Pros: Interactive Conversations, Ability to Define Comm. Shepard, Action/RPG blend, Great Sounds
Cons: Annoying interface (i.e. cannot skip redundant travel scenes), Relatively Short Story, Loading Non-Transparency
The bottom line: Mass Effect has a grand story, with decisions laid at your feet. Unfortunately, mechanics prevent this game from being an industry defining game.
Gameplay (30%): 8.5
Graphics (15%): 8
Sound (15%): 9.5
Controls (10%): 6
Longevity/Story (30%): 7

Overall: 80% (4 stars/Above Average)

The game developer named "Bioware" is very well respected in the RPG community. With great games, such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic or Neverwinter Nights, the arrival of Mass Effect was highly anticipated by many XBox360 RPG fans. So high was the anticipation that Bioware was expected to meet some lofty goals. Thankfully for us, they did not fumble on this effort, though at times it does feel like the game was rushed.

The environments, and voice acting, help immerse you into the galaxy that one Lt. Commander Shepard is tasked to defend. How you design his or her background, class or even personal appearance is purely by your hand. The choices for facial design are highly numerous, and you can create your on screen avatar with nearly life like replication of nearly any person you have in mind. Bioware is commended for such a wonderful effort in character customization.

Another immersive style into the environment are the choices that your character must make in the face of combat, diplomacy or even love interest. Each choice you make defines your character as either a Renegade or Paragon (good guy). You can choose to be as vicious in dealing with prisoners as you desire or as diplomatic as you feel the situation warrants. Feel the need to kill someone out of spite against your avatar, that decision can be made. Feel the need to curse out the very people who command you, do so at your desire. The great thing about all this is that this system really makes you feel like you have a role, which has been missing (oddly enough) in many Role Playing Games.

As the game is strongly driven by conversation, all of which is vocal, it is important that the voice acting is up to standard. Thankfully, Bioware did hire some great vocalists who are able to convey emotion, anger, or passion without being cheesy or unbelieving. The bad guy, Saren, sounds like someone who you would not dare cross, even during his moments that you encounter him. The Council Human Ambassador comes across as a politician in every sense who will be opportunistic and a pain depending on which side you land with him. Your Captain who commands you sounds like a strong willed individual who has seen his days of combat. To compliment the standard conversations, you can even hear conversations as you walk by non-standard NPCs. At times, the information you pick up from these conversations are invaluable to advancing your cause. You will hear news reports of your (and others) conquests, downfalls or investigations that can be of benefit or simply there for immersive style. The only slight negative with the vocals is that during combat, they get extremely redundant...FAST!

The mood of most any game can be made or broken by the music that is set during each and every scene. Bioware has done this tastefully, with a sort of 80's Electronic Epic music set. The added touch to this is that when you get on elevators, you will hear the futuristic version of elevator music that makes you wish you were off of it quickly. That adds another point of negativity, but I will save that for later.

The mechanics of combat are performed in real time, FPS type action. With "skill wheels" being tagged to the Right Trigger which, whilst selecting at ability, stops combat. After selecting the ability of choice, the action resumes with your ability (most of the time) activating. The ability used will have a 'cooldown' period that corresponds to your ability scores and equipped items. Unfortunately, the abilities have to be activated quickly and the interface does not leave much room for error.

As an action element has been incorporated, quirky or non responsive controls will hinder your success. Unfortuantely, I cannot say that the controls are perfect. The aforementioned necessity to continuously choose an ability to activate it is not fun and should have been worked out. Furthermore, the control interface is a bit cumbersome and can result in many deaths during intense combat situations. Even commanding your AI squad members will require multiple issuance of the same command before they respond. Hardly a worthy effort and unfortunately, it does not seem like Bioware will correct it any time soon.

Graphics can help tell the wonderful story that Mass Effect has. Most of the time, they demonstrate the graphical powerhouse that the XBox360 truly is. Pay attention closely, you will see texture pop in that could distract from the full experience. At times, slowdown will occur during even more intensive combat or on screen situations. I have found that this will make it entirely difficult whilst positioning for that shot, or for that ability that you MUST use to save your butt.

While exploring the galaxy, the story can be completed in a very short time (about 20 hours). You can ignore any side quests or requests from superiors without any adverse affect on you or the story. At times, it seems like these extra quests detract from the story itself rather than fully add to the experience. Even more distressing is that quite a few achievements depend upon you doing these sidequests... which does artifically add time to the game for those who really enjoy that thing.

The environments themselves deserves a note of attention. While the Citadel (main Galactic Council) is designed with different rooms all throughout, you will find that the other worlds, which are far fewer than the map would suggest, are not met with this differentiated design. Certain Pirate Bases have the same floor design, and underground bases can be predicted with the same as well. Even more disconcerting is that mining designs look mostly the same as well. At worst, they could have included an automatic room/mine generator to differentiate the sidequest/quest room designs. However, this will allow you to predict where you will find the opposition with relative ease.

Overall, Mass Effect has a brilliant story with sometimes sub-standard RPG design issues. Though you are creating a character of your choosing, the universe itself at times is redundant. Elevator or hyper jump load scenes cannot be skipped, making you wish you had the option after seeing a few times. Hopefully Bioware will learn from these mistakes and update them during the sequels of this game (due to be a trilogy). I would recommend this game, though not as strongly as I would have liked.