Balancing your party involves some thought. You'll find several characters to select from throughout the game, including the gritty intergalactic bounty hunter Wrex, one of the coolest side characters ever; the tough but caring soldier Ashley, who can easily blossom into a potential love interest for Shepard; and many others. They have their own dilemmas as well, some of which can clash with yours if you're not careful. Again, it comes down to some hard decisions. The scope of these choices really shapes the game into magnificence. How you react makes all the difference to enemies and fellow characters. You can either treat people like a pompous, overconfident ass or let your heart do the talking, showing enemies just how easy it is to break you.

Best of all, this does wonders for the replay value. A quest can take several hours to finish, depending on what order you complete each mission and the side quests. At the end of it all, you're able to simply jump back in and do it all over again. Even the smallest of changes, like the decision to leave a party member behind or the way you react to questioning, shifts the tempo of the game almost in an entirely different direction. Your end goal is the same, but new missions arise that weren't on the galaxy map before and people you thought you knew look at you in a different (but not altogether better) light.

Visually, Mass Effect comes through in spades. It occasionally hiccups with an odd camera perspective and filtering hitches, but such minor inconveniences fade away the minute you step foot on a new planet. Exploring each new world is a fascinating accomplishment, as you'll want to roam forever in some of these places. Even the simpler things, such as the interwoven galactic map on your ship, are worth exploring. The character design is unbelievable. The human characters impress (particularly Shepard and Ashley), but it's the aliens that'll really grab your attention, from the gruff-looking Council members to the antagonizing Wrex. He lets you know right off the bat that he's a large headed badass who doesn't take crap from nobody.