Name: Mass Effect
Genre: RPG/Shooter
Platform: Xbox 360

Bioware is regarded as one of the best developers in the game industry. Their work on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights earned them respect and acclaim, with fans eagerly awaiting anything they were to have their hands in. Tired of working on borrowed licenses they decided to make their own epic: Mass Effect. The gaming community anxiously watched what was hailed as the favorite in the Game of the Year race of 2007.

The universe in Mass Effect has a truly interesting and involved history.  Learning about the worlds and races is fun enough to warrant reading the novel that serves as a prequel to the game. The character design of both the humans and aliens is fantastic and imaginative and helps bring the universe to life. If the main goal of Mass Effect was for Bioware to create its own unique franchise then it was a resounding success. It contains one of the best science fiction plots since Star Wars, telling the epic tale of Commander Shepard and Humanity’s struggle to break into the realm of intergalactic politics while hunting a traitor named Saren.

It plays like a mix between Gears of War and Knights of the Old Republic. Combat is done in real time but with an RPG screwball added to the mix. It takes a while to get used to and on the harder settings proves to be stupidly difficult. Controls aren't an issue after the first hour or so. After a while you will grow to accept, through trial and hilarity, that the "back" button doesn't open the map like it does in nearly every other game released for the system. Instead, get ready, the back button throws a grenade. Even after learning this, from the conditioning of being a gamer, you will find yourself wasting precious grenades in the middle of friendly towns while trying to see where the market is.

Driving controls prove difficult early on. Following a similar scheme to Halo’s by having the vehicle follow a blue marker, the MAKO is the primary mode of transportation while on the many planets in Mass Effect. It is touchy and can be tricky to get the hang of due to its sensitivity. Every time you think you have it down the vehicle will go in the wrong direction or tumble off a cliff. Even with its kinks, driving the MAKO vehicle will find its way into the hearts of every person who uses it to explore the far reaches of the galaxy.

Many videos have shown off the conversation system, allowing for a player to choose what their hero would say in the middle of a discussion. At first it will seem like the player’s choices have no influence and at times Shepard may say something entirely different then you had hoped he would with your choice. As the game progresses your words have more value to them – shaping the plot in a number of ways. What characters live and die, how NPCs treat you, and how you are seen throughout the universe can all be swayed with word choice.

The game's default difficulty is intimidating and playing on the easiest setting (with tweaking, of course) is my recommendation for a first run through. On Casual, enemies are less tenacious and die at a normal pace, teammates prove useful and act as true allies, and the game will go from frustrating to entertaining. I actually considered quitting the game when it was on the medium setting, so I highly suggest setting the game to casual if you are aiming to have fun - save the more advanced settings for a second play through.

Graphical and textural pops, as made famous in Gears of War, serve as a distraction from the beautifully modeled characters that fill the universe. Every cut scene starts with five or six seconds of flat, low-resolution textures on not only the players but on the scenery as well. The fact that this is even considered acceptable is astonishing, it makes the game look sloppy and unfinished at times. Few things can break a mood more then a camera shift dropping every texture in sight to that of a Nintendo 64 game.

Levels are also populated with something that may hold you back more then any enemy soldier: elevators. You will moan every time one appears on the radar because it means there is about to be thirty seconds of sitting and watching your characters ride in an elevator. This style of gaming (seemingly inspired by Stanley Kubik's 2001) may have been done to cover up load times or lessen the graphical pops, but it ends up being awkward and annoying.

One of the weakest points of the game stems from its lackluster saving system. Early on it alludes to an auto-save feature. I guess, in the bare bones definition of "auto-save," this is a true statement. As for making it do what it is meant to do: saving the game at regular intervals so that death doesn't end up sending the player back in time twenty minutes to an hour, it fails. In Mass Effect the auto-save feature kicks in whenever it sees fit, before some boss battles but not all, after entering some levels but not every.

In a standard RPG this isn't an issue because of the uncommon occurrence of death. A shooter, on the other hand, is filled with the possibility of your character dropping. The frustrating fact is that you will be forced to save the game manually often, breaking the flow considerably. Every time you start to have fun in the game remember to save because the same level won’t be fun the second time around.

Initial reports involving the game’s length were, as guessed, highly exaggerated. It is a common trend in the industry for developers to blatantly lie about the length of their games. Originally it had been said there would be eighty hours of gameplay in Mass Effect. In reality a single run of the main plot will clock in at around fifteen hours. That is just the main quest though. Technically the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is only a nine-hour game. With the dozens of choices that Mass Effect poses that will leave you second guessing yourself and the different gameplay options associated with each character class it wouldn’t at all be crazy to guess a second or third play would be warranted. There are also dozens of planets in the universe to visit, each complete with side quests that are either self-contained or part of larger arcs. Many players can play the game from start to finish and never visit some of the uncharted planet in Mass Effect and they would be missing out.

The ending prepares players for the following sequels which will complete the planned trilogy, but that doesn’t stop this game from feeling complete. With the current trend of planning for future installments and leaving the present unfinished I can happily say that its ending is one of the most solid I have played through this year.

When I say that changing the difficulty changed the entire game for me it is not an exaggeration. On the harder setting I had considered quitting the game and giving it a low score – calling it unplayable. This may have been partially my error, but it also lays on the game's many faults. Mass Effect didn't attain perfection as a game. It did gain a different kind of perfection. Storytelling and plot bring the game to an entirely new level of gaming only hinted at by others. The Game of the Year Race, which some believed started and ended with Bioshock, has been reopened. However, after playing through the rest of the game I truly believe that Mass Effect is the best science fiction game ever made.