One great Bioware game. Another one... But haven't we seen that before?
2. Graphics
3. Story
4. Gameplay
5. Multiplayer
1. Technical Issues - Unlike most other games i have reviewed Mass Effect suffers from a lot of minor technical issues. The anti-piracy system EA had put into the game is quite annoying. I haven't tested it myself but another review said that you can only install the game 3 TIMES, or in 3 different computers, or reinstrall your windows 3 times. After that you just can't use your key. Quite annoying if you have bought the game. As i doubt you will bought it again you will most likely be forced to get a pirate version.
During your play you will find a few quite annoying technical bugs (nothing a patch can't fix though). The first one is the considerable loading time when you start the game. Most likely it is the check of the stupid anti-piracy system (as a note it took one more day for the crackers to overcome it...). Another bug is the sometimes after an interaction with some object (galaxy map, a talk with a NPC) your game just stuck. You can see your character but you can't do anything - cannot move, cannot save. The most annoying bug of all is that sometimes your weapon just don't cooldown when you overheat it (read the gameplay section for details). This can be quite annoying especially when it happens during the final battle when you have heavily specialized in one weapon type and it bugs and you are forced to use something you are not proficient with.
2. Graphics - The most beautiful Bioware RPG i've played so far. The game have incredibly good atmosphere and especially in the beginning you may feel that you are not playing a game but participating in a movie.
3. As in all Bioware RPG the STORY is what make this game what it is. A very good story. This is the thing which made me play the game till the end. A very good addition to this paragraph is the CODEX entries you encounter during the game. Those are pieces of information that are wriiten in you journal and if you read it you will understand how real the Mass Effect Universe is. Every race have their traditions, even the principles of the weapons are explained. Unfortunately not everything is so good. As all other Bioware RPG's Mass Effect suffers from the same illness. It's linear story. No matter what you do, how you do it, whether you act like GOOD/LIGHT/PARAGORN/PALM or as BAD/DARK/RENEGADE/FIST player it doesn't make quite a difference. No matter what you say the NPC's will follow their scripted dialogs, and the biggest change will be the next line they will say. In some cases you may lose a quest or gain another but thats all. Also as it is published by EA it seems that the game was rushed at the end. Your squad mates are very cursorily developed. I never really get attached to them (oh well i got attached to 2 of the cause i needed to play most of the game with them so i can unlock achievements). You can do like... 4 Dialogs with them on the ship - each before one of the main quests. The replicas your squad mates say during some of the encounters on contrary make them looks like are more alive then they are. Also the Main missions are only 5 or 6 - You can rush them for a few hours if you wish (well you will most likely die at the final battle if you do this though). The secondary quest are interesting in the beginning but after you have landed on a few planets you noticed it is all of the same. Land on a planet, move through the map, find something useful (metals, artifacts etc.) go clear the facility this planet have (if you have a secondary quest for this planet ofc)
4. Gameplay - The Gameplay of Mass Effect is action based unlike KOTOR(no more d20 and turns) You have shooting weapons and biotics/tech skills (something like the force skills from KOTOR) at your disposal. Otherwise you may say we have a RPG/Tactical Shooter gameplay, although the screen for giving orders is quite unpractical due to the console nature of the game. There is 4 main weapon types you can use (Pistols, Shotguns, Assault Rifles and snipers) and 3 support items (granade launcher and 2 items specific for the Biotic and Tech based characters). I strongly recommends you to use Assault Rifles - the shoot like 10 times faster then pistols and shotguns and do more damage. The Snipers are completely useless. They do damage as a single bullet from the Assault Rifle, but you can fire them like 1 per 5 second (compared with like 10 per second from the assault rifle) and if you managed to hit someone it will most likely be based on pure luck as sight moves so much that you are unable to aim properly. Each weapon have a number of shots it can shoot before it overheats. After that you should wait a little to cool down if of course you didn't stuck with the bug and have your weapon useless. The biotic skills are quite hard to use as the targeting system is made for game pads.
5. Multyplayer - None.
Despite all the negatives I've said about Mass Effect, i had a lot of fun playing it. Especially in the beginning. But i don't think it is better then the KOTORS. Still i advice you to bought the game i play it as it is one very good game. Just don't believe the hype so much