This is by far one of the greatest game franchises there is...you MUST start with the first Mass Effect to truly get the most out of the next 2 in the series.

I have been an avid Action Adventure RPG gamer since conception. BioWare has outdone themselves with the Mass Effect series. It's hard to believe I hadn't played this game till three days ago when a friend introduced me to it. In the last three days O have logged 35 hours of gameplay - the story, in combination with gameplay will immerse you into the futuristic world, not just in a linear fashion, but instead allowing YOU to decide your path of advancement. Will you become a paragon or renegade in nature? A soldier, bio weapon, a tech engineer? You can enjoy the main storyline and play the game straight through in a respectively short amount of time. However if you decide to explore the game more thoroughly, you will find something most unique to the Mass Effect games that you have not experienced in any other traditional Action RPG - an enormous expansive galaxy with dozens of detailed exploratory and interactive clusters of planets. It is refreshing to play a agame that keeps you hooked like this and at the same time retains multiple playthrough possibilities due to differences in morality and combat/social expenditures.

If you liked RPG games back in the day such as Baldur's Gate, Arcanum, or the newer Knights of the old Republic - or even are used to the FPS genre games such as Bioshock, Doom 3 this game will appeal to you.

Definitely a must buy, five star recommended.

I played the second before this and wanted the backstory, and I was impressed. The game has great story and writing as the second, and even has okay graphics for its time 4.5/5

Mass effect is an interesting game to say the least. While the RPG elements are slight(In fact it reminds me of alpha protocol.) The action more than makes up for it, kind of. At time i feel the ai is a little too simple while other times i can see it shining out like a beacon of some lost race.

While the game does in fact have issues, it's a somewhat solid game, and i would honestly recommend it if you are: A) a fan of bioware. Or B) a fan of scifi.

Mass Effect is a brilliant game. A third person RPG/shooter set in the future after humanity has spread to the stars, thanks to interstellar gates. The player character is totally customizable and features a handle of different classes to choose, including soldier, tech expert, and psychic warrior, with hybrid classes also thrown into the mix. The gameplay is fairly tight, although the shooting feels second rate compared to true shooting games. The RPG elements are well realized with a wide selection of gear and leveling options.

That being said, the main reason for playing is the fantastic space opera storyline that Bioware has created. The antagonists are well realized and the player character's party members are all interesting and incredibly varied in personality. Anyone will be able to find NPCs that they enjoy in Mass Effect, and up to two of these can travel with the player at any time.

In short, buy this game. It is more than the sum of its parts, and will suck the player into the deep universe.

"Shepherd". As said by the awesome Wrex.

I love this game, can't wait to finish it and start playing ME2. game play is smooth with little interruptions... excepted when you have to use abilities. hot keys solve this problem but i find them a bit of an annoyance due to key layout.

Character creation was alright, not a big fan of the options available for appearance. however the rest of the game more than makes up for it. glad someone referred me to this.

Mass effect is a very entertaining game. I have enjoyed playing it as much as I have Mass Effect 2 also. Good interactions with your team. I would say this is a good game for most gamers that like shooters.

The game has set a standard for Third-Person Shooter/RPGs that no other game in this century has yet to surpass. Allowing you to choose how to complete a mission, either by killing everyone or by talking your way out. No other game allows your character the flexibility and customization that this game has done.

Gameplay: A Third-Person, over the shoulder shooter RPG that allows you an immense customization of your starting skills, class, your background, and how you're seen by the people. When you do have to kill things, the shooting mechanic is good, with enemies that require different strategies to take down without it being too difficult.

Sounds: From the Orchestral Music to the voice-actors, to the sounds of the gunfire, the sounds are enough to draw you into the game.

Story: A spectre, an agent for the Council(A Government body consisting on an alien from each race), has gone rogue and you, playing as Commander Shephard, the first Human Spectre, must find out what he is up to and stop him before it is too late. Along the way, you find more people to join your crew and you must make difficult choices that determine who walks away alive.

Re-playability: High - Every choice you make affects the story, whether for good or bad, and you must live with the consequences as those choices also affect the story in this one's sequels.

A good game that is enjoyable overall. Innovative for its time, although the dungeon areas become very dull since there are only about 3 templates for all of the side-quest locations. The crawler exploration of non-story line planets also tends to be dull. The central storyline is engaging however and the dialogue is good.

A masterful game, once again demonstrating BioWare's reputation as perhaps the best RPG writer in the business. The game is part shooter, part detective game, and part classic RP game, set in a beautifully developed and incredibly rich space opera environment. The voice acting is top notch, and the characters are infused with a life so as to make most every one of them memorable (if not always enjoyable) to interact with.

this game is awesome !!

I have played the star wars the knights of the old republic before i played mass effect

and when i play mass efect

i suprised the evolution!!

i recommend to play this game!!

How to say this? You can't say you know every single great game in the market if you haven't tried out Bioware's masterpiece. And nope, I'm not talking about Knights of the Old Republic: I'm talking about the game that managed to improve upon that formula and were not KotoR my favorite game ever this baby would sit right there on the throne.

Set a couple centuries in the future; Mass Effect puts you on the shoes of Shepard: a commander of the Human alliance that represents at first a beacon of hope for mankind as the way by which they may have a greater say in galactic affairs, but that ends in fact unraveling a sinister plot that if not thwarted could bring about the end of galactic life...

The plot is just perfect: not until Mass Effect 2 was this even close to be equaled.

Gameplay-wise this game is superb! You are warranteed not to find it tedious nor repetitive... the battles, the quests... everything feels fresh and lavishly thought out as you scour the charted and uncharted systems and worlds set before you in your journey.

The OST is brilliant! You'll remember it for eons: the same's gotta be said for the voice acting... simply and absolutely marvelous!

Finally, graphics wise the game still looks good by 2011 standards, so no problem there.

There's no doubt here... 5/5 : grab it NOW!

Mass Effect has a truly immersive and fleshed out world that constantly pulls you back in. After playing this one, I immediately purchased the novels to help supplement the story and remain in this fantastic world.

The gameplay elements, while slightly clunky, are not bad enough to distract from the experience. There's kind of a middle ground between a third person shooter and a RPG that kind of leaves both not as good as they could be.

However, to counteract this, the story, the characters, and the fleshed out world make this a hard to miss game.

While the storyline of Mass Effect, and the general powers and combat system was very well done, I find this game to be highly lacking as far as content. The majority of the game is spent driving around practically empty planets. Exploration and many of the achievements which are actually hard to do, net little to no real usefulness. While it had a very engaging story, in many of the missions I found myself nearly falling asleep from boredom. Having a tank with hardly anything to actually run over or shoot gets dull really quickly. This game also has a habit of locking up and requiring a force end-task or even an outright computer restart to play again. Aside from the technical problems and rather dull empty planets, the plot and story make it worthwhile, though not something I could find myself playing over and over and over.

Mass Effect has one of the most engrossing stories I've seen in a game. Its a blast to play multiple times as well to get more story and choose all of the a**hole responses.

During these times of terrible console port games, rest assured that this console port was done correctly.

Amazing game one of the bests I've already played. It's like watching a movie and playing with the main character. I recomend to everyone this game, both players of shooters or RPG players. This I'll be one of your best investments, I can assure.

As a PS3 only owner, I've always been tempted to buy a 360 to play Mass Effect. I finally got a computer that can play decent games, so it was a no brainer to give Mass Effect a try.

The only way to sum up this game is to say that in no other game have I felt more like a space explorer. The feeling that the gameplay creates in me the player is quite unique among the many hundreds of games I've played and for that this game earns very high marks.

However there's a cost to feeling like a space explorer. The many side missions and planets that you can explore all offer pretty much the same gameplay experience. You land, drive around looking for stuff, get in the occasional vehicle scuffle, enter areas and blast the occasional mercenary and rinse and repeat on another planet. Also, as another poster has said, the interior levels are all recycled. They may change the layout of the interior layout, but it's still the exact same level. This does get annoying after twenty or thirty hours of gameplay, but what game doesn't recycle their levels?

The story telling is fairly top notch. The ability to make choices of course is Bioware's bread and butter, but I still don't feel like there are any consequences to choosing one side versus another save for some points towards good or evil. If I don't blast the person I'm speaking to, they still reward me with money and items, and choosing one way or the other still doesn't seem to affect the greater world or story. It's not that big of a complaint because the story is still engaging, but from playing a game like the Witcher where your decisions directly bring about consequences, good or bad to your gameplay experience, it's still not as satisfying a choice experience in Mass Effect.

The negatives aside though, I haven't been this engaged in a game in several months. However, there is a ton of dialogue and a lot of flapping heads in this game. When there is action, it's pretty exciting, but when there isn't, you're talking a lot with other characters. I'd say it's a 60-40 percentage of talking versus blasting. So for any gamers thinking about trying Mass Effect, if you're a strict FPS shooter and can't stand a deep story element, steer clear of Mass Effect. I'm a very patient gameplayer when it comes to story, and I still find myself hitting the forward button when the characters blab on and on. To any gamer that enjoys a deep story and good tactical action, Mass Effect is a must.

great play style lots of options to make the experience truly yours everything i have wanted in a game. wished it was longer.

For a long time there was no RPG game that keeps me in the front of my monitor for so long time.

Great plot and a lot of action.

The universe is almost as deep as Star Wars franchise. Best Space Opera I ever played, watched or read in my life.

One of the few 10/10 games last years, the only thing that irritates me was driving MACO on the surface. But who cares that small thing.

Mass Effect is one of the best RPG games of the decade. It combines great story telling, battle mechanics (real time, pausable third person perspective action), great graphics, sound effects, music, gameplay and plain old coolness.

Create a versatile character, male or female, choose your strong points and solve the mysteries of the galaxy, be it part of the main storyline or side missions.

You will do exploring and fighting on planets, on foot or in a special armed vehicle, boarding of spaceships, and attacking of facilities.

The only weak points are the recycling of some rooms and textures for some of the side missions.

If you buy this game (and I strongly recommend you do), don't forget to download the free DLC for it from the official site, it contains a long(ish) mission.

5/5 for this game, it's just that good.

Although Mass Effect suffers from a number of significant flaws, it is overall one of the most enjoyable roleplaying games I've played in some time.

Mass Effect's greatest strength is the quality of the writing and acting. When you strip the story down to its basic underpinnings, it's nothing we haven't seen many times before - but the masterful execution of the plot, the absolutely top-notch writing and dialogue, and the high-quality performances of virtually every voice actor in the game make it a pleasure to watch the story unfold. It's rare to see such well-written dialogue in an RPG. The backdrop of the story is well above par, as well - it's clear that a great deal of time and effort went into developing a detailed and fairly credible setting for the game, though it would have been nice to be able to explore more of the colonized planets.

Unfortunately, even though the main storyline is very well-written, the sidequests are often brief, uninspiring and not very detailed, and your six companions generally don't say much during missions and are not very well developed (though they're at least fun to have around). Oddly enough, the best characterization goes to Shepard, the mostly-blank-slate main character. Your ethical choices are more about law vs. chaos than good vs. evil, which is an interesting take on traditional computer roleplaying. Regardless of the moral path you choose, Shepard's lines and voice acting are always convincing and never dull (though I played as a female Shepard, so I can't speak for the male version).

Combat is simple, but reasonably enjoyable. It's played out as a third-person shooter, with a pause menu for selecting special abilities for Shepard or your teammates (two of whom will join you at any given time). You level up with experience gained from combat and quest completion, earning skill points to improve your aim, endurance, et cetera.

Overall, Mass Effect is a flawed but extremely engrossing title. The lopsided gameplay and weak sidequests are more than compensated for by the engaging dialogue and well-written storyline. It's arguably short - it took me a bit more than 30 hours to complete the game, but I did all the sidequests I came across, which many people probably won't have the patience for - but at $20, it's well worth the price. The only thing to be aware of is that the game does require online activation with EA, though a revoke tool to reclaim your activations is available.