Pros: An excellent story, interesting characters and fun combat make for an immersing experience.
Cons: Bad frame rate, glitches and other technical issues.
The bottom line: Yes Mass Effect has some annoying technical issues but it shines in every area that makes an excellent RPG. Mass Effect is a must buy for hardcore RPG fans.
STORY

In the year 2148 explorers on Mars discover artifacts from an ancient space faring civilization. In the following decades incredibly advanced technologies are created from studying these artifacts, technologies that allow Humanity to travel the galaxy. In Mass Effect Humanity is a new member of a larger galactic community of many different alien species. Being new means that some of the more distinguished races look at humans as being a lesser species. Humanity doesn't have a seat on the galactic council nor is there a human Spectre, a special force squad that is the right hand of the council. The council calls on Spectres when they need a job done at all costs and behind the scenes which is why Spectres are basically above the law and only answer to the council.

The story revolves around one Spectre, Saren who has gone rogue pillaging ancient ruins and unleashing a robotic race known as Geth on everyone that gets in his way. You will be taking the role of commander Shepard of the Earth Alliance Navy who early in the game becomes the first human Spectre and is given the task of stopping Saren at all costs. You will be given command of the space ship Normandy and you and your crew will follow Saren to many different planets trying to find out what exactly he's trying to do and then stop his evil plans.

GAMEPLAY

Like all other Bioware RPGs you start out by creating a custom avatar that will represent the main playing character throughout the game. You can make a male or a female and then you can chose from many different facial features, hair styles and skin tones and then top it all off with scars, facial hair or makeup. Then you will chose between three different backgrounds and three different personalities for your character. These two choices wont have much impact on the gameplay or story but other characters throughout the game will make reference to your background and personality.

There are three main classes to choose from; Soldier, Adept and Engineer. Soldiers are the warrior class and they have access to any weapon in the game as well as medium and heavy armor and they can specialize in any weapon but they have very limited biotic and tech abilities. The adept class has access to all the biotic powers such as throw lift and barrier. These powers are allot like some of the Jedi powers in Star Wars: KOTOR. Adepts can only wear light armor and specialize with the pistol and they posses no tech abilities. Engineers are tech specialists who have access to all tech abilities which will allow you to sabotage robotic enemies and enemy weapons but they can only wear light armor and specialize in handgun ability. Engineers will also be able to easily hack into computer terminals and unlock containers. There are also three sub classes which are hybrids of the main classes. For example Infiltrator is a hybrid between soldier and engineer.

Like other Bioware games you will be navigating through hours and hours of dialog. What's new this time around is that you will be choosing your responses in real time before the other character is done talking. This is different than previous games like KOTOR where you waited for the other character to finish his/her sentence and then the dialog paused while you chose a response. This new dialog system allows for a seamless and cinematic dialog sequence.

What's great about Mass Effect and all other Bioware RPGs is that you get to make choices throughout the game where you can be a good guy, a bad guy or somewhere in between. You can be the guy that accomplishes the goal without breaking the law, sacrificing innocents or taking bribes from shady characters. Booring... Or you can be the guy that gets the job done in the most "efficient" manner by mowing down whatever gets in your way or taking the easy route by siding with the bad guys and making some profit by taking bribes here and there along the way. Hey, so what if you have to kill a couple dozen colonists that make the mistake of getting your way when you were trying to take out the evil plant monster. Yeah it wasn't there fault that they were attacking you due to the fact that this plant monster was controlling their minds and yes you could've knocked them out with gas grenades but it was quicker to just kill them. After all you are trying to save the galaxy here so what's a couple dozen colonists compared to billions of other people that you will be eventually saving? It's these little choices throughout the game that really put the "role playing" in this role playing game.

Combat in Mass Effect plays like a third person shooter. You use the analog sticks to move your character around and aim your weapon and you use the right trigger to fire your weapon. Your character has an energy shield which will deplete as you take enemy fire and when the shield goes down more enemy fire will deplete your health. Both the shields and your character's health are represented by meters on the screen. Whenever you leave the Normandy to explore each planet you will choose two squad mates from your crew to accompany Shepard. During combat you can use the d-pad on the controller to issue commands to your squad. If you push up your squad will move to where you are aiming and hold their position, if you target an enemy and press right your squad will focus their attacks on that enemy, when you press down your squad will get behind the nearest cover and pressing left will rally your squad on you. Holding down the left shoulder button will bring up a quick interface that will allow you to quickly switch weapons. Holding down the right shoulder button allows you to order your squad mates to use their biotic or tech abilities during combat. You can also set the game option to where your comrades will use their biotic and tech abilities for defense only or use them however they see fit during battle automatically. Or you can turn this option off and have full control over your comrades abilities by using the right bumper explained earlier. Once you get used to the combat system it can get pretty fun using biotic abilities like throw and lift to toss your enemies around like rag dolls and then spray a few rounds into their chest for good measure.

Allot of times you will be driving a vehicle named Mako through areas and battling enemies in this vehicle. The left analog stick moves the Mako around while the right analog stick will pan the camera around. You can fire the Mako's machine gun with the right trigger and fire a powerful cannon with the right shoulder button. The Mako has shielding which will deplete as it takes hits from enemy fire and if it keeps taking hits when the shields are down the Mako itself will take damage until it blows up. These vehicle battles can be fun once you get the hang of it however the Mako's turret can only pan around in a 360 degree circle and tilt up a little but not down. So if an enemy gets too close you wont be able to aim down and hit him, you have the same problem if an enemy is on a lower terrain than you.

As you progress through the game defeating your enemies in battle and completing missions you will gain experience and when you gain enough experience points your characters will be able gain a level. Each time your characters gain levels they get more and more powerful. During each level gain your charters will gain more health which means they can take more enemy fire and they also gain talent points. You spend talent points on abilities such as biotic powers, tech abilities and combat abilities as well as other abilities such as charm and intimidate which are useful during dialog with other characters. Also the abilities each character has to spend talent points on depends on what class that character is. For example a soldier does not have biotic abilities such as throw or lift so obviously they wont be able to spend talent points on those during level ups.

There are four different types of weapons in this game; handguns, shotguns, assault riffles and sniper riffles. Also there are three main classes of armor; Light, Medium and Heavy. Weapons are governed by three attributes; damage, shots before overheat and accuracy. Armor is also governed by three attributes; damage protection, shields and tech/biotic protection. The higher the rating in these attributes the better. There are also grenades in this game however only the main character, Commander Shepard can use them. You will also be able to use upgrades for armor, weapons, ammo and grenades. There are upgrades that can turn your standard ammo into incendiary rounds, increase the damage protection of your armor or make your weapon more accurate just to name a few. As you progress through the game you will be acquiring more powerful weapons, stronger armor and better upgrades. You get new weapons, armor and upgrades from enemies you kill, out of locked crates as you explore or you can buy them from merchants throughout the game.

PRESENTATION

When it comes to graphics this game stacks up pretty well. Some of the textures in the environments aren't high resolution but all the characters throughout the game are very detailed and impressive and the lighting is pretty good. This game also has a very good physics engine. It's pretty cool when you use biotic powers like throw and lift and you see enemies and objects get tossed around in a very realistic manner. This is an RPG with tons of dialog so you expect the voice acting to be high quality. Well I'm happy to say that Bioware didn't disappoint in this category. They've hired an all star cast to perform the voice overs in Mass Effect, like Seth Green, Jeniffer Hale, Keith David and Marina Sirtis. The sound effects are very good and there are some nice background scores that set the mood.

Mass Effect isn't all a bed of roses in the presentation department. There are a handful of very noticeable and very annoying technical issues throughout the game. The frame rate is consistently inconsistent throughout the entire game, heck even the ending credits had a choppy frame rate... There was one instance where I just got done fighting my way through an underground mine and when I exited the mine the frame rate dropped to 1 frame per second and stayed there. I had to reload my last save game and fight my way through the mine again and this really ticked me off. Besides these frame rate issues there are clipping issues where you will actually get stuck in the terrain when you're walking or running through an area and the only remedy to this glitch is to reload a save game. There's also allot of texture pop in throughout the game. This is when you enter a new area and the textures on your characters and the textures in the environment are really low detail and then a few seconds latter the normal high detail textures pop in. There's one more issue of note here and that's your brain dead comrades when you're moving through areas in the game. Sometimes when running through an area one or both of your squad mates will get stuck behind a wall or object. I guess they're not smart enough to walk around said wall or object?... So I find myself turning around and discovering that someone is missing and when I check the map they are all the way at the beginning of the area. I have to go all the way back a slowly walk them around whatever obstacle they are stuck behind. Under normal circumstances this last issue isn't too bad but what if you're running through an area and get ambushing by a bunch of enemies and your squad mates are stuck behind a crate at the beginning of the area?

Despite these technical issues Mass Effect isn't a sports simulation so it doesn't have to be technically flawless. Mass Effect is an RPG that revolves around a great, epic story and memorable characters. When you look at the big picture Mass Effect shines in all the areas that make an excellent RPG. So as long as you are playing this game for the great story, memorable characters and quality RPG gameplay you should be able to overlook it's technical shortcomings.