Mass Effect is an incredibly long RPG style game set in a futuristic world with multiple alien races and plans within plans, schemes within schemes. What you choose to do affects the storyline.

You start out with a basic setup - you choose your background and character type. This gets you on a certain route. As you go through the game, interacting with people, you then have your character develop based on what you do. There are all sorts of intriguing skills to learn, to tweak your character even further.

I cannot overemphasize how HUGE and involved this game is. There are a plethora of side missions, of characters, of planets and locations. It really feels like a large, developed world that you are one small part of.

We have played and replayed this game many times. It is easily a game you can play for months on end, put aside for a while, pick it up again and enjoy it just as much on a new pass.

The graphics are great. The way the characters move, the worlds around you, all were done with a great eye to detail. The voice acting in general is great. There's even romantic options in here if you're interested, to fall in love with one person or another.

The one part that gets a bit tedious is when you go down to random planets to search for items. You have a sort of jeep / tank vehicle that bounces around on the planet. The planets all seem exactly identical, just with different paint jobs and random mountains. I realize they already filled the game disc up with all the rest of the awesome game, but still, it gets a bit silly after a while to land on yet another green / blue / black / white planet with its random mountains.

Still, that's a minor complaint in what is an awesome game. There is a great storyline, great gameplay, a great feeling like you are affecting what is going on, great graphics, great audio. They did an exceptional job with this, and we literally have enjoyed it for months. I definitely look forward to a sequel to this. Highly recommended!

Buy Mass Effect from Amazon.com