Mass Effect - latest impressions from Games Radar
Lots of info here, quite looking forward to this actually, seems a semi-relaxing way to explore the universe from our new VERY comfortable sofas.
It begins before you even start the game. Do you want your hero, Commander Shepard, to be male or female? The selection affects more than your appearance, which can be customized to an infinite degree anyway. Playing a woman will alter certain chapters of the storyline and, because a different voice actor was needed, affect the interpretation and emotion of every scene.
The options for intergalactic travel are equally daunting. You browse the Milky Way with a 3D holographic map, one so packed with stars and planets that the screen becomes almost blinding. Some of those worlds are integral to the plot, many contain treasure or side quests (collecting ancient Turian flags, for example) and others are completely uninhabited. Regardless, you can choose to visit them all.
As in real life, every past choice affects the present and every present choice will affect the available choices of the future. Since BioWare confirmed once again that Mass Effect is the first part of a planned trilogy, your chosen path might even carry over into future adventures. No pressure.

