Story Summary:

You take the role of Commander Shepard starship Normandy, the last hope for all life in the Galaxy. Saren, a rogue member of the elite and untouchable Spectre agents, has discovered the secret to unleashing an apocalyptic force upon the galaxy, and only you stand in his way. To save the lives of billions, you must do whatever it takes to stop Saren and prevent the return of an ancient force bent on the destruction of all organic life.

Highlights:

Experience a rich and engrossing story where your choices decide the fate of a galaxy
Engage in emotionally charged interactions with the most realistic digital actors ever seen in a video game, using an innovative new dialog system
Immerse yourself in an incredible new adventure from world-famous masters of the RPG BioWare
Stunning high resolution graphics for PC
Optimised GUI and controls for PC gamers
Dominate the battlefield with new individual squad member commandsystem

There is probably a very good game hidden behind the bugs in this conversion to PC. The graphics are very good, and voices and script are well done. Combat works well with a balanced range of arms and powers, and a nice system for using cover.

Unfortunately, the conversion to PC has been botched. The game crashes every 20-30 minutes during play. The patched version is no better, and despite hundreds of posts on the Mass Effect forums it doesn't look like Bioware and EA have any intention of addressing the issue of stability. If you are going to buy this game, I would suggest running it in windowed mode. It doesn't crash any less frequently, but at least it is easier to terminate the application.

When this game works its a great RPG...however, iv'e never rebooted my PC so much as for this game...frozen screens, lock-ups, Windows messed up...its got the lot. I believe all the aggravation is really an attempt by Bioware to introduce the gamer to real life levels...of frustration.

I understand people rating this game 1 star because of the activation technical issues; anyway analyzing just the game i have to say that playing it has been an unforgettable experience: if i could rate separately every game aspect i would give 6 stars out of 5 to the story and the graphics.... highly suggested; one of the most complete game experiences ever created ... (above all for those loving science fiction and space discovery)

Mass Effect will NOT (NEVER according to Bioware Support) run on Vista 64 because of the intrusive SecuRom DRM which attempts to eliminate part of Vista 64's anti-malware protection. As a result I have a completely useless but valid purchase of Mass Effect. I now try to find out if software has SecuRom malware on it - if it does then I do not purchase that software as there is a high probability it will not run. For that reason I will not purchase EA software, and unfortunately it looks like Bioware will share the same fate.

Mass Effect is an excellent game,as good as KOTOR.
It crashed 2/3 times but I carried on as I liked the game.Played it to the end and decided to play again with a revised character.This time it crashed after 20 minutes and I could not restart my computer which is of a fairly high spec.Turned out it had ruined my hard drive.Cost me ??75.+the price of the game. This DRM/securom is just not right----I will not buy in future.