Mass Effect is a series of science fiction action role-playing third person shooter video games developed by the Canadian company BioWare and released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows, with the third installment also released on the Wii U. The first game in the trilogy centers on a player-created character named Commander Shepard, with the mission to save the galaxy from a race of mechanical beings known as the Reapers and their followers, including Saren Arterius. The first game sees Shepard facing Sovereign, a Reaper left as a vanguard, who plans to allow the Reaper fleet hibernating in extra-galactic dark space to invade the Milky Way, and destroy all sentient organic life, continuing a mysterious cycle of destruction. The second game takes place two years later, and sees Shepard battling the Collectors, an alien race abducting entire human colonies in a plan to help the Reapers return to the Milky Way. The final game of Shepard's trilogy centers on the final battle against the Reapers. <br /> <br />All three games have received critical acclaim for their storyline, characters, romances, voice acting, choices and the depth of the galaxy.[1] Video game website GamesRadar called Mass Effect the best new franchise of the generation, saying that the galaxy was so well-constructed that it felt like a decades-old franchise and that it represented "a high-water mark for video games as a story-telling medium
