I forgot to mention that Mass Effect has a nasty habit of suddenly crashing, especially during extended dialogue with NPCs. The F6 keystroke for the game's quicksave has become my new best friend in Mass Effect, but I've had to replay at least an hour's worth of game to makeup for the binary instability.
This is the PC version, by the way. I check regularly for patches, but find none. I fear I'll finish the game before they get around to fixing the random crashes. It's a testament to the game that I put up with it.