Too amazing too pass up!
Mass Effect 1 is essentially an amalgamation of a third person shooter with RPG elements, such as leveling up characters and applying their status points to numerous stats. It was my first time experiencing such gameplay and found it pretty interesting and fast paced. I relied on the autolevel up mechanics for my character and then other characters that one can have in their parties for speed of play.
Characters can also specialize in one of multiple types that affects their gameplay, however if they reach a high enough level then they can become a master of say, multiple weapon types instead of just the one for their class. Players can also specialize in combat, biotics, and tech that all affect gameplay such as being able to bear different armor and use different weapons, to being able to hack and disrupt enemies. Finally the cast of AI players that join the player on the story can also specialize in these types, so it provides a bit of various fun in choosing the AI characters for an assignment or mission. Gameplay also afford players with the opportunity to man a vehicle for some missions, and others have some aspect of a time limit imposed on them.
The story spans one of trust, betrayal, and seeking to save the day. Through moral actions chosen in dialogue players can go on to perhaps form relationships with their crew, perform good deeds to gain more paragon points allowing them to convince others during cutscenes to do their bidding, or be a total renegade and kill characters. These decisions ultimately leave one wanting to save at every scene and just watch them over again if they did a different choice. Or it makes one want to play the game again and see what changes. I can say that a decision at the end of the game makes me want to see what will happen if I change.
Ultimately the game is fun in what it achieves and is a great RPG for the stars, the game has great graphics to this day, and is fully voiced (even its robust codex with primary information), and with its interesting moral system and wide scale multi galaxy wide storymode, a joy to play. The game can be completed in just 14 hours if one only does the main quest and maybe one or two sidequests though it easily provides double that time if every assignment is explored (and these have voiced acting too). Definitely check it out!