The audio and graphical components in Mass Effect takes president over all other games on this grand scale. The high impact soundtrack and colourful visuals are stunning, but the real showcase comes from the digital actors who excelled in animating a wide range of characters along with delivering strong voice over’s. This attentive performance really shapes Mass Effects world that you can believe in and care about.

The Arbiter Gets Effected
The amount of hours poured into the animation and sound booth must be astronomical. This is time well spent because Mass Effect is proof how impactful real personalities can effect a project. In your journey in Mass Effect you will hear a few celebrities from the movie, TV world who actually do a good job, along with a number of experienced voices over experts. From the Hollywood side of the tracks, Seth Green is one of the first characters you will enjoy, as the cynical Normandy pilot. The developers really nailed his unique timber to the right in game personality. Some of the other voice actors employed have worked on Bioware projects in the past and a familiar voice to Halo fans with Keith David who played the Arbiter in Halo 2, and 3.

Stepping away from the digital actors is the creative world that Bioware has created. It’s not easy to do science fiction right. The creative aspects behind the wheels in Mass Effect borrows from a number of SCI-FI movies from the past with some interesting characters of their own. The Mass Effect universe is visually interesting and hard to compare with other science fiction media. Creatively, Mass Effect excels in so many areas making it one of the most non-artistic games I`ve seen in a long time.

A Pinch of Grain
By default Mass Effect uses a graining screen overlay which hides a number of rough patches into the overall quality of the graphics. At first I believed this was a way for Bioware to cop out from their flaws, and then I noticed you can toggle the grain effect on or off. With the film like grain turned off Mass Effect strangely looks too polished without a certain ambiance that the dusty grain provides. If you looking for flaws in Mass Effect, opting to turn the grain effect off will help your cause. In the grand scale Mass Effect`s attention to detail, quality of facial animation and dynamic lighting effects showcases Bioware’s ability to adapt to the next level.

Nitpicking Animations
For the nitpicking gamer, there are still a few areas that could have been addressed, one is the fluidity during combat with the animations. I found this to be the same in Jade Empire, compared to the rest of the excellent animation in the cut-scenes which mainly includes head shots it’s too bad the walking and gunplay aspect of Mass Effect wasn`t smoothed out. The other issue with Mass Effect is the frame-rate which can bog down during large scale firefights, or when skipping through content too quickly. In the grand scheme of things this doesn’t make an impact on the overall quality of Mass Effect, it only highlights that there is room for improvement.

Sountracking Mass Effect
Ending this section on a positive note is the soundtrack provided by Sam Hulick, Jack Wall, Richard Jacques and David Kates. The sweeping soundtrack which is also available to purchase does a tremendous job finding an emotional pulse between the music and on screen action. The musical score follows Mass Effect`s dramatic nature from the touching moments to the high tension action of combat. The soundtrack completes Mass Effect giving it an epic feeling that matches the cinematic flair of the content.

Mass Effect effectively immerses gamers into a rich universe filled with interstellar conflict, planetary exploration and intense combat situations. The emotionally charged plot line digs deep within the player questioning humanities role in the galaxy. Mass Effect isn’t without its flaws, but when you have a complete project on the scale of Mass Effect these flaws fade into the background. Bioware has made another successful role-playing game that will please fans of the genre, science fiction advocates and any gamer who is looking for an engaging new experience.