Unfortunately, I have some form of a bowel obstruction, so no poop this week! :( However, I have a Mass Effect, which is more than enough to talk about.

Firstly the bad things - because yes, although ME is amazingly spunktacular, it still has its little flaws.

Bugs, and there are a fair few. Not really surprisingly for a game this big, there are a couple of bugs that range from annoying to laughable. I managed to complete the same quest twice [paragon, score]. You can get stuck on random, invisible objects... In the middle of a FUCKING BOSS FIGHT! You can also get stuck on objects you've just dropped - Survey an ore deposit and you have to hope to hell you aren't standing on the marker. Though this isn't a bug, it's an annoyance - the texture loading. To be honest, it's not such a big deal and I can understand that it's a limitation of the hardware, it doesn't affect the gameplay in the slightest and it's a damn sight better than a loading screen... But it's still a "bad thing". The number of classes is a little low, even with the unlockable ones. The framerate can get a little choppy, but it doesn't interfere with the action. Finally, I still feel a little cheated that you can't land on all of the planets in a system.

BUT!

This game is so sexy and amazing I can overlook any and all of these "issues".

The scope of the game - It reaches for the stars, literally, and gets them all. The story is a cheesy space opera with aliens, sex and magic. What more can a sexually repressed geek like me want?

The characters - The guys are pretty cool, you might've heard Wrex is one of the best characters of any videogame but the only nice purpose he serves is dying. Garrus is incredibly fun to talk to, and Joker is everyone's favourite hippie. Then there are the girls and Y HALO THAR! Serious hotness everywhere. Liara = cutest thing ever, Tali = mystery hawtness and Ashley = femdom. Personally, I didn't get on with Ashely, but the fact I'm talking about her in that way means the game has succeded at the most basic level, which is...

RP - The single most important reason why this game is so good. I can emphasis with Shepard [the player character, for you 'tards who don't have the game]. I don't like him as a character; I like him as a reflection of me. When he punched that reporter I really wasn't expecting it [you don't really know what the dialog options you choose will result in, only how much of a dick you will be in your response]. But as soon as it happened I thought... Fuck yes, that reporter needed to go down, that's what I would've done if I WAS Shepard. Shepard is being me. That's RPing and that's what every RPG should do.

Dialog - I immediately turned subtitles on when the game started. After about 30mins, they were off again. The writing in this game is perfect, the voice acting first class, the emotions the characters portray believable and most of all, every dialog instance is entertaining. For the first time since a long time ago, I wasn't skipping cut-scenes!

Action - I know a few people bitch and moan about this because it's not fantastically sophisticated. But wait, it's fun! That's something you don't really say about RPGs, but the combat in Mass Effect is enjoyable. There have been a number of occasions where I've died and had to retry the same area dozens of times, but never got bored, tired or frustrated. This is a feeling that games like Halo on Legendary give me. That's a Good Thing (TM). This can be a pretty hard game, that's good. Hard is challenging, challenging is fun. Even more people complain about the squad AI. That's probably because the squad AI is terrible. HOWEVER! Disable automatic squad actions in the options and micro your team to the max. Then they actually DO WHAT YOU WANT. Ok, it's harder to control a soldier, but you can still give them the rough idea, and they tend to roughly follow the plan. Biotics and Engineers are a lot easier to control, mainly because they rely on the abilities you have direct control over. I played as an Adept with another Adept and a soldier. Beat the game on Veteran in 13 hours, with some side quests and got the Tactician achievement. Second it was over I started again.
If the Mako could be upgraded it would be the perfect complement to the action sequences, as it is; it's merely excellent - jumping over incoming rockets is one of the most satisfying things to do.

Presentation - Sexy. Sound FX are nice and meaty, as stated before the voice acting is top notch. The music is epic, but doesn't try to overpower you. The graphics are pretty and the animation seriously lifelike [to the point I spent 15mins just wondering about drooling over Liara].

It's the little touches that make this game so great. I usually love humour in video games, and Mass Effect doesn't deliver too often. But when it does, it is 100% brilliance. The small motions during cut-scenes, the total disregard you can have for authority, the huge galaxy and the lovable [or hatable] caracters all come together to give one of the most immersive gaming experience ever.

Get this game or GTFO.