I borrowed a 360 from a friend and slapped in my harddrive, so I get to keep gaming while my Elite’s being un-E74’d.  I’m working on my third playthrough of Mass Effect, this time on Hardcore difficulty.  This is actually kinda difficult, as I created a fresh character, instead of starting with one of my earlier, leveled-up ones. 
 
Mass Effect is an awesome game, period.  My girlfriend’s playing with me on this one.  Now you’re possibly wondering, “How the hell does someone play with you on a single-player RPG?”  Well, she sits next to me and provides input on where I should direct my efforts and what I should say to people.  Most of the time, though, she just watches me play. 
 
I think this is pretty impressive, considering my girlfriend is not a gamer, has only played a couple games with me in the past, and has never just sat there and watched me play a game for any length of time.  She does enjoy scifi (we’ve watched Star Wars and Babylon 5 together), which brings me to my point: Besides being a good RPG, Mass Effect is a solid piece of science fiction. 
 
I’d originally typed quite a bit more than this, so I decided to split this into two articles.  Today is just about Mass Effect.  Tomorrow, I compare Mass Effect to Oblivion.  See yah.