Cue bombastic announcer voice: RPG ... IN ... SPAAAACE!
I like SF-based settings more than the usual high fantasy "elves with big swords and even bigger ears" type so Mass Effect had a good chance with me even before trying it. I'm not very much into RPG, certainly not as to have any almost-religious feelings about it like some people, but I generally like RPG games as long as they're not tedious and concentrate more on fun than on math. After finishing Mass Effect I can definitely agree that it's probably the most important thing that happened to the CRPG genre in a while.
It's a "RPG lite" sort of a game - offering some character development but not that much to allow completely new strategies of playing, but the things it does offer are exceedingly well implemented and often amazing. I'm having a hard time remembering a game where there were so many non-straightforward choices to make that affect your near future and with so many shades of gray between the "good" and the "bad" choice to really excercize your morality and world view.
A very sugary touch but extremely effective one is the ability to change the appearance of your character - not only between predefined hair colors and the like but facial futures like "nose size", "lip width" and the like, using a simple graphical interface. It probably doesn't even register on the CPU load of the game but makes the character much more personalized and likable.
The story is literally epic, dealing with effects of actions made tens of thousands of years ago, and can be (at least in time span) be compared to the works of Tolkien and Herbert's Dune. The universe is a rich, lively place with characters that are really going about with their lives and interact with your character's life in surprising and delightful ways. The aliens are more alien than in most similar games, though not too much to be unidentifiable, the number of places to visit huge and they are packed with surprises.
If I must find flaws with it, i'd complain that it's way too short (though never ever boring so maybe that's a plus) and that its inventory system needs cleanup and streamlining, but these are really minor problems. Since it was planned as a first part of a trilogy I'm sure we'll get more Mass Effect goodness in the years to come.
In short, I recommend it to anyone who has even remote interest in RPGs (though maybe not to the hard-core crowd).
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