"Mass Effect" is a great, superb game. Yes, it has quite some glitches as well as a monotonous start with repetitive missions, but after a few hours you'll get over it. The great thing about this game was the sexy graphics, solid gameplay, character customization, and DIALOGUE. Every decision you make affects YOU. Overall if you are a PC gamer, this is one great game you shouldn't miss.

Mass Effect is less an FPS/RPG hybrid than an interactive movie with FPS and RPG elements. The shooter aspect is 7/10, the RPG is 7/10, but the story, imagery, music all conspire to still elevate this game to classic status. I realize some people have had problems but for me Mass Effect was a totally bug-free experience. I have a feeling many complaints about bugs are due to people playing pirate copies. The save system serves to elevate the tension - compare this to Bioshock's Vita Chambers. Consolitis shows up in the limited and half-finished side mission worlds but otherwise the interface really looks and plays like a PC game. I would have also liked to see a space combat module as well - although I realize this game isn't Star Control IV sometimes I felt if I squinted really hard I could pretend it was.… Expand

An initially impressive game that is ultimately too short and too repetitive. I clocked a game time of less than 15 hours, and this included many of the side missions. While the main storyline and the core gameplay (think action FPS/RPG hybrid) are fun, the side missions are unfortunately mostly boring, generic, and repetitive and dont add much to the game. Since there are a couple lingering and annoying bugs, I'd wait for another patch or two and for this one to hit the bargain bin before picking it up.… Expand

Um....okay a few points. 1) I have no idea why people are complaining about lock ups. I played this game on damn near max on a2.3ghz Dual Core with a NVIDIA 7600 and was fine, no graphical issues, the game looked and ran great. 2)This is possibly my favorite game ever. The story was simple yes, but it still grabs you. The interaction makes you a part of it, and the fact that it is a rare game that gives you that "command decision" (those of you who have beat it know what I am talking about) as well as a few other twists and turns dependent on who you are and what you've done really gives you an interactive story feel. Bio ware didnt fail imo but the weapons and armor do feel a little old very soon with repatitve models and little to no difference in upgrades until about the end of the game. 3)While I give kudose for attempting at replayability, even going a drastically differernt path still feels too familiar and makes it difficult to play, even though I really want to (ie playing through with the higher gear or playing through as a bioic with assult rifle ) I criticise because thats part of the job of crticing a game but ultimately it is a great game, and its opne or two minor downfalls are really the only reason its not a perfect 10 and I wish metacritic had a better/more accurate rating system so I could go as far as 9.5.… Expand

Great game with huge area to explore, great long interactive story, tons of guns and upgrades, plenty of characters to form squads with, and really immersive interactions between characters.

Great story ... at least from what I can tell from the constant crashes. If you own a quad-core forget about playing this game until BioWare gets around to patching the game. Countless people are complaining about the same thing. Great game, but virtually unplayable due to a plethora of bugs. It constantly floods the HyperTransport of the quad processor and locks the game. It sits on my desk now as a paperweight until (or if) Bioware fixes it ... one year after it has been released for PC.… Expand

Far from a perfect game, but a very good one. It's strength lies in its storytelling and characters - you care about these people and what happens to them, and although the story is a bit generic and unimaginative, the dialogue and set pieces more than more up for it. (It's also worth nothing that the facial animation is excellent and it really immerses you into the game.) The combat is fun (especially using the sniper rifle :3 ) but some of the abilities of your men and confusing to use and I couldn't figure out how to use the upgrades. Plus the item system was a bit confusing and annoying as well. In short, most of the RPG elements need stripping out and thought through again. Lucky really that you can for the most part ignore them. It's also worth nothing that the side quests are incredibly dull, but considering the playtime it's hardly a massive loss. I love this game, and you should play it, if only so you can get with an alien.… Expand

A decent but not great game that has been overhyped in the media. Granted, it is a Bioware title so you can be assured of some good degree of quality but unfortunately, as with Mass Effect--Bioware's homebrew game universe--the quality and depth of the game play has become progressively shallow in Bioware's RPG games of late. Having said that, Mass Effect is an excellent game for those who enjoyed the Kotor games as Mass Effect mimics the style, narratives, and mechanics in many ways. On the downside, the overall campaign is fairly short and somewhat predictable even the first time through, leaving replay ability to suffer. This is further compounded by the shallow character system and mostly linear nature of the campaign and campaign options. Graphics, sound, and overall ambiance are what you would expect from a Bioware title and the game is truly a visual treat from start to finish. Equipment and character customization is a little tedious and woefully underdone for a game pronounced as an "RPG" but fits the bill for the style of the game offered. In all, if you're looking for an RPG with depth and engaging character development, look elsewhere. If you want an action-centric RPG-lite in a sci-fi and Star Wars like setting, this game was made for you. Once you've played it, If you think Mass Effect feels like an RPG designed for a casual console gamer, you'd be right--a mild learning curve, generally low difficulty factor, shallow game mechanics, and tons of action and eye-candy; these all describe Bioware's Mass Effect succinctly.… Expand

Mass Effect is a bold step forward in the evolution of action-RPGs. It's a modern, refined, squad-based Deus Ex, complete with a riveting, painstakingly realized world and narrative. Where it pales in comparison to Deus Ex is in its openness, or rather lack thereof: while the game world often gives the illusion of wide, unfettered space, you can't actually explore much of it, and what you can explore is fairly linearly designed. Still, the thrilling synergy of FPS and RPG makes the first playthrough a blast. The slick interface, snappy dialogue, well-paced and epic storyline, and frequent cinematic flourishes culminate in an engrossing experience. Bioware are masters of the linear action-RPG. It's time for them to push their boundaries, quite literally, and take a page from Bethesda in designing an open game world.… Expand

This game is flawed. Quite flawed. It has mediocre combat mechanics, boring and small sidequests, empty planets, a vehicle that as a necessary evil cannot be hurt even if thrown 1000 feet down from a mountain range and into a crater filled with natural spires and the game itself is as dumped down as you can get for "console" use. However these "problems" are as far as the negative criticism can go. The space opera that Bioware has created is for the most part an excellent piece of making something from nothing. From this point on the game "sucks" you in. The characters for the most part are interesting and the conversations between them realistic. It helps that your own character talks and acts (though the female protagonist is notably better than the male one) with enough believability for you to not feel detract from the experience. Musical score is excellent, visuals are sharp though they perform a little unreliably and the low res textures show their ugly face in a lot of places (like characters cloths and bodies). Its too bad that the game lasts only 20-25 hours and another good 10 or so with the sidequests counted in but its enough to satisfy. Overall the game can use a lot of improvements here and there but its a testament to the rest of the work done with this game that it feels as such. Dragon Age origins on the other hand....… Expand

The game isn't really great in terms of play, however the choices made are difficult at times and the story is just epic. There is tons of lore and immersion to this game. The big thing you have to do in order to enjoy this game, however, is to play the female Shepard. The male is okay if you like to listen to Keanu Reeves-like vocal styles for hours on end. The actor for the female Shepard is amazing, especially during some of the intimidate options as a renegade. If only this game had better gameplay. Defiantly a favorite of mine. I would give it a ten in terms of how fun it is for me. But from a neutral point of view the gameplay is too repetitive for that.… Expand

THE GOOD: The story, the characters, and the locations are all fully realized and well-designed. The voice acting is great, as well as the music. THE BAD: Well, the combat. It's not exactly bad, it's just not as good as the rest of the game. Still, it only slightly detracts from the enjoyment of the game. THE UGLY: Krogan.

Still the best of the series in my view (less dlcs yet the game is far longer than ME2 with all it's dlcs) graphically its decent enough for the age, feels better designed then the sequel, and it's still one of the best RPG shooters about. EA needs to get ME3 back on track and dump DLC crapness unless the game is 20+ hours like this title was

Otherwise decent story and characters diminished by lackluster combat, cookie cutter environments, cumbersome AI, and black and white morality system with virtually no impact on the characters or game outside of final decisions made at the end of the game. Mass Effect has a cover system which at first leads you to believe you'll be needing to use it. Using cover is almost always a disadvantage since the terrible AI will almost always bum rush you in large numbers. Staying OUT of cover is an advantage in these situations as you have more camera control and are able to protect yourself from their suicide rushes. This reduces the vast majority of encounters to simply running around wildly. Additionally, while Mass Effect boasts a number of character classes to choose from, there is some overlap between abilities with certain classes, making the game seem more varied than it really is. Environments, outside of the main story missions, are almost entirely identical. Mass Effect allows you to explore a wide variety of planets, but the terrain differs little and often only in color pallet. While exploring or doing side missions, you come across many structures with identical layout and rooms. Side missions are plentiful, but differ little in structure. Go here, kill this, find that, come home. There is little incentive to explore the galaxy and partake in content outside the main story line. The morality system, if you want to call it that, changes little beyond Shepard's responses. Acting like an avatar of virtue and justice versus an impatient killing machine carries no serious ramifications nor does it alter the course of the narrative in any meaningful way beyond a few encounters in the main storyline. Mass Effect's interface is another weak point. The menu system was obviously designed for consoles. No effort was made to create a more streamlined and user friendly interface for the PC port. When shopping, there is no way to compare what you currently have equipped with what you are looking to buy. The game requires you to exit the shop, open your inventory, memorize the stats of the item in question, talk to the shop owner again, click through his dialogue, open his inventory, and scroll through the list until you find the item you were trying to compare. The story is good but you'll get the feeling you've heard it somewhere before. The characters in your party are generally interesting each with their own unique backgrounds. Some of the most fun I had with this game was wandering around the ship and getting as much background info out of the various characters that I could, even if a couple of them are somewhat flat. The universe is well fleshed out and there is a lot of interesting glossary material to read through for those interested in lore.… Expand

I remember being introduced to this game by being told the complex story by my friend. The complexity of it all made me not interested, but he gave me to let me play. I turned it on, was amazed by the character creation, then got in-game. I instantly compared the species and story to other science fiction, and my first impression was that it was it was a poor original adaptation of Star Wars. Boy was I wrong. By the end of the game I shat my pants by the vast, epic feeling of needing to protect the galaxy from domination. Amazing story (to be expected from Bioware), cutting edge graphics (for 2008), and intuitive gameplay. The chat wheel was revolutionary for the gaming industry.… Expand

One of the best RPG/Action game ever, better than ME2. What I liked : Storytelling, Characters, Depth, Immersion, Very personal game, Makes you feel you have control.

Amazing well thought-out and executed, great voice acting, memorable characters and full of emotion and some of the most entertaining fights you'l experience. Mass Effect is just as much for RPG fans as it is for standard 3rd person shooter fans, with creative and unique classes and extremely fun combination of powers+gunfire. Enemies are challenging, story folds out extremely well and world class graphics. Only 8 cuz of repetitive driving scenes and unnecessary and obscene amount of gear.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Good old Mass Effect. I have to admit that when the game first game out I thought it was stupid for only being released on the XBox. It was not until much later, when the PC port came out, that I picket it up at Direct2Drive. From the second I started playing it I knew there was something special to be had here. I was gripped by the story almost instantly, being a huge Sci-Fi nerd and all. This is a great series, cannot wait to see how it ends. That said, on to the review. Personally I never had many problems with ME1 during my first couple of play throughs, but as I did more the game seemed to degrade in quality. More weird crap would start happening and such. You play as Commander Shepard, a soldier in the Alliance Navy. You are stationed on the MSV Normandy, a frigate class spec ops ship recently constructed. The Normandy was a dual venture between the Turians, an alien race in Mass Effect, and Humanity. The result was a ship that cost about as much as a fleet to develop and build but that also has some very cool tech built into it. You are on a dry run mission to test out the Normandy's stealth systems along with a Turian Specter called Nihlus. He is a guest aboard the ship sent by the Council, a governmental organization that governs the galaxy from a super station known as the Citadel. The Specters are said to be the right hand of the Council, they are a paramilitary organization that answer only to the Council but that have no oversight either. It is up to each Specter to complete their missions using their best judgement. The test run is interrupted, however, when a distress single from Eden Prime is intercepted. Eden Prime is Humanity's more successful colony out in Deep Space. It is seen as a tourist spot and is also a symbol of Humanity's will to explore and colonize worlds. They claim they are under attack by an unknown race. Captain Anderson, who leads the crew of the Normandy, orders them to set course to Eden Prime at top speed. When they get there they find that the colony is in ruins and a massive ship is parked on the surface. From the few video recordings sent from the colony before contact is lost we determine that the ones attacking Eden Prime are the Geth, a race of artificial intelligence created by the Quarians. They have not been seen in Citadel space for nearly three hundred years. Nihlus jumps out of the ship ahead of Shepard and his small team after the Normandy enters the atmosphere. Shepard's mission is to find out what the Geth are after and why they have attacked the colony. The story and universe of Mass Effects is super expansive and could be called a living thing. It is always expanding and it gives you a feeling that it actually exists. The development of the game is top notch and the dialog is very good. Sonically Mass Effect also hits a home run. The only reason I did not rate this a 10 is because of those few bugs I have encountered and plus the many bugs other people have been plagued with. ME1 is a true TPS RPG game with a massive array of weaponry, armor, and support items as well as mods to apply to those weapons. There are some weapons that are not accessible until you play in a New Game+. In your first game you can only get up to level 8 or 9 gear, but in your next play through, if you use a completed save to start from, you get access to up to level 10 gear as well as having new enemies placed into the world to make things a bit more difficult. Mass Effect is truly a masterpiece and no self respecting Sci-Fi RPG fan would not have this in their collection. There are two DLCs for this game: Bringing Down the Sky and Pinnacle Station.… Expand

The game itself is interesting but the cinematic+combat scenarios formajor battles was not optimized for the non-standard character. My main and 2 side kicks would get 1 shot, forcing me to run through each of these 20+ times till I managed to not get 1 shot. Reminded me of the old coin games that were made simply to eat our cash. Was terrible. The world itself was stunning.

If you're a fan of Bioware RPGs and especially if you're into sci-fi, you won't be disappointed by this most recent release if you overlook the few minor UI quirks - however, those against draconian DRMs, who like to feel that they actually own the game or tend to like a bit of variety in their side quests, may have to look elsewhere.

Awesome game, one of the few games that I started over after finishing it the first time. Great dialog system, enjoyable combat, gripping storyline and good voice acting. All too often a game is ruined by bad voice acting, this one got it right.

A fantastic storyline that had me gripped from start to finish and eagerly anticipating Mass Effect 2 coming this year. A must-buy for anyone who's in to RPGs or even newcomers to this genre. It's graphically brilliant, there are moments in the game where you would be simply gasping at the view. The soundtrack is not as epic as what I would expect from Bioware but still very good. I never did more than 3 or 4 sidemissions so I can't say they were repetitive. The replay value is excellent and you even get to save your character from Mass Effect 1 and carry on with the exact same character(and your plot choices) in Mass Effect 2. Definitely not a game to miss and one that has reached the top ten of virtually every relevant GOTY category.… Expand

For such a high budget game, Mass Effect doesn't really offer not even average gameplay. The story is cliched and the pacing is beyond horrid during the beginning of the game. However, there are some great moments, Sovereign is pretty traditional in his goals, but the game manages to have its moments. If you can get past the mediocre gameplay, choice that doesn't change anything, and a somewhat predictable plot, you will have a good experience. It just feels like we've done this before.… Expand

This game will only run after you complete an internet activation - no internet connection, no gameplay. You are limited to 3 activations - the product description does not clearly explain this - customers are being cheated. Beware, the game secretly installs the copy-protection software SecuROM which many people consider to be malware. It is likely to cause problems with your computer and is almost impossible to remove.… Expand

Fantastic game, glued me to the screen for quite a bit. graphically brilliant (the newest unreal engine still has me in awe), acting absolutly fantastic. some of the missions do get a bit repetitive, but you don't have to do them, so their only a problem if you're one of those i've-gotta-do-all-the-quests types (like me)

The most unstable game I've ever had the misfortune of installing. It really destroys all confidence in the reviews that the 'professionals' have posted concerning this game (and any other game for that matter). How they can hand out 9/10 and 10/10 reviews for this pile of steaming turd is beyond me. I think it demonstrates quite clearly how the 'review' industry really operates. Don't waste your money on this half-finished, bug ridden rubbish.… Expand

How to describe how fantastic this game is in just one paragraph? I probably wont be able to, so heres the jist of it. -The graphics are amazing. Not perfect and there are certain times where I wonder if it will crash when it pauses for a bit, but its still, just utterly breathtaking. -Conversations are smoother this time around. It feels like i'm actually speaking to someone instead of standing there like a dolt without saying a word until 3 minutes later. If I were talking to somone who took 3 minutes to respond, I would've ditched them already. -Its not strictly black and white when it comes to choices. You actually have to be able to make decisions based on logic or preference or how you deem your character would react. You can be both Paragon or Renegade to a certain extent on the meters. Neither decreases the points of the other. -The abilities and weapons are great. Being able to throw people out floating in thin air or warping their insides is more satisfying than just running up to an NPC with horrible AI and shooting their face off. -Customization of your own character is endless. Not the depth of Oblivion(Which drove me nuts, took me at least 3 hours to make a perfect face) but enough to make your character truly unique. What I loved the most was the makeup and the scars you could put on her face. (Never really created a male shep before but have tried). -Main missions are interesting and well designed. I guess the only downside would be that they are so awesome that the next time I replay this game i'd probably skip all the side quests and go for the main plot everytime. -The other characters are neat and have the funniest lines! Even just an NPC that you would encounter somewhere could hold the wittiest banter you could ever hear in a game. Most of them don't all look the same and the gestures aren't overly repetitive. -The music is epic. Not much else to say about it. Its not cheesy and portrays the events hapening or about to come perfectly. -Environments for the main missions are spectacular. It went from caveish, to ruiny, to snowy and then tropical. I looked forward to the next one everytime. -Controls are easy to learn and combat situations require some degree of thought before entering. Can't just charge and blast anymore, have to know what weapon to use, who to use and what to do tactically. A few complaints that make this game a 9 for me: -The side quests. At first, I thought some of them were cool, but after a while they got repetitive. Each side quest planet had things to collect and seemed very bare. I understand they were considered poorly populated worlds, but couldn't we see where the Turians or Volus live for example? Just a little peek? -More interaction between companions. I mean, they did talk to each other once in a while and I did get the sence that(for example, Kaidon and Ashley talked to each other like they were old pals) but what about the others? Need some arguments or some jokes, something so that you know they acknowledge each other as more than a face they see every 4 days. -The option to turn on your companions in the end. I wouldn't pick it on my first playthrough, but it would be nice if it was there for my second. A renegage would most likely abandon their friends and go where the money or the power takes them. Other than that, this is a revolutionary RPG/Action game. I'm looking forward to playing through it and getting a couple of the acheivements in there. Can't wait for ME2!… Expand

Mass Effect is a great game, and it does not suffer from "consolitis" as someone else claimed except in the interface menus, which could have been done better. The controls feel responsive, and have been optimized for the PC (along with better squad control and number bound quickslots). The story is amazing, and the fictional universe is on par with Star Wars. Character customization is quite in depth...I was actually able to create a character that looked somewhat like me in real life. You can play it with a run and gun style, or take on more of a support role and use some tactics. Most of the characters on your team are unforgettable, and I cared about what happened to them. I want to play through the game again already and its only been about a month since I finished it. The graphics are good, amazing even at some locations, and you'll be able to bump the resolution even higher than the console version if you have a powerful PC. However, there are some negatives. I had trouble getting the game to start on my PC. I have Vista 32-bit,and I was able to fix this issue by setting the game to "Always run as administrator". The game tends to crash once every few hours. The worst issue by far, however, is the buy/sell menu. You'll automatically be picking up lots of items, and you can only hold up to 150. Trips to vendors will probably be frequent. When you go to the sell menu, all you get is a completely disorganized list of ALL your items and you can only see around 10 on a single page if I'm remembering correctly. This results in a huge time sink as you go down the list, figuring out what you want to let go of and what you want to keep. I've spent over half an hour in a single selling session, but that probably has a lot to do with my play style. Anyway, the pros of Mass Effect outweigh the cons, and you should definitely pick this up if you have a decent PC and you haven't played the console version already.… Expand

Not bad, but not really that great either. I found myself enjoying The Witcher much more, and ME seems kind of bland and shallow and the story is your typical cookie-cutter Bioware stuff (i.e. VERY predictable). Still, it's worth a playthrough atleast and would still recommend it.

This game will not let you save most of the time (even out of combat). So you can not quit playing when you want to do something else or have to use your computer. Customer support told me this is not a bug and will not be fixed. Game went back to the store. Not usable by people who have a life or use their computer for something other than Mass Effect.

The story is about the only thing that makes up for the rest of the games flaws - Riddled with bugs, weapons overheating and staying overheated etc! And the downloadable content package is just one mission, and I doubt the other packets that come out will be free..It's just not the style of EA Games, they'll probably push out a lot of content for pay. CONTENT THAT SHOULD BE FREE!

I found this to be one of the best PC games to come out in a long time. Certainly the best since Oblivion came out in 2006. It plays like an epic movie with a great story. I finished my first play through in 41 hours and could easily have stretched it to 50-55 if I wanted to do all the side quests and explore every system. The combat is great, reminds me of Kotor in many ways. I thought it was great they had all dialogue voiced. It really added to immersion and that "movie" feeling. There is lots of re playability in there as different classes can play very differently and its worth it at least once to play though as a bad guy if you, like most, went though your first time as a good guy. Or to explore more and do missed side quests. Best game of 2008 imo for the PC. Unlike many ports, this one was well done. It plays fantastic on the PC with a good UI overall.… Expand

Limited to 3 activations. Nothing is said about this on the product labeling and descriptions. Consumers are being cheated. How will you install this game in the future when they turn off the activation server?

This game is not only bad in the form of DRM "protection," but the fact that it's incredibly glitchy and barely anything in it is absolutely nothing special. Mass Effect is a big bag of mediocrity spanning a galactic 12 gigabytes of hard drive space. It's a big game, but the characters have terrible lines and voice acting, which makes for an incredibly unrealistic experience. The player ends up having to choose every single line he or she says, knowing that they all will be disastrous to one's ears. The story is blatant plagiarism from various science fiction TV shows and movies being mashed together for an outcome that sounds a lot like Star Wars. The action sequences have no flare, with only four weapons (except for those useless magic attacks) and little to no AI. You fight the same enemy, and they do the exact same thing. The graphics are less than expected for 12 gigabytes. It's based on the Unreal Engine, so expect tons of lag anyway on an HD4870 with 3 GB of RAM and a 3.01 GHz clock. The lens flares are possibly the ugliest things I've ever seen and the texture detail level varies incredibly. One of your partners probably has a 2048*2048 face, while another has possibly a 512*512, making for a massively unreal effect (god I'm that good with puns). There are so many light sources that the ugly fake projected shadows of the charactes jump around like they're doing a dance. And then there are the bugs. One of the missions has absolutely no textures. Another time I had to play through the game with a sniper rifle with no zoom. You have to save before going into an elevator because half the time you won't be getting out. The sound is a problem from the Unreal engine again, where sometimes every single one plays at once, even the ones in places in the levels like a mile away, with no volume difference. Oh, and quicksaving while walking crashes the game. Have fun.… Expand

This game fails to ever run on vista until you preform a work around and Bioware is too freaken lazy to even produce a patch. The game has cheap graphics and predictable plot. The only saving thing about this game is its creative dialog which becomes boring after an hour or two of game play.

Great storyline. An exellent product from BioWare (BioWare never disappoint, never!) where everything is made with the total attention to even the smallest details. I must agree with Barnee B when he said "I find it not just the best rpg, but simply the BEST GAME OF THIS GENERATION". Strongly suggested to everyone. P.S. : Can't wait for Mass Effect 2!

Very good CRPG, absolutely one of the best. Good action, clean and easy mechanics, interesting characters. However, there are 2 problems: too much of chit-chatting and disbalance in classes. E.g. adept is weakest of all. Hope ME2 will have more battles, less talking and good balance.

Oh my god, I haven't had this much fun with a game in many years! It is simply captivating and breathtaking. When I browse about on the surface of a new planet I just love the vista of a huge red dwarf (slowly dying star) on the hemisphere, simply magical. I will never see other planets and outer space, and this is as close as I will ever get to being the space-crusader that I was destined to be, albeit being born in the information age and not the faster than light-space age! The story is captivating and intelligent, the interaction with non-player characters is good and varied: I was shocked when suddenly I had killed this guy just because I said "off him" which was meant for fun, not in all seriousness haha. I love it. Best game for me and beats anything else e.g. Oblivion, HL2 and Crysis, bearing in mind that it is NOT a shooter, but a great movie with you as the main character… Expand

This game is awesome. Yes, there are some bugs, some of which do cause crashes, but none of which are very serious at all. Also, to J.N. and to all of you who are having trouble with instability, you should probably just update your drivers. I had some very annoying instability to begin with, but when I updated my drivers for my 8600GT, I no longer had any instability, and was able to run the game on max stats (2.13 Core 2 Duo, 2GB G. Skill RAM, nVidia 8600GT; pretty low). Also, to the SecuROM alarmists, including our good friend Stephen Y., SecuROM is honestly not that bad. I have Daemon Tools and run Daemon while running Mass Effect, and have no problems. The servers are honestly never down. I have played the game for about 60 hrs and have never had a startup issue. About the three activations issue, I'll admit that I'm a little annoyed myself, but how many are you really going to need? This game is too awesome to uninstall, so that's not an issue, and even if you do heavily modify your computer all the time (most sane people will not heavily modify their computer more than once every twenty-four months), EA will still probably give you more activations. Contrary to popular gamer sentiment, EA is NOT the evil empire of profit-driven game making (yes, they are profit-driven, but so are all commercial companies, even the saint of the gaming world, Blizzard herself). EA makes and publishes some damn good games, thank you very much. Also, back on the point, though it is a difficult and challenging process, you can remove SecuRom. In fact, I have done so just to see if I COULD do it. It took me about three hours, but I managed. And, finally, to Stephen down there, if your vaunted principles prevent you from buying a game, of all things (I can see where you'd boycott Nike for sweatshops, but Mass Effect because of SecuROM is stupid), you, my friend, take yourself far too seriously. And finally, (I promise to shut up in just a second), please, PLEASE, do not blame BioWare for SecuROM. It was EA's decision, and theirs alone. Please, for your own sake, buy this game and enjoy the fantastic blend of Diablo 2, Call of Duty, Star Wars, and Starship Troopers that is my beloved Mass Effect. This is Walter Cronkite, and that's the way it is.… Expand

Overhyped. A lot of fun stuff but at its heart it's a bland shooter mixed with a bland driving game mixed with a bland rpg. Imagine three games from ten years ago mixed together. I think all the positive professional reviews are because the beginning promises more than it delivers if you take the time to grind through it all. Bioware peaked with Knights of the Old Republic and has not been able to recapture that level since.… Expand

A Grand space-opera RPG masterpiece with breathtaking attention to detail and massive amounts of well thought out content and narrative.

This game is fun but not great. Things I liked: the non-linearity of the crucial missions, the optional missions were nice, the relationship building with all your crewmates (including lame romances), the depth of the information about the alien races and the history of the galaxy, the RPG character diversification, the sky was pretty in the various worlds, the final cut-scene, the music during the credits. Things I didn't like: the computer partners attacking inanimate objects, having to re-watch looooong cut-scenes when replaying a difficult boss, the lack of physics-engine-related interaction (you basically just push buttons--you can't even jump! Half-life 2 is on another level because it brought real-life physics into the actual gameplay), I'm not sure the paragon/renegade points had any effect on the game, the lack of multi-player anything, the cumbersome process of omni-gelling items I didn't want in my inventory (this was soooo painfully dumb!), the optional missions got repetitive because the rooms have one of two lay-outs every damn time!--the designers obviously got lazy, and the steering on the vehicle seemed off. That's just about all I can remember liking and not liking in the past 2 minutes. I'm going to try Bioshock next week.… Expand

Very good game, has held me entranced when I normally can't make it more than an hour into an RPG. Has some technical flaws though or otherwise I'd rate it a 10. I've gotten stuck a couple times, once in an elevator and once talking to someone where I gave it a command to do something but it then got stuck mid-command and I had to go back to my last save. Also has serious issues with SLi in specific areas of the game, but otherwise runs fine.… Expand

Oh my god, people! I'll start off saying I'm giving this a 10, not because it's as perfect as it could be, but as perfect as to what you can do with available technology and the resources invested into creating this game. If you're not going to utilize the purpose of a 1-10 scale, you're kidding yourself if anything could match up to this marvel. This is just a phenomenal sci-fi RPG that is remarkably entertaining throughout both the main and side-quest storyline. The reevaluated "good/bad" morality axis, from Bioware's past KotOR game, made for a huge killing of time throughout multiple play-throughs and the choices were satisfyingly thorough. This is what I buy games for; replayability is a key assessment to determine which games are worthy to their design. If you're easily enthralled while watching a good drama, you would hit a whole new realm of emotion due to the depth shown in the characters. I really can't summarize this movie in a short manner, probably because I'm busy dreaming about playing it again haha. I did happen to crash a couple (pretty much just 2) times while playing, however, I was in the habit of saving every couple minutes simply by using the F6 key. These crashes are practically impossible to defend against and isn't at all Bioware's fault for handling operating system faults. I'm assuming any other technical issue people are experiencing are associated with old hardware.… Expand

Good replay value due to the nature of the storyboard design and 'moral' compass. However, this game would have scored a 10 if it wasn't so unstable, and my computer has a lot of good hardware. As previous comments pointed out: textures can take awhile to load, fps drops, and sometimes when fumbling through the menu's and gui the mouse cursor disappears and you're unable to move at all during game play! Perhaps this maybe fix in the a future patch, but as it stands right now the game is pretty solid despite this.… Expand

If you like this style of RPG-lite (think Knights of the Old Republic, by the same guys), then you might just find this to be the best game you ever played. The story is phenomenal. The voice acting is wonderful. The universe building is top notch. The flaw that makes it a nine instead of a ten are the repetitive side missions. The planets all look very similar and the builds are all built from a very small number of templates. The good news is that you don't have to do any of the quests, but, still, a little more attention to this part of the game could have made it spectacular. Regardless, it is well worth the purchase.… Expand

Not a ten due to graphics issues.

The conversation trees/voiceover/storytelling and the cinematography/cutscenes are excellent, maybe the best in any game ever. Some of the music is fabulous. The sound is good. The character art is spectacular. Everything else in Mass Effect is limited and substandard. The single main quest line is incredibly short; map design is a rudimentary rail-ride of long hallways and stairwells filled with boxes so that the cover system can work; the combat is wonky; the side missions are a boring, bare, repetitive steppinfetchit 360-accomplishment-geared affair, where 'replay value' is based on how much time you can waste collecting crap (this is 'content'?); the vehicle sequences-- bigger, longer hallways-- are pure garbage and nothing more than padding. As another review said, "Mass Effect is a bland shooter mixed with a bland driving game mixed with a bland RPG." I agree with the first two. It's a bland shooter mixed with a bland driving game mixed with an incredibly sophisticated and polished, but ridiculously short and content-limited, RPG.… Expand

I don't know were to start. First off, the graphics are ace. The animations look natural enough and the texturing is very neat. The story is just pure joy, especially the final part. The cinematic make it feel like watching a good sc-fi movie, a really good one in fact. The gameplay is easy to learn and straightforward, enough explanation given. This is one of the games that keep you hooked all the time! ive got 50 hours of gameplay already and I'm not done yet! For me this is by FAR the best RPG ever made. good job Bioware!!… Expand

As an intense PC gamer, I naturally thought a game with a 90 would be an excellent choice... WRONG! With decent graphics, this 3rd person shooter is neither fun nor exciting. I tried to get into it 3 times....all have failed. For a game that has components of star wars games and gears of war, I have never been so disappointed.

There's nothing special about the story and I can name at least 100 games with better storyline than this crap. The shooting is extremely boring and requires no skill at all, because the creators tried to make it look more like an RPG, but I can hardly classify this game as an RPG, it's more like a third person shooter with customatisation of the character. Another extremely overrated and overhyped game.… Expand

This is a fun game for sure but I don't think it's THAT great. It's really a very similar game to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel, though it lacks the same compelling story line. Still, it's a worthwhile play if you're looking for an action oriented RPG.

Mass Effect's a good game. But certainly not good enough to deserve a 100. The gameplay is interesting enough, but all the guns feel the same after a while, and the sidequests are the most unimaginative in RPG history. Story is amazing, with the new dialogue system giving it a cinematic feel, with scenes flowing continuously. The voice acting, however, is standard. Not as good as the reviewers are saying it to be. Commander Shephard voices most lines pretty monotonously. Get it if you're an RPG fan, looking for a good story, but at the same time, looking for an FPS view.… Expand

In typical BioWare fashion, they try to put in a bunch of conversations in the game to fill up a rather basic and simpleton plot point, or plot hole based on your viewpoint. Graphically beautiful, the graphics still don't make up for the fact that the story stuff tends to drag down the rest of the game on average. The game is also fairly short, and unfortunately, the replay value is less than stellar because even though they have a hidden achievement system in the game, there really isn't a major desire to go back through it all to see it again just to see an alternative ending or text dialogue that doesn't really influence much else in the over all story.… Expand

I just finished playing through Mass Effect for the first time. It's one of the best games I've ever played. I beat it in 30 hours but I know there was more to do and accomplish. It seemed as though every 5 minutes I was being amazed either by the Sci-fi and science literacy, Amazing visuals, gameplay options and features or story elements. (Those visuals are very intensive on CPU and GPU cores, my system wasn't affected by any slowdown, crashing or DRM issues I did buy it on Steam however, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.) I can't think of a game that last made me care about the personalities, interests and goals of npc characters in same way as this game has. Each of the characters has a very specific and unique storyline, each one has their own motives in certain situations which impact how a mission or the whole storyline will eventually come to a close. The science fiction in this game as a whole is far from soft; they explain practically every piece of relevant technology in the game, and many of them are theories that already exist in science now or modified from excellent science fiction writers like Poul Anderson, Issac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and many others. The voice acting is fantastic, they got several well known actors (especially in sci-fi) to play major characters as well as having at least 40 other voice actors filling in the rest of the minor characters. The game also really puts you into the position of the main character, you have many, many difficult decisions to make regarding your morality and eventual path in the story as well as how every other character will react to you in the game, The RPG element is very powerful in this game yet it remains simple, it never overpowers the action or strategic elements either, a fault many in the same genre fall to. I've seen elements in this game that when I last saw them were expressed only in the most hardcore, ambitious sci-fi games 20 years old by now, but brilliant, engaging games, Starflight, Tau Ceti and Nomad to name a few. Yes, this game reminds of some of the first and best PC games about space flight in a sci-fi setting. All of this comes together to be one of if not the most immersive Action/RPG games ever made.… Expand

This is a b movie. If i want to watch a movie instead of play a game i will go to the video store/ netflix and rent one. there are far better movies that dont require me to click my mouse to advance the movie. Though i know games will continue to evolve, and im getting older and more out of touch everyday, i wouldn't call this a game. I do love the visuals and the fact that they tried to make a story, but i have to stick with old rpgs like fallout 3, wow and such.… Expand

The pc version is even better than, the x360! The combat interface has been improved, and although the visuals are stunning, it runs great on a mid-class pc (athlon x2 6000+, 2 gb ram, 8800 gts 512). The only problem I had with the game was, that during conversations, between each sentence, the character animation is a bit blocky. This is probably the only game I would give a 11 if it was possibble. I find it not just the best rpg, but simply the BEST GAME OF THIS GENERATION. I've never been shocked like this before by a game. Of course you can't directly compare older and newer games. It is even better than Kotor, which is saying something! The story is excellent! Production values are amazingly high! The attention to the smallest details is evident everywhere! There's so much content in the game that it blew me away. Graphics, music and voice-over is also top notch. There are some minor technical issues like occasional slowdowns, but they never break the game so it's probably doesn't even worth mentioning. Combat is also done very well, I enjoyed the game playing as a soldier the most, it became practically a shooter with RPG elements, and for me it is the best combination. The new conversation system works very well, it's hard to go back to the traditional one, found in other RPGs. Do yourself a favour and buy this game, even if you are mildly interested in scifi, shooter or RPGs!… Expand

good game

If Mass Effect supported the use of a wireless 360 controller, and if the player could jump, then it would be an awesome game. Graphics, sound, animation, voice acting, and story are all top notch.

I was really excited to purchase this game from steam a couple months ago. Thinking it would become one of the best RPG games I would be playing and considering the high ratings people has been giving it but sad to say, it's not really enjoyable. This game certainly deserves a a better score if you can suffer through the long but confusing story of mass effect that has hours of gameplay is extricating. The gameplay is fun but gets absolutely boring and excessive and most of the skills u are unlocking becomes one sided because u would be using the same skills over and over again. I recommend watching a few videos before purchasing this game. I love RPG games but this game doesn't suit my style. Graphics are decent but character designs need some more spicing up. I rate it a 6 for good voicing acting, huge environment to work with, and good story dialogues.… Expand

Excellent Game brilliant story, fantastic gameplay just installing the 2nd one now :D

Surprisingly weak game, considering the hype surrounding it. Lackluster graphics. Slow and repetitive combat. The Inventory. Level design. The saving grace for this game is the great character design and the interesting dialogue trees. I'm really surprised this game was so mediocre. Did not expect that. Well, there's hope with the second one.

Simply an awesome game,with memorable charachters and great story. Yeah the gameplay is not perfect,gameplay i would give a 7.5,but i have to give the game as a whole a 10.

Iâ??ve just finished the PC Version, after having play the 360 version through a couple of times a while back. And I must say, I am still gripped by the storyline, I am still emotionally attached to the characters, even the ones I didnâ??t use the first couple of times through. I enjoy the subtle mix of action, threaded with story, smothered in Sci Fi credibility. Everytime I play it through, I find out and discover things I missed the other times through. I have read both novels, and they flesh out the interest in the Universe very wellâ?¦ with the prequel giving us huge swathes of background to the main game arc, and the second novel giving us key insights into cultures only touched upon in the game. There is no better example of a total experience than Mass Effect, it delivers in terms of cinematic thrust, it supplies you with a credible fascinating Universe to explore, and it also lets you walk your own destiny through the main storyline. The visuals, the music, the tactical action, the look and the feel all coax you into this world, a world where you can make a difference, a world where you can BE THE HERO, and watch the compelling story play out. Explore it many times, only slightly differently, with a new lead.. I mean what other Sci Fi experience gives you that? For me, its bigger than Star Wars. For me, its richer than Star Trek, more involved, more credible, less tacky. I am totally sold on the concept, and essentially youâ??ve provided a game Iâ??ve always hankered after since I was a star gazing child. The dulcit haunting tones of the Sovereign finding a resonating set of harmonics with my own vibration. Please continue with good work, and deliver us unto Mass Effect 2 with more expansion on the Universe and its inhabitants and the ability to participate in something so tangible and epic at the same time. All kudos to you.… Expand

This is in my top 5 RPG games of all time. It was absolutely captivating. The twists and turns the moral decision you have to make. The more adult themes in this game just make a well rounded engaging story. This could easily be turned into a couple of hollywood blockbuster movies. I was riveted from start to finish. I cannot think of any major issues I had with this game. Some aspects of the inventory could have been streamlined and the bioitics were a little cumbersome.… Expand

Normally I would never consider rating a game before it comes out but in the case of Mass Effect for the PC I already know everything I need to know about this game to come to the conclusion that no one should purchase it. This is a real shame because my reasons for this are not because I think the game will not be fun, but because Bioware/EA has chosen to encumbered this game with â;??Digital Rights Managementâ?� (DRM) via a very invasive version of the SecuROM copy protection software. There are four limitations this software imposes on the buyer of the game: 1- The first time you play the game it must be â??activatedâ?� over the internet. If you do not have an internet connection, or if the activation server is for whatever reason unavailable you will not be able to play the game. 2- Each copy of the game may only be activated three times. If you try to activate the game a fourth time the game will not let you play. Electronic Arts and Bioware have explained that additionally activations will be granted on a â??case by case basisâ?� by calling tech support and explaining why you need an additional activation. EA/Bioware has refused to explain what circumstances will merit an additional activation and which will not. 3- If â??enoughâ?� changes are made to the computer Mass Effect was installed on the game will need to be reactivated. EA/Bioware have refused to identify what specific hardware changes will trigger the need to reactivate the game. It may very well be that upgrading your graphics card and adding more RAM to you system will be â??enoughâ?�. 4- SecuROM will install itself onto the computer when Mass Effect is installed and will run constantly in the background to make sure you do anything you are not suppose to do such as have programs Daemon Tools, or Alcohol 120% installed on your computer. EA/Bioware and Sony (developers of SecuROM) have all refused to disclose what programs or other actions are forbidden by the SecuROM protection. If you do anything that SecuROM forbids you will not be able to play Mass Effect. SecuROM will not be removed when Mass Effect is uninstaller. Removing SecuROM from your computer is a very involved and technically challenging activity. Previous versions of SecuROM have been known to have compatibility problems with other legitimate programs you might be running on your PC. These problems might result in you not being able to play Mass Effect, or in your computer becoming unstable and frequently crashing. These limitations are completely unacceptable and no one should be willing to live with them. They are designed to stop software piracy but other games that have adopted such limitations like Bioshock were available over bit torrent with in days of release proving these limitations only hurt the legitimate customers who pay for the game and do nothing to stop the pirates. Of these limitations I find the online activation portion to actually be the most problematic. I am a long time fan of Bioware and own all of their role playing games going back to the original Baldur's Gate. I still find it fun to play these decade old games once every couple of years. If a decade from now EA or Bioware have gone out of business how will I be able to activate Mass Effect when the authentication servers are no longer online? Even if these companies are still around they might just decided to turn off the authentication servers as it no longer makes financial sense to keep them running for such an old game. I really want to play this game, but I'm not going to compromise my principles to do so.… Expand

Superb game. Every element is seamless - wonderful to play. BioWare do it again.

If you enjoyed the Neverwinter nights series, and don't mind a change from orcs and elves to futuristic aliens, you'll just LOVE the game, as it is much more detailed and alive than NWN2 (that is one of the best games as well in my humble opinion).

Very original mix of the shooter and an rpg. Graphics very impressive. Story is very compelling. My new favorite game.

In response to J.N., I have had no stability issues at all (save FPS issues but the stems from having a three year old machine, maybe you just have a bloated problem machine you need to fix), yes it is an interactive movie with superb writing and voice acting where I have died maybe twice during a combat encounter (maybe you're just a crappy gamer Joe, or you don't know how to use the tactical HUD). The improvements made over the console version certainly have impacted the gameplay and flow and are a welcome addition, and the inclusion of both RPG and Shooter elements are melded well so that me (a fan of both genres) are pleasantly surprised. This isn't my favorite game ever created, and it does have some issues, such as the quest menu, and i feel the radar on the HUD could have been better, but most of those are nitpicky issues that don't impact the overall experience of play.… Expand

Great plot, pretty good graphics, very fun to play. The "Star Wars" like force powers are very fun to use in battle. It is also very fun to drive the military "dune buggy" on different planets. Not that many "carbon copies" of NPCs. Conversations are funny, intriguing, sexual--very fun. Great musical score. I can't wait for Mass Effect 2!

An interesting story told interestingly but some serious game design problems in the side quests (tasks too repetitive, worlds too similar) real damp the game experience. And after Bioshock there seem to be other ways around to tell a story instead of choosing dialogue options (makes replaying the game also quite boring).

This PC version is actually much more polished and everything is easier to handle than in the console version. Those things alone make it even better, and since it's already one of the better RPG games I've ever played, in PC it really is worth what ever you pay for it.

I thought that the only problem was the textures that still loaded slow and slow frame rate at some point in the game.

All around it's a very solid game, but with some weaknesses. The gameplay is excellent, I really enjoyed chucking the enemies around with the game's physics based biotics powers while also blasting them with a shotgun, and the different powers and teammates and teammates powers you can choose makes for lots of tactical variations. The actual plot is a bit generic at times (great ending, though!) but the characters, dialogue and back-story is top notch, with some very interesting stuff. The secondary quests and explorable worlds have a very generic design (identical designs for many bases!), there's nowhere near the attention to detail that games like oblivion and GTA show in designing large explorable areas. I never had a problem with it crashing. Despite some of the bland and generic design of secondary content, I had a blast playing it.… Expand

Another HYPE game, like Crysis. Mass Effect has all the makings of a good game, but it is just simply awful to play. It has massive consolitis, as well as having the worst action sequences ever. As many have commented, the weapons are simply unusable and ineffective. Battles appear out of nowhere, and you get killed 1000 times, before magically, you don't. Very console like. The save system is insane, you can only save when you're NOT in an action sequence. Which means you start a battle, and cannot save during it, which means you make no progress. The storyline is decent, the voicing decent, and the overall Sci Fi feel is nice. But the action is simply terrible. It is NOT a shooter, nor a real RPG. Its like an interactive movie, which is cool, but it is grueling to get through scene after scene. The most disappointing part, is that beside Bioware releasing a game with massive technical problems and bugs, they delete posts on their forums from frustrated users asking for help. Sounds like a shenanigans to me.… Expand

John M, I would just like to point out the reason you think this wonderful game is horrible isn't the game. Your computer isnt running the game right, meaning you dont have the system specs you need. The review industry for games is much better than the review industry for movies. In other words, I would trust video game reviews before i would movie reviewers.

Highly overrated (maybe because nothing better on the scene). Graphics is OK but nothing spectacular. Story and idea is a mixture of many games, but nothing new.

Top-notch voice acting and animation. The game design is not very impressive however. Gameplay consist of unexciting and repetitive FPS action in a series of look-alike rooms. I actually enjoyed the tank fighting more than the shooter segments, but this is hardly a deep game either. The RPG elements are also exceedingly simplistic. The biotic powers are simultaneously overpowered and uninteresting. The whole "Mass Effect" concept that gives the game its title amounts to little more than the ability to float your enemies around the room while you shoot them to death. That, plus some stuns, are pretty much the entire biotic game. The dialogue trees, in traditional "talking RPG" fashion, consist of two dialogue choices----- both of which do the same thing. Your choices mean nothing. So, to sum up, we have a sham RPG combined with a lame shooter and a shallow driving game. The voice acting is memorable and the villain is actually somewhat frightening, but, honestly, as an interactive game, this is fairly weak. Considering that the story is the only good part of this game, there is the additional problem that the story is far too short. I experienced frequent crashes, save often.… Expand

This game is very fun, epic scenery makes it even funner! But lack of Co-op gameplay on Xbox Live makes it lose a few points. And Gameplay could get very confusing at some times for people new to these types.

A great game, with a few bugs that should have been ironed out, but nonetheless, they can be overlooked as it is perfect in pretty much everything else, and as the first part of a trilogy, it sets the game up well for it's own future, and doesn't leave you with a "halo 2"-esque cliffhanger to get annoyed with.

This game is huge! I can not imagine how it is possible to make such incredible big worlds and still keep this impressive high quality of graphics and gameplay.

Amazing storyline and tons of awesome twists in the story. Definitely buy the PC version though, as it in my opinion is a lot better, with bug fixes and smoother gameplay.

For what the game was intended to be, it's the best of the best. The only slight annoyances had in the beginning was the inventory system which has since been fixed. Mass Effect is an epic story, a full length feature film where you get to direct the ending...

I would give Mass Effect an 8 because it has a really really great storyline, I really enjoyed it the time I played the game. I've spent alot hours playing through this game and I dont regret it. It has some nice classes and like in Knights Of The Old Republic you get a choice of doing things the good or the bad way. Now to the graphics. I gotta say I dont have a high end gaming PC but it could take Mass Effect on Ultra High, and I gotta admit, the graphics are really nice. I especially like the effects of some skills. And additional free downloadable contents make this game even more enjoyable. After all it is a great game, sure worth playing and also worth the money spent on this game, give it a try!… Expand

Awesome, awesome, awesome! Okay, with that out the way, I'd first like to respond to Bruce H and his "doesn't play nice on quads" post; I just played it all the way through in about 45hrs (yeah, I read slow, lol) with a half dozen crashes on my Intel quad (o/c'd QX6700 @ 3.5GHz). Fabulous story, love the dynamic "steerable" nature of play, love the attention to detail, e.g. all the details about celestial bodies, the navigable star chart -- it just blew me away! I loved Halo and was kind of expecting this to be similar, but it's really not; I found I really got into the story, the characters, the whole concept. Superb music -- again, dynamic and appropriate. It only misses a full 10/10 because I had issues with getting the sound levels right on my X-Fi card -- speech too low, SFX too high, no amount of slider jiggling could fix it for good. What a refreshing change from WoW... :s For the record, I run on WXP64. Buy this game! :D Buy the sequel, too! lol Buy the devs a Christmas gift :D… Expand

The game is the best there is. There is no game like this out there at least for now. Graphics is good, fighting and interacting is very well made. The only minus are the copy/pasted space levels. Hope ME2 will correct this.

I have just finished this game for the first time and find it one of the best games I have played over the last few years. I must say that I wish that the game would take longer. It has taken me a little over 20 hours to finish the game including having done most of the side quests. I guess it's normal to wish that the game would take longer as the game is so much fun and the story is incredibly good. I have had no technical issues at all (I got the game on steam and for that version all DRM has been removed which suits me as I don't buy games with DRM). The game ran with 45-50 fps on my E8400 and HD4890. I don't get that people here complain about the story. I would say that the story beats most science fiction stories that I know. Maybe I just don't know enough about science fiction but if I compare this story with for example Star Wars then I find Mass Effect's story a whole lot more interesting. It's been planned as a trilogy and I expect the story to become even better when the next games appear. If you don't have this game and you like RPG's, a good story or science fiction in general then just go out and buy your copy. You won't regret it! (and I have a history of not liking EA games...)… Expand

I loved every moment. Admitedly, the random planet based side-quests would probably get boring if you do too many of them, but some of them are just plain humorous (such as the monkey one) and while driving the Mako can be a little tedious, I find it's also rather fun (Wee! Jump jets! - silly, I know, but still fun). To be honest, I found that the dialogue system worked very well. At times it felt like I was watching a movie, at other times participating in one, and occasionally, was even there at the site of the action. Enjoyed the combat, the level up system worked well and the moral system felt natural. Great game. I'd recommend it to anybody.… Expand

This game should be getting a 8+. The game is fun, and I like the style. The story is not the greatest ever, but it keeps the game moving. The characters are not annoying, but not terribly complex either. Why a 3 then? Video Driver Lockups. Now I have a Core 2 quad core cpu (2.5GHZ), 3GB ram and a GeForce GTX 260. We are not talking low end system here. I updated drivers and direct x. I turned down the settings on the card and the game to minimums and still got lock ups. Sometimes I would play for 3 hours and have no lockups, sometimes I'd play for 10 minutes before locking up. I finished the games main story arc, but gave up on trying to run ANY side missions. I got sick of rebooting. Let me explain. See when we lock up we don't just crash, oh no. We get into a loop and trash the video. Then we constantly (every say 5 seconds) request focus to the window. This has the effect of preventing you from being able to use the task manager to shutdown the game. Or the windows menu. Or anything else. The only way is to hard boot. That is hit the power button. Now if your lucky, like me, your computer will notify windows and shutdown properly...if not then good luck on not messing something up. Over all I'd say take a miss on this just because of the crashes.… Expand

amazingly fun game only problem is that side missions are a bit repetitive and replay value is although greater than 90% of any other game still relatively small. other than that AI is good, combat excellent, cinematics are amazing (want more lol), talk system fun, girls sexy, and story invigorating! long live mass effect!!!

An amazing game from start to finish. I completed the campaign in a bit over 16 hours. I'm an FPS guy, but Mass Effect was amazing. A few glitches, but in a huge game like this one I don't expect absolute perfection, a google search fixes all of them. This is THE best single player experience I've had since Half-Life 2. My new favorite game.

Never have I played a game in such a state of disrepair as this. Not only are there bugs around every corner, but the enemies are stupid, the acting is bad (though some good people make starring appearances, they are very few), and the story is pried directly from the frozen dead hands of the amazing science fictions of old, such as Star Trek and Star Wars, among other less-renowned series and films. I didn't find many plot holes, but everything was predictable and generic. Add to that cinematic effects and you have a gaming masterpiece. This is my first and last BioWare purchase.… Expand

The best storyline i have ever played! Storyline: 10 Gameplay: 10 Combat: 8 due to some stupid enemies and AI i give it 8 instead of 10. Overall: 10 I got grapped by this game so hard, i cant wait until the sequel comes out here in January!

Mass Effect is a very immersive Rpg with a well put together story line and easy yet tactical combat aproach.

With it's port to the Computer, Mass Effect only got better. Combat became smoother, and the mechanics were improved. It's storyline and gameplay are proof that Bioware is, without doubt or equal, the King when it comes to creating RPGs.

Absolutely phenomenal. I've never beaten a games single player more than 3 times, I've beaten this 10 times now. It is just an extraordinary adventure with great game play, storyline, and choices. People are like, "choices don't matter!" Well, maybe there weren't critical ones that made a tremendous difference, but in the second one, it will be clear what choices affected what. Pros: -Great Graphics, -Great Game play -Amazing story -Ultra believable characters -Fantastic voice actors -Immersive environments -6 classes -Fun -Tons of side quests -Choices. -Large array of weapons -Large array of armour -Ability to chose your squad mates -Ability to chose when you do the missions -Goal for level 60 and beating it on Insanity difficulty -Awesome dialogue and responses Cons -Graphics are great, but there are a few odd hitches. Smooth otherwise -Ally AI are sometimes a bit dumb, but they usually listen -No heavy weapons, but Mass Effect 2 does -Some choices don't make much of a difference, but in the second one they will matter a bit more. IE Killing the Council or not. -Sometimes I wish there was a longer Main Story, but I've beaten it 10 times on all difficulties aside from the easiest, and I enjoy it more each time. Highly recommended.… Expand

Absolutely amazing game, I just finished playing Fallout 3 before this, and looking back, I like Mass Effect way more. Also its worth noting that Mass Effect just came out on steam, without any extra DRM crap, just the regular steam DRM which is perfectly acceptable to me. The game has a steep learning cure, and it took me well over 4 or 5 hours to really grasp everything, but after that its smooth sailing.… Expand