Bioware, the geniuses behind the incredible RPG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the Baldur’s Gate series are back at it again with a brand new adventure that follows the 23rd century life of a character named Sheppard and his squad mates through a fantastically huge journey that holds the fate of the world in his actions. The back story of Mass Effect is that every 50,000 years, there is an ancient race of machines that return to culminate and retrieve organic material for their own needs. As it would happen, that time is at hand and you and your cronies are going to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Your squad and you will explore the vast universe, traversing from planet to planet in your ship, The Normandy, looking for answers and searching for a way to stop the impending doom that is on its way.

When a demo of the game was fired up for us in the Microsoft office, the first thing you are going to notice as I did, is how incredibly gorgeous the visuals are. The character animations were smooth and fluid and it was jaw dropping to see how exceptionally and highly detailed everything in sight was. Characters armor and weapons reflected light off of every crevice and groove as did everything else so eerily realistically. In game, when you were having a conversation with another person, the scene would switch and give an over the shoulder view to allow you a closer look at who you were interacting with. While you were having conversations, the facial expressions of each character were outstanding as were the voices. Their face would become wide eyed or crinkle into a scowl, but whatever the expression, it matched their voices perfectly and even the light reflecting off their eyes was phenomenal looking.

Interacting with other characters is a large part of Mass Effect and can determine the outcome of the game in more than one way. Much like Knights of the Old Republic, the different choices you can make during conversations will affect how other people respond to you. Whether you have been reasonable and understanding or a jerk in your conversations and your actions; it will change how things are played out and the reactions you get. Not only will the people you need to talk to treat you in certain ways, but your squad mates will also speak out at times with what they are thinking about situations and sometimes just for the hell of it to make small talk.

Aside from the graphics, the other big feature for Mass Effect is the game play and how it is handled. Although it is an RPG game, it feels and plays very much like an action title. You will have in your squad, two other team mates, which can be taken control of at anytime on the fly. As well, while you are playing and encounter enemies, you can issue orders to each member and which actions you would like them to perform, such as cover fire or routes you want them to take. For more complex battles that require some strategic thinking, in RPG fashion, you can pause the game and layout your orders to each member and then unpause and watch as they go to work. As like all RPG games, when you first start, you’ll be able to choose specialties in fields such as tech and combat, as well as customize your character with weapons and armor. In Mass Effect, you can only carry weapons that would realistically fit on your person and the reason for this is that each and every weapon and piece of armor you equip is shown on your character. If you come across a new helmet, equip it and you will see it on your character and the same goes with everything else you can equip. Also each of the weapons you can use can be modified with additional powers. Like in numerous RPG games where you can add an ice or fire modification to a sword or shield, in Mass Effect you can add these types of adjustments to guns and armor for some extra kick.

Mass Effect has a lot to offer gamers aside from the gorgeous graphics and intense game play. Thrown into the mix to make the game that much more enhanced are additional features including destructible environments, a huge free roaming galaxy to explore and even extra downloadable content that will be available after the game is released. . Not only fans of the third person, KOTOR style game play, but all gamers across the board should keep their eyes peeled for Mass Effect when it hits the shelves, hopefully later this year. With the game at about two-thirds complete right now, the Bioware team is looking forward to a December 2006 release date when it will be available only for the Xbox 360. - Jeff McAllister.