As soon as Mass Effect was released in November 2009 on the 360, it showed us a huge beautiful galaxy which had a diverse population of fascinating alien races.

You take up the role of Commander Shepard, a person at the helm of the ascension of humanity into galactic politics. This is how an epic story of engaging characters as well as rich branching dialogue was started. This package was completed with exciting combat & robust skills management. But, you cannot say that there were no flaws. When it released on the PC, a lot of these small problems were fixed though. Here we will be focusing on the PC version of this game and how it is different from the console one.

There are no real drastic overhauls, but the game play has been visibly improved. The combat system is the most worked upon area. On consoles, you needed to pause the game in order to use weapons or tech/biotic powers apart form the ones you are equipped with. But, in the PC version, you can choose to pause the game, but all your weapons are on a single screen alongwith commands for your squads which you can individually issue now. Just press space bar and you will get a headsup display of where you can easily change your powers and weapons and order your squad. But, the chances of you using this pause are very low as all your weapons are assigned function keys and you can even assign your tech/biotic powers to number keys.

The missing pauses makes this pc game distance itself further from other BioWare RPG’s where you feel like you are engrossed in a ponderous, tactical game. This pc game feels like a complete third person shooter. You can still enjoy gunning down small enemy groups within a few steps and blasting your way through larger battles in as fun as ever. But now you can also release multiple biotic or tech attacks while moving too. You can take out enemy shields, dart from cover and explode enemy weapons while you are shooting them and also get back into cover within seconds. The biggest reward from this faster, fluid action is of the power that it makes you sense. You can feel like the bad ass warrior that you were supposed to be. This adds to the fun of combat.

Everything which made the game great on the 360 like the conversations, story, galaxy, combat, characters and soundtrack are all there on the PC. Even the changes do not radically effect the game. But the impact is good enough for us to choose the PC version as opposed to the 360 version. Also, there is a downloadable expansion pack called “Bring Down the Sky” which is being offered by BioWare. This is free for PC users. Unfortunately we were not able to review that right now. Irrespective of whether you are a seasoned veteran or a newcomer to the Normandy, the PC version is definitely your best bet.