Having recently completed the "Mass Effect" trilogy, I've been reflecting on the games at large and, perhaps even more, the characters they contained. I'm not a big gamer — I might play a game of Madden now and again, but aside from a spin through "Skyrim" and "Morrowind," my gaming life peaked with "Ocarina of Time" — so I was impressed with the depth of the world I discovered.
I'd go so far as to say that the material at the heart of the series — not the execution, mind you, or the specific plot elements, but the story in broad strokes and the universe (setting, characters, alien races, etc.) — is on par with that of the great sci-fi franchises, and I'm including "Star Wars," for which I have undying devotion. Obviously, the emotional impact of a video game doesn't touch that of a movie; my point is that "Mass Effect" starts with a pretty killer hand.
What follows is a list, in ascending order, of the best characters in the series. (I've excluded Shepard, partly because of the variability in the character depending on the player's choices and partly because it struck me as difficult to compare the protagonist and role characters with varying amounts of screen time.)
Note that spoilers may follow.
