Mass Effect

I'm carrying on to clear my backlog of "games I should definitely play, years later".
The advantage is that I only get the cream...
Mass Effect definitely is part of it.

Funny how cinema tries (and fails) to make video games movies, yet Bioware are getting closer & closer to make a "movie video game". Sure, they're refining a formula that they've been working on for years, through Baldur's Gate, KOTOR et al. But here, to the "usual" (yet always outstanding) action and branching story paths, they added an impressive dose of style. Camera work is getting very close to the real thing, using handheld style in places and the direction reaches in the dialogs phases, making them a lot more dynamic than just shifting from 1 face to the other.
The story is, as always, very good, compelling with good characters.
I guess that if you compared it to movies however, it could still be considered "standard". But you can really feel that they're pushing the boundaries of the medium...

And then you get the universe, which is really a joy to explore. The design is brilliant and although it is based on familiar SciFi concepts, it feels fresh enough with a lot of background on the races you discover to keep everything interesting. It's quite a feat as in essence it's quite like Star Wars, but it just works without feeling like a rip off.

So definitely a must play, I'm looking forward to play the 2nd and the 3rd in a few years time... :)