Mass Effect's combat plays out like that of a third-person shooter. At most points, you have two teammates with you (chosen from the six potential teammates). You can pause the game at any point to use your own abilities or instruct your teammates to use theirs. Abilities operate on individual cooldowns.
The combat pause menu was initially a radial menu, but was switched to a set of menus on opposite sides of the screen in the PC version (as above)
Abilities are split into biotic abilities (mostly offensive, and based on mass effect fields) and tech abilities (mostly defensive and tactical, and based on technology). In addition to these, characters can use one of four weapons: pistols, shotguns, assault rifles or sniper rifles.
