Verified answer

I have the Trilogy on PS3. Before that, I had ME2 and ME3 stand alones.

The Trilogy comes on 3 Blu-ray disks, and ME2 and ME3 are exactly the same as the stand alone copies. I gave my old stand alones to relatives. Trilogy, however, DOES have ME1 on a disk with the only downloaded mission already on it, "Bring Down the Sky".

Don't fall into the "I don't need to play Mass Effect 1 because I had the Genesis comic at the beginning" trap.

The Genesis comic at the beginning of ME2 assumes:

1. You never did a side mission in ME1, and there are about 70 of them. So, if you want Dr. Michel to be your ME3 ship doctor and Chakwas a war asset, it is so much easier to get her if you and Garrus saved her in ME1.

2. You didn't save the colony on Feros.

3. You are broke, instead of starting with $330,000 like I did.

4. I started ME2 with 55,000 of each mineral because I did the mineral side missions.

5. I started at level 4 at the start of ME2.

6. There are many other bonuses for ME2 and ME3 if you started off with ME1.

7. You cannot get a "perfect" playthrough unless you start off with ME1.

ME1 really DOES matter. Believe me. I played ME2 and ME3 before December 4, 2012. Once I got my hands on ME1, I replayed the whole saga with my male infiltrator, and noticed things turn out better once I got to ME2 and ME3.

I wanted to upload an entire Trilogy playthrough on youtube. I asked several people online what they wanted to see. The winning results were: Insanity level, vanguard class, and a custom blonde female Shepard. I'm still uploading ME1, but I'll get to the other 2 eventually.

Compare the Genesis version of handling the Rachni Queen versus actually confronting Liara's mom and the Rachni Queen herself at Noveria. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssKLNhenXXw

Yes, your choices will carry over. Same goes for ME1 > ME2, you just need to install the latest patch for ME2 in that case.