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In all the last few years I have had the wonderful chance to be in multiple worlds and play like I did when I was a child through the medium of video games. The experiences I have had from Final Fantasy to Knights of the Old Republic and my ultimate favorite Kingdom Hearts, have been spectacular but all have been held back in some regard due to the technology available to the gaming industry. Today however, thank God due to the Xbox 360, we have entered into a wondrous new world whose potential is limitless in the arena of gaming. Mass Effect is pioneering that world. The engineers of Bioware have opened up what goes beyond hitting a few buttons and following a dry linear array of events, true interactive story telling. This is what the video gaming medium has always had the potential of being and has been masterfully done through Mass Effect. For people that complained about my gaming hobby I have always told them this, no one complains when you sit down and watch a two hour movie or watch four shows on t.v. at night. I'm doing the same thing but am actually a part of the story being told. That is what Mass Effect does. It pulls you in with it's mysterious and full of depth story and makes you become a part of the lives of the people you are journeying through the galaxy with. As we travel around this galaxy we learn about the culture, traditions, and historic events of the races of aliens we are now in alliance with. We learn about Turian discipline, Salarian intelligence, the hidden fear within the Krogan heart, Asarian diplomacy, and the strength of human will in the midst of failing belief in who we are in a much bigger universe than we first thought. We learn of the sinister threat that faces all known life and the banding together of somewhat similar but different people for the greatest challenge we have ever faced. We even feel what it is like to lose one of those people fighting alongside us, it has been a while since any game has left that impression on us, FF7 anyone? Mass Effect ties together the expression of art in the most breathtaking and gorgeous graphics ever seen and the moving, gripping, wonder of elaborate prose all together in one. What you are left with is an experience unlike any other. It is the future of gaming, being part of the story in a way like never before. Of course this title is only the first of what will hopefully be a trilogy to come, if so Halo beware; you may very soon be unseated as the most influential game of all time.

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