Well, as you all no doubt have learned by now, my glorious and much hyped Mass Effect has gotten an 8.5 rating from Gamespot. A number of technical glitches seem to be the primary culprit behind the lower than expected rating of this game, but where the game was expected to be strong (voice acting, storyline, character development, innovative combat) Bioware seems to have delivered exactly what it promised it would. However, in all the talk that I've seen on Mass Effect throughout blogs, forums, reviews and even through my direct connection with the almighty, supreme being...(I have him in MyFaves! BFF god dude!)...I have yet to see anyone remember one key, important, game changing fact. Bioware always patches its games. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if we look at the history of Bioware, each and every game that it has released has gotten a patch shortly after the release date to deal with issues that were missed during testing. To me, this is critical, because the main and only criticism of the game that the Gamespot review gave (aside from some rather clunky menus - par for the course with RPG titles) is the technical issues here and there. So if we can expect a patch to come to inevitably fix those issues, then does that leave us with anything other than an excellent game? Edit: By the way, it is odd coincidence that the day Bioware releases its last game independent of EA and the day it ships to my house, it snows for the first time where I live. Coincidence? I think not. My BFF is signaling his displeasure with only seeing one Editor's Choice rpg title from Gamespot in the next generation so far...