"The core gameplay of an RPG can also be character building: Making your character fit a role, a role that you are playing, as it were. But just about the only prior Mass Effect mechanic that has been slung in the bin is all that Paragon/Renegade business, and now, whether we respond to each dialogue with wit, with intelligence, with aggression, or like we've pounded ourselves between the eyes with a mixture of Botox and horse tranquillizer (trick question; that's every response) doesn't seem to matter one chafed mosquito nipple."