Mass Effect (game)

Mass Effect is a science-fiction shooter/RPG trilogy developed by BioWare, with spin-off novels and a comic book mini-series published by Dark Horse. The project director for the games is Casey Hudson, and the lead writers are Drew Karpyshyn and Mac Walters. So far, two games have been released, and a third one is planned. The first game met much critical acclaim, and could be described as a "flawed masterpiece"- there were certainly badly handled or unpolished features to the game, but the core story was good and the gameplay had many innovative features. The second met even more critical acclaim, solving all the problems from the first game, while adding only one questionable feature.

The games take place in the late 22nd century. After finding alien ruins on Mars, humanity has recently gained FTL technology and joined the greater galactic community, which has been around for millenia. The face of humanity to alien nations is a military organization called the Systems Alliance. You play as Commander Shepard, a Systems Alliance special forces operative who has uncovered evidence of the threat of the Reapers.