Mass Effect is simply an unfogettable experience, with every aspect included to make a game a masterpiece.
As you start off in Eden Prime, it's slow paced action and complex combat system may throw people off. It isn't a very good place to start for casual gamers, due to you literally being thrown in with you hardly knowing whats going on, and with a limited tutorial, you have to pretty much get the gist of it yourself. Even when I made it to the next planet, where all the assignments are introduced which involve helping and finding certain people, I still wasn't into it. It felt incredibly slow paced (I'm not of the ADD generation who expects all hollywood movies to have explosions every five minutes, but with literally little going for it, including story around that moment in time, it was slow paced) and just chore after chore to do. However, what kept me coming back was the dialogue. It was scripted superbly, and the dialogue choices you make truly make you feel heroic or a complete and utter bastard. There's so many choices you can make, simply by watching, or not, what you say. This section kept me coming back and sticking to the game, and once I got off the Citadel, everything came together. Upgraded biotic techs made the game so much interesting, and deciding who uses what gun and armour just became vital to gameplay, the story finally erupted into mass chaos, and best of all you decide even the main storyline, feeling like a director of your own movie. It took it's time, but around the two hour mark, it truly kicks in. I suspect this is the same for the average RPGer.
The graphics and level design are visually stunning, the backgrounds to civilized planets particuarly. The same buildings can be used repeatedly, especially during side missions (some times a little too much), but they always remain essential to making your way through a quest. Character models are done with great detail, although sometimes it's hard to tell who is suppose to be ugly and who is suppose to be pretty. Although it is the facial animation that bring it down. Not terribly bad, but it stops the overall visuals of the game being perfect.
The sound is one of the highlights of Mass Effect. It's perfect in every way. The soundtrack alone is worthy of acclaim. Very synthy, and almost reminded me of a more progressive Blade Runner score, it's always beautiful without trascending the cheese mark. Sound effects are fluent, and give a very sci-fi feel to it. The gun blasts are futuristic, and its incredibly how they have not thought of them as loud bangs but instead ray sound effects. The buggy you will have to use quite often is accompanied by superb sounds, making it sound agile yet slightly fragile. Background noise is slightly lacking, it would have made it a much more calculated atmosphere, but with every other aspect in the sound department reaching top marks, it's not something to whine about. The voice acting is without a doubt the best I have ever heard in a game. Each voice corresponds accurately to the looks of the character, which alone is a superb feat considering the amount of races in the game. The dialogue is just sublime, never at all becoming cheesy (which many, many games cannot seem to achieve) and always relative to the situations in the game. At first, the fact that the protagonist is voice acted was off putting, but when you come to realise the depths of convesation, it never interrupts the flow and it actually becomes the most clever idea in a dialogue ridden RPG.
The gameplay is a great feat, combing talents (basically spells to RPG heads) with firearms which makes the system much more varied and fresh. There's hundreds of ways you can complete a fight. As mentioned before, it takes a while to become accustomed to the RPG heavy orientated gameplay and combat combination, but it becomes extremley addictive and you can't imaging the game being made any other way. Dialogue options remain open to whether you want to be an ultimately honarable soldier or a complete anti-hero. However, the fact that the good dialogue options are at the top if the ring and bad at the bottom, makes it much easier to make your character either side. Seeing as though it's a huge part of the gameplay, it should not do this and make it a little more challenging. Also, seeing as though it's rare to accidently go for an unwanted choice, and chances are you want your character to be either good OR bad, it creates a one dimensional personality to them. But with so much immersion and diversity involved in this factor, its few flaws hardly detract from the experience.
The plot is immersive in every way a story driven game can be. BioWare expanded on the Star Wars universe no other developers could, created a superb legacy and mythological creation in Dragon Age, and here created their own entire futuristic universe (literally). I shan't ruin anything about the story, but the cast of characters and thier background are simply awe inspiring, and you'll come to love them. That's not to even mention Saren, one of the greatest game villains in the history of gaming.
The content here is phenomenal. It took me just under thirty hours to complete every side mission and story. But it rewards on further playthroughs by using the same character with all his attributes. There's so much to do and see. Then there's the expansion packs, which are unfortunately pretty average. "Bring Down the Sky" is a nice little mission, with a new terrifying species involved and I hear the other expansion pack is not worth your money at all. For achievement grabbers, prepare to lock yourself away for a couple of months. All the major gamerscore come from completing the game in certain ways, such as certain difficulties, with certain characters, being bad and then good, completed all side missions etc. While none particuarly hard, they are very time consuming and there's little point if you're not a patient person.
Overall, Mass Effect is an absolute masterpiece. It's official cemented that while I do not like the RPG genre, any BioWare game I can take. It's an achievement in pretty much every aspect, and where little its not, I'm sure the sequel has taken care of it. Do not avoid this game, and if like me, a casual gamer, just stick to it and be patient, I can't think of a game thats more rewarding than this.