When either male or female Shepard isn't busy fighting bug-eyed aliens and arrogant bureaucrats, they're breaking into people's belongings, rummaging through safes and breaking into the homes of whomever isn't as important as Shepard - which is everyone. In the original Mass Effect, hacking plays out one of two ways, depending on the platform. On console, the player has to play a game of Simon Says in order to get loot without losing precious resources. On PC, bypassing isn't much more realistic, and essentially plays out like a simpler version of Frogger. There's also a plot-crucial Tower of Hanoi puzzle, but that's best left forgotten. Unlike the original, no real skill or time-investment is required for the protagonist to excel in Mass Effect 2. Instead, quick reflexes and sharp eyes are needed to gain the optimal amount of rewards. In this sequel, there are two mini-games; a memory-match and another in which players must find the grouping of code that matches up exactly to the target segment. The former is a pretty straightforward break from the action, but the latter is arguably feels the most like actual hacking, as one has to carefully examine long lines of code under a stress-inducing time constraint. In Mass Effect 3 however, you just press a single button. What makes all of this so incredible is that the Shepards don't necessarily have any background in engineering or technology. They have a career as a soldier, and still find time to learn how to bypass firewalls? Now, that's incredible. If only the Reapers could have been be hacked as easily.