to shoot people all the time! what's wrong with you! GAH! annoying, fine I won't shoot people." So ummm.... ya, i guess there was just a character disconnect going on there.

There are actually two slightly different ME2 Garrus's, depending on how you converse with him in ME1.  If you stick to the paragon (upper left or right) in ME1 and you take the shot during his LM, he comes across a little less gun ho vigilante in ME2.  If you stick to the renegade dialogue in his ME1 conversations and let him take the shot, then it comes across as though he's learned how to be a renegade from you.  So, in that phoray used another person's import file, she may have grabbed one where Garrus was more of a renegade... don't know.

Almost done installing mods. Got the very important "Controller" mod, "Faster Elevators", then Large Address Aware pathc, now on MEUITM (sp) and it took a LONG while to DL for some reason.

Then I just have two hair mods, one each for fem shep and male shep, and I'll be ready to go.