'Unique' and Very exciting game, with Cinematic Gameplay.
Gameplay : Like many RPG's Mass Effect uses a leveling system, you kill enemies, earn Exp and recieve points to use on upgrading your character.
You also collect items, however it doesn't have a major impact on gameplay, so you don't have to constantly search for the best items.
You can find weapon and armor upgrades for yourself and the team that enhances the items.
Besides yourself, your team contains 2 other members of your choice of the characters you've gotten to tag along on your journey, these level up as you do and you can choose to sort their talent points yourself or let it be done automaticly.
Besides the main Story there are sub-plots, Side missions and other tasks to take care of, if you decide to do them all, there is plenty to keep you busy for a while, including the story.
You also have the ability to travel to several parts of the universe, from your ship, and land on every planet, to either investigate or complete a mission you've been appointed.
Some parts of the game require you to drive a rover, and blast your way from A to B, this is essentially very annoying, the rover controls are a bit weird, and the cannon on the rover can't be moved up and down so targeting or hitting certain things can be difficult, but once you make it past this its a small price to pay for this game's greatness.
The main part of the game is the dialog and your ability to answer freely from a few options, this shapes the future of the story later in the game, It also has a very engaging story, which makes you feel like you're looking at a movie and playing a role.
Cover is also an important part of the game, and a nice feature that should be in most 3 person games, depending on difficulty you are mostly forced to take cover once in a while to stay alive.
Team Commands, these are somewhat less useful, you can only move both members at once and sometimes they get stuck in places and you gotta go get them, i use them only to move forward and cover me sometimes.
Sound : Mass Effect has a great soundtrack that goes along nicely with the environment. Weapons sound very powerful and realistic for the Sci-fi theme. The Absolute best part of the game is the voice acting, its perfect, loads of celebrities, great acting, great script, this alone should be a reason to get Mass Effect.
Graphics : Graphics are outstanding, and thats only on standard HDTV without HD-mode, Character models look ultra realistic while in conversation good lip movement, good facial expressions aswell as eye movement, environments interiors look beautiful, like inside the Citadel. The graphics however sometimes takes time to load making environments look odd from time to time.
AI : Artifical intelltigence usually work well, but sometimes it gets screwed and your team members might get stuck here and there, stop following you, enemies might stop firing at you and just standing there, or running in circle, this is something that can be forgiven, since it happens rarely, hopefully a patch might correct some issues.
Bugs : bug are the main part that pull this game from its throne, Combat problems, AI issues, bad Vehicle controls and targeting, Graphical issues, these among others, drag the game down, but dispite these problems the game still rises tall with its very innovative and excellent gameplay, you should definitely not be put off by the bugs, while annoying they are easy to overcome.
Conclusion: The most cinematic game, with some of the best voice acting and engaging story there is, these among many other things, make this a Superb Game, a game everyone who either like Sci-fi, or a Good story aswell as gameplay, im not a fan of Sci-fi, but this game was incredible, a must get. 9.0 Score