It sure has been. There's pretty much something for everyone.

There's a reasonable amount of hype surrounding Mass Effect.

I just started the game. So far I'm pretty pleased, although I was a little disappointed in the combat system thus far. It feels like a shooter, but not a particularly good one, so I wish some of the tactical elements weren't so.. transparent. Sure, you can "pause" the action, but you can't actually do all that much while said action is paused. At the very least, they could allow me to change targets, so I can control my squad better.

It seems like they tried to make a lot of the RPG elements in this game as, again, transparent as possible. I'm not sure if that's to cater to a more action oriented audience or what (and no Phaethon--that doesn't make it a third person shooter!), but it makes me happy that we're getting another Bioware RPG this year that will (hopefully) be a tad more traditional.

I'm not really going to judge those elements of the game yet, since I'm not very far into the thing at all.. but the first impression they left on someone who is pretty fond of existing Bioware game designs, wasn't quite as cheerful as I had expected.

I haven't quite experienced much in the way of exploration yet, but I'm sure that's here in droves. I'm not expecting the free form sort of world that Bethesda might give us, but I am expecting something much more massive than KOTOR, so I hope that delivers.

The game is quite cinematic, which is really a treat.. and it looks awesome on the HDTV. Sure there's some LOD pop-in here and there, but it hardly spoils the visual appeal of the game.

I think I might play it some more this evening.. it's a toss up between ME or finishing off (the extremely short, but compelling) Portal.

For me the combat got better as the game went on and I'd levelled up a bit and got some decent gear. I was getting pretty frustrated with it at first (and no, I wasn't playing it like Dean Takahashi!) I couldn't really compare it however as ME is the first RPG I've ever played for more than an hour or two let alone finished :)

I would advise however, to do whatever sidequests you want to and get them out the way before you get to a planet called Virmire. Then ride the rollercoaster right through to the end. That's still quite a way out from the actual end but makes it one hell of a ride :)

Oh and finish Portal, it's great!

I picked Infiltrator, but I'm actually thinking of switching to Vanguard. I'm not so far in that I'd mind re-rolling my character, and I'm finding the sniper rifles a bit.. frustrating. So far I've mostly relied on my pistol, and the technical abilities seem less fun than the biotic powers too. I really like the idea of using a sniper rifle, but the sway is ridiculous. Give the man some beta blockers and let him hold his damn breath!

Thanks for the advice, to ye both. I guess I will boot up Portal before I dive back in. My schedule is all sorts of screwed up since New Years, so I might have time to do both this evening ;P I'm on puzzle 18 in Portal, so I must be pretty close to the end.

^^ seconded. The sniper kills achievement was the last I got and really only became usable once I was over level 30. That's as a soldier as well.

The Tech abilities I used quite a lot mind keeping a tech specialist with me throughout the entire game. Overload in particular was useful for taking down shields and I started to use hacking a bit more as the game went on against the Geth. Didn't use Damping or Sabotage much and the game does a pretty poor job at explaining what any of these talents actually do. In the case of the latter, I used it purely because it seemed to do some damage whilst the other skills were recharging. Damping I had to go read the wiki for and even then, I never really saw it working when I used it.

In any combat scenario though Overload was the first thing I'd deploy