In ME you'll use the flux capacitor to prevent a disaster in the space-time continuum and also get to play a good RPG.
The story of Mass Effect is the same epic story about a great evil that has been awakened and now must be stopped by our level 1 wanna-be hero named Shepard (his first name is up to you so I called my character Goat – Goat Shepard). Anyone who has played a Bioware game before knows exactly what to expect from the story in Mass Effect. The story has all the predictable features like a great evil, betrayal, love, friendship and heroics. As Commander Shepard you must find and locate a rogue Spectre that has made contact with the villains of the game. Because the story is a big part of Mass Effect I will not spoil it for you but suffice to say that while the story will not win any Hugo & Nebula awards, it does a good job of driving the game forward and the pacing of the game feels right. The only major problem with the story is the same problem Oblivion faced, and that is the urgency of the main quest. You must stop the bad-guys from taking over the galaxy and it is a race against time so why is it that Goat Shepard still has time to help out a bar-maid with finding her sister, find and scan these little creatures on a space-station, search numerous planets for ancient writings etc.? Don't all of these side missions go against the urgency of the main quest? And yet Bioware pretty much just ignores this part.
When you kill enemies you gain XP and you use them to level up your character. You will get frequent level-ups in this game and my character ended the game as level 39. This means you have more than enough skill points to get everything you need. Depending on your character class you can level up weapon-efficiency and your biotics powers (think force powers), armour and your class (both primary and secondary). Because you get so many points to spend, it becomes more a question about in which order to get them, than what to get and to some hardcore RPG gamers that may be a bit disappointing. I also didn't feel like the increased powers, weapons etc. did a whole lot more than not having it. This might be due to a disastrous decision on Bioware's part and that is the fact that Mass Effect has the same kind of level-scaling system that Oblivion had. All enemies and gear in this game is tied to your level (and depending on the difficulty setting you use) so levelling up your character by doing side missions is out of the question in the game. It doesn't feel as bad as in Oblivion but it still kills some of the fun of exploration.
Combat takes place entirely in real-time and is actually one of Mass Effect best features. It sports the same kind of shoot & cover system seen in Gears of War or Rainbow Six Vegas. It works well enough and gives the fights a hectic feel that turn-based combat can't do. You take cover by leaning up against a wall that make you "stick" to it and you can poke your head out and shoot quick bursts against the enemy. If you crouch your accuracy will increase. You can also use grenades. The combat does have a few issues though. Sometimes Shepard will not "stick" to a wall and will just step out and expose him, and other times he will not leave the wall again for a second or two. Perhaps the biggest problem is the fact that Mass Effect feels like an action game despite that fact that it's an RPG. Your stats don't mean a whole lot and on the other hand the combat still has too many skill upgrades and stat-boosters to scare away hardcore action gamers. But all in all combat works well and are quite enjoyable and much better than what was seen in Jade Empire.
Not everything is resolved with combat and often you will engage in dialogues with NPC's. Mass Effect is a dialogue heavy game. You will spend more time talking with NPC's or watching cut-scenes that can't be skipped. Most of the time the dialogues will be well written and well voiced but they also often become too melodramatic and it can at times appear more like a soap-opera than an action game. This also has to do with the fact that you don't really have much of a choice when it comes to dialogues. Often you can only choose between "Please open the door" or "Open the door or I will kill you" but in either case the door gets opened. The way you pick what to say from a dialogue tree with only a few words to choose from is unique but doesn't always work. A few times I accidently picked the "angry" reply because it was hard to discern the "correct" response.
Because Mass Effect is a sci-fi RPG the setting will be important for the success of the game. Bioware had free reigns when it came down to creating a believable world but the end result was a bit lacking. Overall the setting works well and as a gamer you are ready to suspend your disbelief and accept the universe Bioware created. This is because of your journal in the game or Galactic Codex as it is called. It works like a giant encyclopaedia that record most of the information you get during the game about the various races, planets, history, technology etc. Furthermore all the information is voiced brilliantly and it is quite engaging to listen to. The downside is that there is a fair amount of techno-babble in the game. The sad part is that the actual world of the game is kind of bland and you can't interact with most of it. Many of us have heard to phrase from our teachers: "Show, don't tell!" but Bioware violates this rule big time. They tell the story of the world in the game with a lot of words, but they don't really show it in the actual game universe.
The game does have a few problems. The side missions in the game are very boring and should be skipped by most players (due to the level-scaling system). You drive around a barren planet in a Mako (dune buggy in space) and go to a few locations to do a quest. You repeat this process on many different planets that are only different in colours (skin). The game also uses a few timed quests that can get tedious. The inventory system is also a mess. You can't sort the weapons in any good way so if you want to change weapon you have to sort though all of them. There is no weapon description so often you won't even know what a weapon does or what it is good for. In fact the game is very user unfriendly and the game doesn't have a tutorial. There were a few times I had to use the Net to find answers that should have been in the game. I spend 30 minutes on a side mission and couldn't complete it because the game (nor the manual) had ever told me you could get out of the Mako. I also had a problem with some biotics that were "locked" and I couldn't see why, and again I had to use a guide to find out what to do. The last thing that annoyed me was the mini-map. You can't really see anything on it and I don't know what happened to the great mini-maps of the past but they are not to be found in Mass Effect. If you are going to provide the gamer with a mini-map then make it useful for heaven's sake!
Mass Effect is a very short game for an RPG. It can be completed in about 20 hours or so. If you want to do the side missions it will take longer. It's a hard game to review because on one hand it's actually a very good game with a great combat system and an interesting story and setting, but on the other hand it just feels a little too similar to Knights of the Old Republic with a new skin. The replay value is pretty good due to an interesting combat system and various classes and NPC's. The game is most certainly worth your time and it will be a fun and cinematic joyride but also a rather shallow one. Because EA now owns Bioware I think we will have to accept the fact that we will never see great RPG's like Baldur's Gate 2 or Icewind Dale again from Bioware, and in this light I feel that Mass Effect is probably the best we will get. It's a good thing that not even Windows Vista can destroy the sheer joy of bringing out an oldie but goodie for another play-through like Fallout or Planescape Torment. But if you want something new and with shiny graphics Mass Effect will be a good choice.