I just bought Mass Effect for the PC (it's been out for XBox for some time now).

It's a Sci-Fi RPG from Bioware, makers of awesome games.

It's freaking awesome. The mechanics are awesome - it's a firsthish-thirdish person shooter with statistical adjustments based on character stats - meaning, you do have to point the reticle on the bad guy, but damage and accuracy are influenced by your in-game stats.

The "social" aspects - talking to people, and the responses you can choose from, are very developped and have a huge place in the game. All conversations are handled with beautiful cinematics. You also have a Good vs Evil meter, letting you play a badass (though not Evil in the Star Wars sense, just selfish/badass) or a good guy (again, not stupid good)

It has a very Knight of the Old Republic feel, but, as good as those games were, Mass Effect is even better.


It's really awesome. I strongly recommend it.

I got it for my 360, and love it. Great game.

I guess I should steal a copy and play it then. I've been looking for some good 360 titles that doesn't require Live to be enjoyable. I was pretty hesistant with this one at first because the shooty part made it look awkward.

From what I understand, hardcore FPSers won't like it because, as the OP says, your aiming is not totally based on your RL skills. And the dialogue, though fantastically deep and really interesting, often does not strictly matter, you can just choose the top option every time without listening. But RPG fans will go gaga over it. The only pretty universal critique is there's an annoying driving minigame where your car flips over really easily, which you can't avoid playing multiple times.

There is indeed tons of fully optionnal dialogue, and background information that gets posted in your character's codex. You gotta want to read it cause you want to read it. Though you do get XP for talking to people.

My biggest issue with it is still the pain in the ass DRM that they packaged with it.

I have the unopened box sitting on the shelf, and my pirated copy installed on my Hard Drive. It's a sad state of affairs when the illigal copy is easier to use, and less likely to screw up my machine. I got burned bad with Starforce a few years back and ever since then I've refused to install anything with DRM. I still buy the game, I'm not going to steal peoples hard work but I'd never install it off the disk.

What issues are you having?

Back in 2006 the copy of Starforce packaged with Space Rangers II corrupt my registry requiring an etch a sketch treatment of the hard drive.

I haven't had any issues with DRM for Mass Effect because I downloaded a cracked copy. Like I said though I still bought the game, just haven't opened the package. I don't believe in stealing the hard work of the people who made the game, I just chose not to install the crippleware that came packaged with it.

In case anyone is wondering, when I last looked into it ME comes packaged with a CD key, that's fine, I can deal with it. I don't like CD keys, I separate my CD's from their boxes and put them into binders which makes keeping keys with disks a pain but it's not a huge issue. The problem I do have is the fact that every 10 days after the install the software checks with Bioware's servers to make sure the copy is still legit. This means it needs to bypass my security settings (I never game online, so I set my computer to autoreject any connection requests from a game) which I don't want.

I have the xBox 360 version, and i can't get enough of it. Played through the game twice, and am working on the 3rd (different characters each time on different difficulties, cause it's all about the achievements in xBox live land).

It's just too bad that Bioware is now owned by Electronic Arts. Personally, i feel that everything EA touches turns to shit. So hopefully they will leave Bioware it's own entity under the EA umbrella to do what they do best.

Although i'm taking a Mass Effect break at the moment to play though LEGO Indiana Jones.

Loved every aspect of Mass Effect (played it on 360). Except the repetitive side missions. The designers didn't even bother putting new skins on outposts or mine shafts so every mission outside the main story takes place in an identical looking locale. Blah! Still, if Bioware puts out a sequel that's equally as good I'd be the first in line to play it. I'm sick of fantasy RPGs and I love ones that bust out of that tired genre mold.

I'm have never had any problems with car flipping over and i have complited the nearly three times. And the minigame is pretty fun most of the times.