EA and Bioware have brought you all the space nerdiness you need on the go with Mass Effect Galaxy for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This top-down style shooter will take place on different planets and will have you fighting against the Batarians when they threaten thousands of lives with a biological weapon.

You’ll take the role of Jacob Talor, a biotic soldier for the Earth Alliance Navy that survived the Geth attack on Eden Prime. Fighting the Batarians to stop them from the using a biological weapon, Jacob and his small crew, that he picks up along the way, will travel to different planets solving local issues and ultimately learning more about the Batarian threat. Along the way you’ll fight rooms full of enemies, go through game-saving dialog trees, and upgrade your attacks.

Mass Effect Galaxy isn’t exactly like the original Mass Effect, meaning you won’t level up and you won’t be exploring uncharted territory with squad-mates. Instead you’ll be going from room-to-room killing enemies, viewing cutscenes, talking to people, and then choosing your next destination. It sounds simple and it plays even simpler, but this relatively small game is rather fun to play through.

In combat you’ll move Jacob by tilting the device, using the built-in accelerometer. This works well for the most part, but it resets itself to whatever position you have it at after a loading screen. Luckily, you can pause the combat and reset the accelerometer position by unpausing. It’s just a little something you need to keep in mind otherwise the tilting will be screwy.

The game will automatically target and shoot enemies, leaving just the movement and skill deployment to you. There is a skill bar on the right side of the screen with three different skills, biotic, heavy weapon, and tech. For the most part it’s fun and I’d prefer it this way because touchscreen controls for this type of combat would be rather difficult. You can choose a different target by tapping an enemy on screen. There are also pick-ups on the ground to replenish your health or shield, for example.

The combat is actually really easy since all you really need to do is dodge enemy fire, but it’s often made difficult by the constant graphical slow down. I couldn’t really understand why the game slows down so much, since it shouldn’t be that demanding even on the iPhone/iTouch, but the slow down is so intense at times that I could barely move and I would die. In fact, that was the only reason why I died.

Fortunately the rest of the game looks great. ME Galaxy has an anime style look to it and the cut scenes are almost comic book-like. This look is stylish and great to look at. To help accompany the great look, the dialog helps carry the story along. I was surprised to see what I said to different characters changed the shape of the story. It doesn’t totally change the outcome of most situations, but you can avoid battles and become friends with some characters. When in a conversation, there will be a good, bad, and neutral choices for you to say.

The game will last a few hours and will cost $4.99. The technical issues are really all that’s wrong with it. The horrible frame rate can add unintentional difficulty to what could have been a really enjoyable combat system. The story and dialog kept me playing until the end and I ultimately enjoyed it. If you don’t mind the inconsistent frame rate in your battles and you want a little more Mass Effect to hold you over until the sequel comes out, then this is the game for you.

Verdict: 7/10

Note: This game was reviewed on the iPhone 3G.