Prepare for another world saving, evil guy wanting to recreate the Universe in his image, plot twist turning RPG. Is this a Japanese game? No, but it sure feels like it sometimes. If there were only huge breasted anime babes, fuzzy talking animals, and some guy dressed as a girl, we would swear this is a Japanese RPG. Even the bizarre plot and ridiculous dialogue feels Japanese.

You play Commander Shepard on the Normandy starship. You're out exploring space when you discover an alien prophecy involving some demon (AI is this game) that wants to destroy all life (harvest life in this game). And yes, there's some crazy guy who wants to use this to his advantage and recreate the universe in his image. And no, this guy's name is not Sephiroth. And you have to stop him.

But unlike Japanese RPGs, you can customize Shepard's appearance and history. Then, you learn skills and abilities as the story progresses in RPG fashion. The appearance and history of the character doesn't change the story that much. What does effect the story is the wheel of conversation where you choose the response by how you want to react instead of any dialogue. This affects your affinity (good or evil).

Combat features you and two other shipmates against giant worms, giant robots, and giant aliens. You must use your moonrover-like Mako vehicle which is kinda hard to drive and shoot. If it gets too hard, you'll have to fight on foot. Your team members can have special ablities and powers to help you. It's all very standard RPG stuff, except they give everything space names. For example, engineers can turn enemy robots against each other. Combat is in third person perspective, but more strategy oriented.

The game has great cinematic graphics that really look sharp. The worlds aren't as detailed when you're driving the Mako. However, the characters look great and the environments once inside a building, look especially good. The music is the space opera kind you would expect from Bioware. As you would expect, the special effects are the best part of the graphics. You won't be disappointed with this games high production values.

There's no online mode, which is no big deal for an RPG. However, this is a very standard RPG. If it didn't have the Bioware name on it, it would probably not have sold as well. The dialogue can get over the top with its seriousness and the Universe is just not as vast as you would expect. It really has Japanese RPG written all over it. But it's still better than any of those Japanese RPGs because there's no talking animals or teenage angst.