Mass Effect is a game I have been waiting for a long time now, but it was all worth it! From the moment I got my copy, I couldn’t let go the controller. Mass Effect looks, feels and plays like it’s supposed to and I’m going to tell you why.

First off, Mass Effect is a RPG with shooter elements , and not the other way around. The game is based a lot on dialogues between characters, with other NPCs, discovering new areas, recovering ancient artifacts, meeting new races and so on. One thing in particularly is the Codex, it’s like a game library, where every aspect of the game is explained in detail. The alien races, their habits, ships, planets and politics… it’s “Huuuge” (to quote the late Steve Irwin). Bioware has even gone that far to implement a voice that reads all these information… for lazy readers I guess.

Now let’s talk about the game as it is. You play as Commander Shepard. You can customize you own character or select the predefined one. In customization you will spend quite some time if you stop to read everything about the character’s pre-service history, psychological profile, military specialization and every other aspect of customization. Depending on your choices you get some funny faces or some good looking men or women.

The whole game is based on your actions and effect, ethical decisions, developing your character on the good side or become a rebel. You can guess where the game gets its name from.

So, you can choose what type of military specialization you want to have. There are 6 types:

• Soldier: Combat specialist. Can use any type of weapon, wear medium armor and can specialize in heavy armor.

• Engineer: Tech specialist. Can use only pistols and wear light armor. Can heal your squad, disrupt enemies’ weapons or shields, decrypt security systems and repair or modify technical equipment.

• Adept: Biotic specialist. Can use only pistols and wear light armor. Through upgradable implants, they can use biotic powers to lift or throw objects, shield the squad and disable or destroy enemies.

• Infiltrator: Combat/Tech specialist. Infiltrators are trained to use omni-tools, focusing on decryption and offensive abilities. They can use pistols or sniper rifles and wear medium armor.

• Sentinel: Biotic/Tech specialist. They use biotic abilities and advanced healing skills to defend allies, though they can also disrupt opponents with biotic or tech attacks. They are more efficient with tech and biotic than any other class, but at the expense of combat. Sentinels can only use light armor and receive no advanced weapon training.

• Vanguard: Biotic specialist. They combine biotic and weapons to take down enemies, and are especially deadly at short range. They use pistols and shotguns and can specialize in medium armor.

Personally I picked an Adept, because I’m always a mage in games so this was the class for me

To heaven or to hell

In Mass Effect there aren’t good or bad choices. Just the ones you think they’re right. Depending on how you interact with the outside world and your speech skills, you can shape the outcome of the game and the entire galaxy. If you choose to speak nice to people and help them you will become a Paragon (a good guy) or you can be rude, care only about yourself, don’t want to help people in need than you will surely become a Renegade .