Mass Effect

I haven’t actually tried starting out with a level 50 character and then changing the difficulty so I don’t know if that works and if you can get the achievement that way. However I started the game on insanity with a level 1 soldier and completed the game fairly easily.

I will be giving instructions on what I think is the best way to complete it on insanity. Follow my instructions and if you still can’t complete insanity then follow my instructions on an easier difficulty and then start the game with that character already at a high level and change the difficulty to insanity.

General Tips
• Grenades are very useful early on in the game. The first press of the back button with throw the grenade and the second will detonate it. A nice trick is when you get into a fire fight to throw a grenade on the ground where the enemies will have to go to get to you. Then you can concentrate on firing and if they try to ran at you – detonate the grenade.
• Don’t pick Alenko or Garrus to be your teammates.
• Make sure to have the Krogan as one of your teammates.
• Go down one path, paragon or renegade and make it always the first to be upgraded.
• Beware the Krogan. They are by far the most toughest and feared enemy in the game.
• Don’t bother trying to upgrade all the weapons all the way. There will not be enough skill points. Concentrate on one weapon (I suggest assault rife). It is however alright to upgrade the weapons just until you get their first abilities. i.e. Marksmen for the pistol.
• Every time you return to your ship sell everything you don’t need. The sooner you can afford spectre class weaponry the better.
• Save often.

1. Choosing a character class
I choose to be a soldier with the extra ability of singularity (It doesn't really matter what extra ability you choose and I don’t actually upgrade singularity till late in the game but it can be quite useful once levelled up). I’ve played through the game being each of the main types; solider, biotic and engineer. Engineer was by far the hardest. I found hardcore with the engineer (I’d even given him an assault rifle) harder then insanity. But I found that solider was by far the best. The solider has the most health and health regen. The shields that the other two get become obsolete when you get armour half way through the game that gives you as much shields as an engineer.

2. Citadel and first planet
Do as much of the citadel side quests as possible before moving on. With this you will be able to level up your paragon or renegade and also get a bit of money before moving out.

When choosing a story planet DO NOT CHOOSE NOVERIA! It has the hardest boss in the game and it would be much better to go to that planet last. The best first choice planet would either be the one where you get your final squad member or Feros.


3. Levelling
You’re probably wondering what to upgrade first. Go for renegade or paragon first and keep that fully upgraded. Then go for marksmen or overkill. Then go for adrenaline and unity. From this point on the main goal is to get immunity as high as possible. Singularity can wait as it is pretty weak at a low level.

4. Making Insanity easy – part 1
After you have done the two planets not involving the asari boss (planet Noveria) return to the citadel. You should have enough by this point (if you followed the selling tip) to buy the spectre class assault rifle. If you do not complete some citadel quests or go to some random planets until you do have enough. Once you have this weapon you will be half way to making the game easy.

5. Making insanity easy – part 2
At level 20 you should unlock the solar system on the galaxy map. Go straight there once you unlock it and go to luna (earth’s moon). When you complete the mission on the moon you will be asked to choose and speciality. Choose the one with immunity. Once you have upgraded to immunity specialization you will be unbeatable. You activate immunity and by the time it wears off it has already buffered again and is ready to use again.

Well done! You’ve competed the hardest part of the game. Know it’s just a case of walking through the game to finish it.

This achievement is fairly easy. I got it in about 5-6 hours and only died three times. I used a level 59 Soldier with Predator H IX armor and Master Spectre X weapons.

General tips:
Immunity is your friend. It makes you practically invincible for a short amount of time which can be very helpfull for certain levels. Adrenaline Rush is also very useful for re-unlocking immunity/weapon perks.
Put as many points as you can into Fitness, armor, and Soldier/Shock Trooper/Commando. For weapons assault rifles are the best general purpose weapon available but the shotgun is very useful for certain enemies. The sniper rifle is useful in a few areas but is much less effective than at the lower difficulties. Pistols should only be leveled to unlock shotgun.
For party members I used Ashley/Wrex most of the time except for Therum and Ilos where I used Tali for her electronics skill.
Now, on to the guide...

Eden Prime:
You don't need to set your difficulty to Isanity until just before activating the beacon so this level doesn't need any further help.

Citadel:
Here you'll notice that a LOT of enemies use immunity. Their health bar will turn white and they'll take almost no damage. Just wait behind cover for it to go back to red and continue destroying them. Don't bother with the assignments unless you're trying to level up and are a 58 or lower. Ditto for the UNC missions.

Therum (Liara's World):
Just drive all the way to the narrow gap in the rocks. Don't bother trying to fight the enemies. Run over the armatures and colossus to keep them from shooting you. When you get to the cutscene with the armature. Stand behind the box but not up against it and shoot the stalkers as they hop onto it. This is really the only part I used the sniper rifle with. Just use it to shoot the armature and duck back away from the edges of the box. The mine shouldn't pose any trouble at all.

Noveria:
Talk to Opold, get his package and turn it over to Anoleis to quickly get into the garage. When driving to Peak 15 DO NOT get out of the Mako to engage the Geth. I found this out the hard way when my squad opened fire on the Mako and destroyed it while I was dealing with the Geth. I ended up walking to Peak 15 which took about 15 minutes. A glitch? Sure. But its not the first time it has happened to me...
The rachni are not that difficult aside from their poison. Use any poison resitance upgrades to your armor if you have them to reduce this. Aside from them there's only some more Geth and (possibly) some human mercs to deal with.
I hear a lot of people say Benezia is the hardest part of the game though I personally didn't have any trouble with her at all. At the first, run around the room taking out her asari/geth minions. Make sure to keep your distance from Benezia or she will hit you with biotics. After the cutscene activate immunity and overkill and have your squad do the same or similar and rip into her. She should go down before either wear off but if not just use adrenaline rush and repeat. Then deal with the few asari commandoes that come out and your done.

Feros:
The majority of this level is just blowing up more Geth and shouldn't pose any problem. Its not until you go back to Zhu's Hope that there's any real difficulty. The thorian creepers have a ridiculous amount of health (almost like a continuos immunity) and the assault rifle isn't much use as you will usually get overwhelmed. For the creepers therefore I equipped my squad with shotguns with scram rails and high explosive rounds X. Just keep moving and blowing them away trying to aim them over rails, ledges, etc. If any get too close while your cooling breifly run up to them and melee them while they're prepping their poison and backpeddle again. The asari clones will usually knock you down with biotics at the first but aren't really a threat. Keep at it and you'll get through without too much trouble. (Note: there is a small chance you may blow a creeper/colonist into the container things in Zhu's Hope where they'll get stuck and you'll have to load the game. So watch where you launch people :))

Virmire:
At the first just drive until you literally hit the first locked gate to get as far as possible from the Geth Colossus there. Clear out both gates and drive to the STG camp. For the base use the shotgun/explosive rounds on the krogans and Geth destroyers/juggernauts and assault rifle on everything else. Saren is no problem at all here; just use overkill and he should go down in seconds.

Ilos:
The only real advice I have here is that when you get to the top of the waterslide/aqueduct WAIT until your shields are totally full (takes about ten minutes or so). You also seem to take less damage when following the water. You should just be able to make it.

Battle of the Citadel:
Again, use the shotgun/high explosive on the krogans/geth detroyers/geth juggernauts and assault rifle for everything else. When you get to the open space with the turrets ignore the turrets and just run for the end shooting any Geth that get in the way. The turrets generally ignore you if you don't shoot them.
Finally for Saren. He is by far (for me) the most annoying part of the game but quite doable. Just use immunity/overkill/adrenaline rush and keep behind cover especially when he uses his red ball flurry. Any upgrades such as frictionless materials that reduce heat generation definately help here but aren't necessary. Just keep shooting and Saren should go down pretty easily.

If you're looking at how best to get this achievement, you'll have completed Hardcore mode already, and played through the entire campaign a few times already, so you should be as familiar as you can be with the game, how it works, how best to play it, etc.

With the Insanity difficulty, the difficulty gets ramped up a few notches from Hardcore, but susprisingly isn't as hard as you'd expect. The main thing you'll notice is how much health all the enemies seem to have, especially the Thorian Creepers. Killing becomes more of a feat of endurance, and thus survivability.

If you plan to start from scratch, check out some of the great guides to doing so. I advise against it - starting with an old character in the high 50s will help you steamroller your way through the campaign in around 5-6 hours without the need to struggle through sidequests to level up, and in even unlocking this difficulty (and the ally achievements) you should be near enough level 60.

I used a few simple tactics to minimise time, and efficiency in missions, to get right through as quickly as possible, and did this in 4h 58m. I died twice in total, and never in the boss battles - and believe me, I'm not great at this game at all!

Saving
Save often, and on numerous slots. If you do happen to die, or mess up somehow, it'll save you time and effort. Naturally, you can't save whilst there are enemies present, but there are a few tricks to this that'll come in handy.

-If the save option in the menu is greyed out, and there are no enemies around or on your radar, wait a few seconds before trying again. Your allies will holster their weapons when it's safe to do so.

-If you're in the Mako and enemies are on the radar but not nearby, then get out of it! Your radar on foot is minimal compared to the Mako's, and chances are the red dots will disappear, allowing you to save. This is particularly useful on Virmire and Noveria.

Squad
I took my level 58 soldier (who hadn't done the bonus specialisation mission due to laziness), and maxed out everything except handguns, snipers, and shotguns. I used the assault rifle you can buy in the Normandy, with two frictionless materials and plutonium ammunition. This means you'll poison the enemies, and the gun will never overheat, so you can keep your finger on the trigger throughout battles... If you're not playing as a soldier - don't worry. Your teammates will be doing most of the work anyway, and as long as you can deal damage and stay alive you'll be fine. Armour wise, I had decent heavy armour on everyone. Not the best (because I couldn't find it anywhere...), but it worked just fine, so if you can't find any Colossus armour, don't worry.

For squadmates, it's by far the best to take Wrex and Ashley, and max out shotguns and armour abilities. Ignore other weapons completely and use the points you'll save in health etc. I'll explain this in the next section.

Some people seem to want balanced squads in this playthrough, but to be honest you really don't need any technical abilities whatsoever. You have no need to decrypt anything at any point. Biotic abilties can help, I guess, but at the expense of a shotgun... which I'm sure is a better option.

Double Shotgun Tactic
Informatively titled, this is the one tactic that made this playthough an absolute breeze. Equip both of your squadmates with the HMWSG X shotgun you buy on the Normandy, with two Scram Rail Xs and High Explosive Rounds X. These guns are absurd, and whilst they don't do a huge amount of damage over time, they fire enemies up into the air, against walls, etc, which stops them attacking you! Geth Armatures are the only things that'll be unaffected, but in the rare battles with them find cover, popping out to chip away at their health bit by bit.

With this tactic, you're free to keep up a stream of bullets whilst your allies act as crowd control. Use invulnerability as often as possible, and adrenaline rush if you need to use it sooner than that. It's as simple as that really. Overkill too if you want, but I couldn't be bothered most of the time and it didn't affect things really. Keep an eye on what guns your allies are using too - they have a weird habit of changing to a handgun after some cutscenes, which really won't help saving the galaxy.

A quick note with this tactic - the game seems to get confused sometimes with the enemies flying through the air so often, and occasionally they'll get stuck in walls or in uncreachable areas, stopping you progressing. This happened to me in Chora's Den right at the start, where I had to reload the autosave when an enemy appeared on my radar but in a wall somewhere, meaning I couldn't kill him. It happened again in the Thorian's Lair, but a reload of a save did the trick again. Weird, but only slightly annoying in the grand scheme of things.

The Mako
Possibly the hardest bits of the game will take place in the Mako. As other guides have said, your best bet is to plough straight through your enemies. Try to run over Armatures and Colossi - this'll stop them shooting you, and go straight to the destination.

If the Mako starts taking a lot of damage, try to get away from enemies and jump out, using the save trick mentioned above. Then, reload your game. The Mako will be back to full shields, and you can continue your journey. There wasn't a point in the entire game that I couldn't stop the Mako in a peaceful site somewhere en-route to wherever, since the Geth tend to be spread out in batches.

Krogan
A note about the Krogan. They're easily the most difficult enemy in the game, but if you stick to the gameplan they're not too bad. Keep invulnerability up, and stick close to your allies. They take a few shots to get launched into the air, and usually take a few downings before they'll die. There was a point on the Citadel at the end with five or six of these at once, which I somehow scraped through. If you stick by your teammates and keep the bullets flowing, you'll be okay.

The Playthrough
For the record, I was an evil b*****d throughout this, to speed things up. Being good seems to take a little longer. Holding the analogue stick to the bottom right and hammering X repeatedly gets you through the dialogue with gusto! Unfortunately, the cutscenes are unskippable, and I'll be seeing that vision from the beacon in my sleep soon, I've seen it so many times.

Eden Prime
Put your difficulty to casual and blast right through. Before clicking on the beacon, change the difficulty to Insanity. If it's not there, you haven't played through Hardcore yet...

Citadel
Your first taste of just how much health the enemies have. Ignore all side quests, just nail through the quests. The enemies should pose no problems; send your allies roaming around the rooms and watch your opponents fly everywhere whilst gunning them down slowly.

Liara's Dig Site
Use the Mako tactics listed earlier. Ignore enemies, drive over as many as you feel like. Once you get on foot it's relatively simple. Go slowly where necessary, remember to keep using invulnerability. The mini-boss battle at the end shouldn't cause any problems either.

Novaria
Get inside, speak to the Hanar merchant, agree to smuggle for him, grab the package from the dock, then give it to the administrator to get the garage pass with no fighting required. Usual tactics for the Mako section. Once you get to the Rift Station and deal with the Rachni (which aren't difficult at all) go to the medlab, agree to make a cure, then head to the Quarantine Labs to do so. Back to the doctor, and he'll give you a pass to the Maintenance Bay, cutting out even more fighting and letting you straight to Benezia.

Some say she's the hardest boss in the game, but I wouldn't worry too much. At the start of the battle head right and run to the corner there - this'll stop Benezia attacking you. Hang around this corner as much as possible in the first section and it'll be easy. For the second part use invulnerability straight off, then hang around your teammates, who should be launching various Asari soldiers into the air. Focus on Benezia, then her minions, and with any luck this'll be done with in no time.

Feros
Once you clear out the tower at the start and talk to Fei Dan, ignore any side quests and get in the elevator to the skyway. Ignore everything in the Mako, including the outpost the game wants you to stop at, except on the way back where you're forced to. I didn't bother saving any survivors (too much hastle messing with grenades). You'll notice how absurd the Creepers' healthbars are, and it's simply a matter of patience killing them. The shotguns come into their own in this section. The boss is more of the same. Go slowly, saving where you can, and grind your way around the Thorian's limbs. Kill the Asari first, since their biotic powers mess up your rythym! You've ruined the colony, well done. Move on.

Virmire
The Mako section can be difficult, and I needed to save and reload a few times to keep the shields fully intact. Otherwise, same rules as usual apply. Once at the camp, make sure you don't stupidly kill Wrex (now is a good time to be careful with dialogue selection!), and make sure Kaidan goes off with the doomed Salarian team. It's business as usual again from here. Once Ashley stays to arm the bomb, choose a new squadmate you like (I chose Liara for her biotics), but don't bother giving them the shotgun if they're untrained for it. When prompted, leave Kaidan to die. Ashley has the great shotgun in any case! For Saren, keep your fire on him, and shoot the fuel tanks he likes to hover over. He's probably the easiest boss in the game.

Citadel
No enemies - no problems. I punched the reporter for much lols.

Ilos
Substantial numbers of Geth Destroyers and Juggernauts can be problematic, as can the Armatures at the start. Go slowly, use invulnerabilty, and chip away from cover. The Mako section should be easy after Virmire's.

Citadel
The hardest normal battles of the game. Go slowly but methodically down the long corridors. For the open area with the dropship sprint to the turret you can activate, then retreat back safefy while it's health slowly goes down. The area with Geth turrets can be tricky, but doesn't require any special tactics.

For the final battle, go hide behind the concrete pillar (without this brilliant piece of architecture this battle would be near-impossible), and use overkill on him. Keep an eye on your health and use invulnerability (as usual!), and he'll go down with relative ease considering he's the last boss. Halfway through he regenerates his shields and speeds up a bit, but the battle strategy is no different to before.

And there you have it! The galaxy has been saved on the hardest difficulty going, thanks to one man and his shotgun-weilding gang. Any questions, post them in the comments and I'll get back to you. And if I've forgotten anything, let me know. This is all from memory y'know...!

Guide for those who want to start a new game (not new game+)
It's best to use a soldier
My advice: leave the dialogue skills, invest mostly in armor (to get heavy armor as soon as possible), fitness (for additional health and immunity) and adrenaline burst. Choose shock trooper as a specialization and you'll become a tank!
At the start of the game choose an additional biotic or engineer skill for crowd control (if you unlocked any as a different character)

Choose Kaidan as a teammate and invest in his first aid and medicine skills, and your medigel will cool down much faster.

Another teammate should be someone who can wear at least medium armor, so I recommend Garrus or Wrex.

It's really not that difficult, unless you don't use cover.

This achievement is actually very easy if you fulfill just a few prerequisites and adhere to one rule: RUN AWAY!

I managed to get this last night in 6hrs 8mins (which includes plenty of time where I was away from my xbox but the game was still running) in one session by doing the following:

-First, I used a lvl 60 Vanguard. An excellent balance (I find) of firepower and biotic awesomeness. You can, of course, use any class you'd like, and I'd imagine using a Soldier would make this even easier given your defensive prowess.

-Make sure you have the best equipment you can get your hands on, i.e. Master Spectre gear and Colossus armor, all at level X. If you've unlocked Insanity, you no doubt can afford enough gear for every squad member and their families, so don't skimp out here.

-Upgrade your Medi-Gel capacity as much and as often as you can! You can do the same for grenades if you want, but I don't find them particularly helpful.

-I played through using Wrex and Tali. I did this only because, according to the squad select screen, this was a perfectly balanced team since I was a vanguard. I could also have used Kaiden and Garrus. Try to have a well balanced team. Make sure you have access to most, if not all, biotic and tech powers. Again, this is just precaution and probably not necessary (though high decryption skill can help speed things up since you can take alternate, shorter routes). I'd recommend sticking with Wrex since he's so tough, and the other member doesn't matter too much. But I'm rambling...

-Everything above is really unnecessary as long as you use the shameless tactic of "RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!"

If you've unlocked Insanity, you probably have a good grasp of the game's mechanics, layout, and progression. Use this to your advantage. Whenever you can, just run past your enemies, take the shortest route, and go FAST! Not so fast that you forget to save OFTEN, mind you, just fast enough to not have to engage the enemy when it isn't necessary. Also, don't do any Assignments, main story Missions only if you want it easiest on you and as fast as possible.

As you run through, be sure to keep an eye on your health and shields. Also be sure to keep your squad healthy--while you aren't going to be fighting much, two extra bodies to soak up enemy attacks is necessary to make this strategy viable.

When you ARE forced to fight (whether because you have to clear a room to progress or you simply got pinned down and can't keep running) be ready to adapt. You'll spend lots of time pausing and using the ability wheel. When you switch aim between enemies, bring up the ability wheel, then aim. This pauses the action, and as soon as you let go of RB, you're instantly aiming at the new target, saving valuable seconds. Also be sure to use the best weapon type, and weapon and ammo upgrades for the situation.

As a vanguard, I had my shotgun fitted with Sledgehammer Rounds X and two Frictionless Material X upgrades to act as crowd control--two blasts from that bad boy will knock down even the most stubborn Krogan--and my pistol had Frictionless Material X, Kinetic Stabilizer X, and switched between Inferno Rounds X and Polonium Rounds VII, which made it deal high damage *very* quickly. Do what works best for you, but I found Inferno Rounds X insanely effective against Geth and Polonium Rounds VII great for organic enemies (and Geth sometimes, but usually not as strong as Inferno). Occasionally I would switch Inferno or Polonium into my shotgun for brief periods to do huge amounts of damage. One last thing: Marksman combined with the above pistol is nearly unstoppable! It shreds through pretty much everything except a Krogan using Immunity (just stasis them and run past!).

If you can when running or fighting, try to disable the enemy rather than taking the time to kill them. It's faster and you can still progress. For instance, if you're pinned down by a big group of Krogans, hit them with Lift, Throw, Stasis, Singularity, Neural Shock, whatever you've got that will slow or stop them, then run past. No need to kill them, just stop the threat and move on. If you're in the Mako, it's crazy how effective just running head on into a Geth Colossus and knocking it over is for clearing the path. They're like turtles on their backs! Just keep driving through them, don't stop and look back.

Finally, to speed things up, take the shortest routes possible. Instead of doing the whole Lorik Quiin mission, just give Opold's smuggled package to Annoleis and get the garage pass two minutes after landing on Noveria. Don't stop by the camp outside ExoGeni on the way from Zhu's Hope to the ExoGeni HQ (though you have to on the way back). You get the idea.

It isn't too hard using this tactic. A little "cheap" perhaps, but it'll get you through in no time. As long as you pay attention to your surroundings you'll be fine. Good Luck! Be sure to comment (or PM) with questions. This was my first guide ever, so give me your feedback too! And sorry if I mangled the spelling of character names...

TL:DR
Run through without engaging the enemies! Save every chance you can, keep an eye on your surroundings, and skip as much as you can. If you don't give the enemy a chance to lock onto you they can't hit you. If you don't have to DON'T FIGHT. Instead, run straight through the door to your next objective.

This achievement is not difficult at all if you do the following:

Use a soldier class on a lower difficulty and level it up, then use this on insane. And just too be clear because a lot of people seem to worry about this, when you start a new game with an old character, the difficulty will not be insane when you start on eden prime. This is FINE, as long as you change the difficulty before triggering the beacon at the very end of eden prime you will get the achievement. I actually kept the difficulty on easy until right before i reached the area with the beacon because i was so sick of eden and wanted to run through it, and I still got the achievement, that means you can too.

Just make sure to invest in the skills that give bonuses to damage resistance and health, specifically fitness. If you have fitness leveled all the way up you get master immunity which makes it almost impossible to die. Just use it at the beginning of every battle and when it runs out use it again, because it recharges in the same amount of time it runs out in. (This is assuming you did the Shock Trooper specialization on the Rogue VI assignment and leveled it up to get the immunity bonus.)

As far as mako parts go, you do NOT need to fight any guys at all, if you can drive it with any semblance of skill you can drive right past all the enemies, and if you do get hit and are about to die, get out of it and kill the guys on foot.

I beat it by doing only necessary missions in about four hours using immunity, and I didn't die, not even once.

I won't give a run down of "the best way to beat this" because all of the solutions above covered it pretty well.

For the record I used a level 60 soldier, with Ashley and Wrex as squadmates. All of us had Colossus X armour and Spectre Class X weaponry. Put a frictionless materials X on the Assault Rifle and you literally never overheat.

Anyway, my tips are about saving. Saving is the most important part of playing a game like this on a high difficulty. You should try to save as often as possible to avoid insane replays if you die.

So, here is a list of my saving tips:

Above all, the autosaves are few and far between, often times over 1 hour apart. Do not rely on these!

1) Save after every conversation and battle, regardless of how minor they may be - it'll save that much more time if you happen to die.

2) In some areas it may seem like you can't save... That's not always true. If you hit Start and Save is grayed out, just go back to the game and stand still for a few seconds. Assuming you've killed all the enemies in the room (you have to kill everything, it's impossible to save otherwise) one of your allies should say "All clear", "we got em", or something like that. When you hit start again Save will be available.

3) The above tip is a little different when driving the Mako. As the solutions above have stated, it is possible and much easier to just drive through all the enemies. But how can you save with all the enemies still around? Simple - the Mako's radar is like 5 times more powerful than your personal one. If you get out of sight of the enemies and then GET OUT of the Mako, the red dots on your radar will disappear. Having no red dots = you can save. Again, you need to be out of the enemies sight. A simple way to check this is to put your gun away. If your allies do the same then you're good. If they don't, the. You need to move up more, or backtrack and actually kill those enemies if moving up isn't possible. Also, your allies will point their guns in the direction of said enemies, to make it a bit easier if the radar is a little vague.

4) At some points even if your allies put their guns away, they don't give you an "all clear" sign. This only happened to me on non-driving parts. The solution for this is to walk back a bit through the room/hallway/whatever you just cleared. It doesn't even have to be far - just to the entrance door or to the point where enemies started spawning. The Save option should now be available.

5) You've likely played through this game 1 or more times before attempting an insanity run (to get to level 60 most likely) so you should know roughly when tough enemies (Krogan) will show up and when boss battles will start. It's a good idea to save just before these occurrences just in case.

6) As an addition to #3), if your Mako takes damage, use the save tip in #3) and then reload that save. The Mako will now have full shields and armour. This is especially useful for the final mission where you have to drive to the Conduit.

/end list

Using these tips you should have no issues should you die. The less you have to replay, the better!

Here's just a few tips on specific enemies that gave me trouble. I played through as a level 1 engineer and I used Liara and Ash.

Krogans
- Use powers like throw, lift and neural shock to keep the krogans off their feet, then use overkill or marksman to do as much damage as possible quickly. Use only 1 of these powers at a time, then when it gets up hit em with another one.
- There was a glitch I found with two groups of multiple krogans, both on Feros, where, if I backed up enough (and my squad was down), they would turn around and walk back to where they came from, so I could just shoot them without them attacking.
- There was also another, more annoying glitch where a krogan I just "killed" would suddenly regain a whole bunch of HP and come back to life. I died at least once when a krogan who had "died" came back to life and attacked me from behind.

Drones
-Sabotage is awesome against these guys as it disables all their weapons and allows you to kill them without worrying. Great for those rocket drones.

Geth Stalkers
- Use lift or throw on them to get some shots on them without them jumping around.

Thorian Creepers
-Melee works great on them as it takes them a second once they've stopped to attack you. Melee sometimes takes a second before you can use it again though so be careful.

Mako Battles
-When in the Mako try to take enemies out as far away as possible using the zoom. Attack with your side facing them. Then, when the armatures attack you simply drive forward or back to avoid their blasts.

Make sure you set you squadmates power usage to defense only so you can be in control of when and how they use them, as they will simply throw them out in a rush so they have none when you really need them.

And remember when all else fails, retreat. At the very least it should buy some time for your med packs and unity to recover. Plus there are often bottlenecks, especially in the optional missions that force the enemy to attack you from one direction, so you can pick them off. If your REALLY lucky you might even be able to get far away enough to be able to save before heading back to the fight.

Insanity is unlocked after beating a Hardcore Playthrough.

I just beat this in a day. What I did was just took my level 59 Soldier and started a new game with him. I then immediately switched the difficulty to Insanity after the opening cinematics (this is important and will get you the achievement so don't worry)

None of the play through gave me much trouble. People may be saying Inanity is hell, but it really isn't.
Just play the character that YOU are good with, whether it be Soldier, Engineer, Adept, etc. And you WILL get the achievement

In this case I was good with my level 59 soldier. He had the very best Spectre Assaut Rifle X and its Upgrades made it so my gun never overheated, which was important. I also went with Wrex and Liara for the game because their Biotics proved very helpful.

In the Mako, I just passed every enemy I could so I didn't have many engagements. I also made sure to get 100% Paragon.

The only real enemy that gave me problems were the Krogans. All you have to do is either get them off a ledge somehow, or when they aren't using Immunity, you Lift them in the air and just shoot the eff out of them. It is that simple.

To end this, I do stress that you should play the character you made and are good with. I thought my soldier wouldn't handle it but he did beautifully, and the next thing I knew I had the achievement in the bag. Like I said, it isn't impossible, it is actually very possible.

I recently did the entire game on level 60 on insanity in under 8 hours - i chose Ashley and Wrex to play through the entire game with best armours / weapons from previous playthroughs.

The hardest parts were:
1) Driving the Mako on Noveria - rocket troopers and Armurtures soon wrecked it. Had to quickly hide around the corner after jumping over the oncoming rockets in the tunnel sections.
2) Killing the Thorian on FEROS as you would quickly get surrounded by little zombies.
3) Killing the Rachni on Noveria - got surrounded first time and died - shotgun on all 3 with Carnage worked wonders.
4) Again Mako but this time on Virmire, had to sprint across 3 quarters of the map when got hit by 2 many plasma blast and rockets =( before reaching Sarens base

Easiest way to kill matriarch Benezia is to hide in a corner and let the asari commandos come to you then overkill or carnage them depending on your weapon, this will injure her, then repeat but also run to were the geth snipers are with sprint and punch them all to floor before getting stuck in.

Easiest way to kill Saren / Soverign is to hide behind the big vertical block and shoot him with assault rifle with Overkill whilst telling the other 2 to use Carnage on him.

Many seem to suggest using a Soldier class for this one, but in case you want to steam roll through the game, I recommend using an above level 50 Adept.

For example, I just finished the Benezia fight without even getting hit once, because of the extensive use of biotic powers. With Liara and Tali we just juggled the helpless enemies in the air and finished them with handguns. The whole fight took about 60 seconds.

UPDATED FOR INSANITY DIFFICULTY: SKIP TO THAT SECTION PLEASE:

Make a new character
Mke him/her a soldier (eventually a tank character)
Use the Commando skill for extra damage (you will need this on Insanity)
Max out your Immunity and Adrenline Burst skills (makes you almost invincible)
Start a new game on Veteran (this will prepare you for the challenges ahead)
Complete EVERY Assignment, which also includes collecting things like surveys and data discs/medallions/writings
Complete all main storyline missions as needed
Some looking around may be needed to find the source of optional assignments. I suggest checking and talking in ALL cases to everyone/everything
After completing this playthrough you should easily have 9,999,999 credits
Buy all spectre weapons avaliable to you.
The Specter "X" series is best if you get to it
Spend the rest of wasted stuff making Omni-gel for MAKO fights.
You can save at most places outside of battle. If not, wait a few seconds after defeating the enemy
then try again. In MAKO exit the vehichle and then wait and try to save. Reload game if needed
to repair MAKO.
Colossus and Predator armors are your best buy as well.
Don't forget all the Medigell/Grenade upgrades also avaliable at certain merchants as well as licenses to buy armor

After you beat the game on Veteran, start a new game with the character you just completed the last game with.
You now have a tank who can take out most enemies easily while not getting hurt hardly at all.
This will work on Insanity too. Good luck!
As far as Insanity and Hardcore go, you can ignore the side quests if you want. Leveling is your
call. Just remember there are level achievements too ;D

P.S. if you stay with the same 2 characters throughout the Veteran playthrough you will also
get the Completionist Achievement as well as 2 of the squad member ones.

INSANITY DIFFICULTY SECTION:

This stragey does not change much. By this point the main story missions should be your goal.
If not leveled enough and you want the lvl 60 achievement just play through the citadel ones.
The best allies to pick here are Wrex and Tali. Wrex is a true badass with big time warp and
melee skills as well as immunity. Tali can hack major AI including most Geth which is a big
big big big plus for the main missions. AKA don't forget to max out her AI hacking or Wrex's
Immunity. If you can get your hands on them, Sledgehammer rounds (X is the best) will knock
your targets down, as well as stop regeneration of HP (shotguns are most effective at knockdown.)
I read a guide on here telling you to use High explosive rounds, but this probably doesn't work
to well with the overheating. Keep in mind the MAKO is easier to damage than YOUR OWN CHARACTER
NOW. Get out of the MAKO if needed and blast all enemies as needed. Immunity should take care
of that. Weird huh? Yes but who cares? Go and get the achievement with this guide!

Insanity really isn't that bad. I used a level 60 engineer using an assault rifle with Liara and Wrex all with spectre X weapons and the best armor. In the mako just ignore the enemies but have full omni gel just in case. Krogan and Rachni are the only real enemies to be concerned about.

For krogan: Stay at a distance and keep them off their feet with lift, neural shock, etc. and use overkill, if they get close use stasis and back up.

Rachni: Watch out for the poison. But other than that same as for krogan. Two battles to watch out for though; on the roof when you go to connect the landlines, that battle is in a very small space so have medi gel ready and back up behind the door if need be. The battle in the hot labs is also troublesome, kill the closer soldiers but then stasis the back couple and then run for it.

For thorian creepers: shoot them as they run at you and when they get close melee them down and shoot them on the ground. Also, make sure Wrex has his shotgun out and he will tear them apart. Only get a few of the creepers up by shooting the nodes at a time and it will be easier. Take out the asari quickly they can get annoying.

For geth: Geth are weak don't worry about them just use sabotage, overload, hack, and overkill. Just watch out for rocket troopers, destroyers, juggernauts and primes. Hack rockets and destroyers, and sabotage juggs. and primes.

For Benezia: Kill the asari and geth using biotics and sabotage/hack/overkill and she isn't difficult.

For Saren: Stay behind the pillar and use lift to open him up and use overkill. He isn't too difficult as long as Liara is alive and you are behind the pillar.

i wanted to add that i started this with a engineer level 50 with the sniper perk to start the game on my second playthru and equipped the sniper with the upgrade that does +500 damage with the side effect that it overheats in one shot. if you ever use the sniper you know that it overheats in 1-2 shotts anyway so doing the duck and cover method let me use this successfully. playthru took me 6 hours doing this and did alot of the side missions as well.

Here are some words of advice for those pursuing this achievement:

1.) If you don't select soldier class pick assault rifle as your bonus attribute when making your character. Get Spectre call equipment ASAP!

2.) When you get to where you can travel to either Noveria or Feros go to Feros first. Matriarch Benezia is very difficult without immunity or damping.

3.) After hitting lvl 20 do the Rogue VI mission. http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/UNC:_Rogue_VI

4.) Unlock all biotic abilities ASAP- and use them- often.

5.) When you can kill an enemy then run away until you get the all clear from teammates and save your game.