Mass Effect is an action role-playing game which was released worldwide by Microsoft in November 2007. The PC edition was published by Electronic Arts and was released on May 28, 2008. The game circulates around the elite human soldier called Commander Shepard who sets out on a starship named ‘The SSV Normandy’ to explore the galaxy and is based way ahead of time in year 2183.  
 
BioWare has plans to release two sequels to the game, making it into a trilogy. They also intend to add download-only content to link the games together.  
 
According to Project Director Casey Hudson, inside the game universe, Mass Effect is a physical phenomenon with properties that make it like gravity and electromagnetism. ‘Dark energy’ is the name given to this concept by real-world physicists – that the expansio of the universe is actually accelerating rather than slowing.  
 
As per Hudson, most of the creatures, like some real-life creatures have evolved in a way that enables them to manipulate and sense Mass Effect. By way of prosthetics human beings are capable of the trained manipulation in the Mass Effect (known as Biotics).  
 
There are various themes available in Mass Effect such as colonization, vigilantism, intolerance, and artificial intelligence. This game falls into the space opera genre beautifully and explores the above themes. It is highly comparable to the Fred Saberhagen's Berserker novels and Battlestar Galactica as well as to Frederick Pohl's Gateway novels which again revolves around the man vs. machine themes.  
 
According to Casey Hudson, Mass Effect has been highly influenced by BioWare, Aliens, Blade Runner, Star Wars, and Wrath of Khan. In Mass Effect the veteran soldier’s appearance is based on varied factors and can be customized too. One can use different weapons and armor as preferred. Apart from this the player can also select the background story for the character which changes and informs different dialogues as per the sequence.  
 
Along with this main character of the game, there are two additional characters who can be used along with him and contribute towards the battle. However the player won’t have much control over these characters as they cannot be modified. Apart from this, in total there are six different characters which add up to the story and help in fighting the battle, each with a different story and reason to fight. Out of these six, four of them are aliens and only two humans. Each of these six characters has a different level of talents and can gain stats at every level as per their abilities to fight.