made me dump my drive core in orbit.
Mass Effect is one of those games that can easily be misconstrude as pretentious. It can be easily dismissed by KOTOR fans who are annoyed this wasn't kotor 2. Casual gamers can get intimidated by the vast sprawling deep of galactic exploration....at least until someone gets them to sit down with the game for 30 minutes.
Mass Effect...well, affects you. It gets under your skin in that all engrossing way that happens with titles this good. It'll remind you of the first time you called in sick to work because you had to go deal with the gangs in Grand theft auto 3. It'll bring back memories of the first time you went without sleep for the sake of halo multiplayer. And it will overwhelm you in the same way Oblivion did the first time you rode your black stallion across the plains of Cyrodil. Mass Effect is not only total escapism, but complete immersion as well. It's a wonderfully crafted hybrid of sci-fi adventure and role playing goodness that Bioware is so well known for. The story is as epic and grand as final fantasy 7, if not considerably easier to follow. The action is utterly satisfying. Truly.
The action/rpg ''turn based'' menu process is very well implemented. It's not really turn based, but if offers you the same latitude to strategize that a turn would. It takes some getting used to, but you will grow to love it, and miss it in other titles that aren't so adept.
It has some technical glitching, i.e. pop up...like all the time. but you can overlook it almost always. It's larger issue is vehicular combat in the rover. The rover was...a mistake frankly. The gun can't aim on the y-axis, and in plains where you take on uber worms (maws) it bugs pretty bad. It's an unfortunate blight on an otherwise stellar title and denies it a 5 star score.
That aside however the bottom line is this. If you liked star wars, and you've played through final fantasy 7...then odds are Mass Effect is for you.
