Product Description

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.

• 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 command system

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #731 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2008-06-06
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
• Platform: Windows XP
• Original language: English, German, French, Italian
• Subtitled in: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish
• Dimensions: .35 pounds

Amazon.co.uk

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

Customer Reviews

Spolit by the SecuROM DRM...
After recently rebuilding my PC I decided I had to try out with some new games - Mass Effect was the first I bought.

I'd read about issues with the DRM (digital rights management) software, but as I'm used to BioWare games and have played most of their releases on the PC I wasn't worried.

That was my first mistake, after receiving the game from Amazon I was surprised to see that my machine wasn't reading the discs, oh well I thought, there must be a fault in the manufacturing process...

I returned the discs to Amazon and the customer service team dispatched a replacement so quickly it arrived the following day.

Unfortunately I encountered the same problem with the second set of DVDs!

Thinking that lightning rarely strikes twice, I started a very thorough search of the internet to try to address the problem, as well as contacting the game's publishers EA who I am still awaiting a response from.

It turns out that the issue stems from the DRM software that appears to prevent certain DVD burners from working successfully with the game - in my case it stopped the drive reading them all together!

Eventually I managed a workaround having to use a 6 year old DVD ROM drive to install the game.

Thankfully the game doesn't need the discs to play so I could go back to using the DVD burner in the machine, and I was able to enjoy the Mass Effect experience - which is fantastic, looks brilliant and so far has run flawlessly!

While I'm only part way through the game I thought it only fair to post the issues I had with installing it, as well as saying thank you to Amazon for their fantastic customer service!

It seems a shame that yet again the DRM software has taken up the majority of a review and overshadowed the developers hard work in putting together an excellent gaming experience.

Be careful buying second hand!
It's a great game with an awful DRM scheme. If you know what you're doing and aren't likely to be changing your computer in the next few years then I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

But whatever you do don't buy it second hand unless you're sure that the game key you're buying hasn't had all its installs used up. This game should, in my opinion, be banned from listing for sale used because the DRM limits the number of times you can install the game so at most you'll be able to install a used copy only 2 more times. Caveat emptor.

Avoid EA and their disgraceful DRMs
This is a great game, and very well converted for the PC

However, there is a very very very big BUT

EA have packaged on the disc nothing short of malware, that will invade all corners of your PC to prove that you are a dirty scum pirate, when you've done nothing wrong whatsoever.

Help EA get the message that this practice is totally unnacceptable by avoiding this game. I purchased it, but I will be avoiding all future EA releases until they stop using such viscious DRMs