Mass Effect - Hands-On @ Joystiq, 1Up

Joystiq has taken a hands-on look at Mass Effect.  Here's a bit on the somewhat contentious dialogue system:

We were shown the basic in-game talk interface: get near another character and hit the A button to start talking. You can direct the flow of the conversation, by selecting your responses with the left thumbstick, choosing from a radial menu. For instance, if someone is telling you about an attack, you can pick things like "Too bad they didn't kill you" to "I'm sorry" to "Really? What happened?"

They aren't exactly what your character will say, they're more like the gist of it. We tried to piss the people we encountered off, but no one took great offense. One woman we encountered really wanted to tag along with us, and although we tried as hard as we could to dissuade her, the last talk menu we were offered with her was something like, "Sure", "Go ahead", and "Okay". No, "Get lost!" option, so she must be important to the mission.

...and here's a bit from a 1Up preview:

Combat looks to have been further streamlined with both party and enemy A.I. coming along. Your buddies still require you to assign some basic logic on how to respond, and you have to keep them pointed in the right direction, but from there you're free to get caught in the action yourself. The result favors the use of flanking techniques, finding cover, and moving tactically. At the same time, there's plenty of action -- which we saw when we raced into an assault on an enemy outpost in our Mako vehicle, used its jump jets to hop over incoming enemy missiles, jumped into its turret to take out the rocket soldiers, and then dismounted for an on foot assault to clear the place out with a shotgun.