At its best, Mass Effect feels like living through a season of a Star Trek-like show: you get to experience an exciting story with a well-written and diverse group of characters, all the while making choices that impact the direction of the narrative. It's a very memorable experience that feels like it takes the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book formula to the next level.
On the other hand, the combat is dreadfully boring, and made worse by the PowerPointesque framerates on the Xbox 360 version. I don't remember enjoying a single fight in this game. I spent as little time playing around with my stats in this game as I could--anything to get back to the story and away from the combat. And the Mako is possibly the worst vehicle in a big-budget game that I have ever experience. Nothing can prepare you for the awfulness that is driving the Mako.
I highly recommend this game if you like Sci-Fi, but (unless there are issues I don't know about) I would recommend playing the Remastered version on PC to avoid the framerate issues.
Also, this game has a lot of loading screens. Bring a book.

Reviewed on Jul 17, 2023


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