What was you 1st Wow Moment in Mass Effect?

Hi. I'm new to these boards and I'm sorry if this has been done before. I had a look back at previous pages of posts but couldn't find anything so I created this thread

What was you first genuine like OMG, Wow, ZOMG! moment the first time you played a Mass Effect game?


I remember mine pretty well. Not the exact details but enough. I thought I had a couple before the actual one, and in a way they were too, but my first actual moment of like "Wow, this game is just unbelievable" was after I gained control of the Normandy in the original game.

My head was kind of spinning from this new gaming world that I'd been tuned into for about 2 hours straight. I mean I had had some Wow Moments in those 2 hours, like when you see Sovereign taking off from Eden Prime, and of course the vision from the beacon, and becoming SPECTRE was cool, even if it was a bit predictable.
After I gained control of the Normandy I knew I was playing a special game, but it was a simple little thing that gave me my first genuine actual Wow Moment.

So I was on the bridge of the Normandy, I think it was just after I gave a speech to the crew, and I went to the bridge area and looked at this incredibly cool, futuristic holographic thing for charting your adventures. I selected a region that I cant for the life of me remember, I was pretty overwhelmed at this point, and chose a system and started looking at planets. I may have surveyed one or two, again I cant remember the specific details but eventually I saw the option that said land on one planet, and I'm thinking can I actually land here and explore or will it be like a small hub area to buy and sell stuff and talk to NPCs? So I chose land and eventually I see something coming out of the Normandy that looks a bit like a tank. It then lands on ground using very cool air-blast thingy technology so it wasn't crushed on impact. It's at this point now where the game is saying loading or saving or whatever and I'm thinking no way i am getting to control this? So after it loaded in and stopped stuttering I went to pick up my controller and I swear I felt nervous doing so and when I lightly touched the left stick the vehicle moved slightly and I'm like "No way I am getting to drive this about!", and then a press of the right stick moved the view and right there and then I have my Wow Moment, or my ZOMG! moment or whatever you want to call it but you know what I mean. I paused it and brought up the map and thought to myself this is unreal!

I know these side quests in the Mako seem to divide fans of the original game, some love them, some not so much, but me personally I love doing them and pretty much land on every planet you can on every playthrough. I may not always find every thing on the maps, especially stuff that isn't marked, but just having the freedom to play the game like this at your own leisure was and still is just incredible.

Almost 10 years later and for me personally that hasn't been a game the was as revolutionary or as ground breaking as Mass Effect was.

I feel pretty lucky to have played the original game on 360 before using my file for the sequel because I remember asking my PS3 owning friend if he had got Mass Effect 2, which had just recently been released on PS3 at that point at he was like yeah good game, so I asked him about how it works regarding the choices that you had to make in the original, and he's like there's this interactive thing where you answer questions and that and he was like yeah I get the gist of the game but I was like mate trust me you have know idea. I think he thought I was just winding him up but I wasn't.

So anyway, what was your 1st genuine OMG!, Wow Moment?