9 Amazing Video Game Features You'll NEVER See In Anything Else

The idea that anyone could hold the patent on a dialogue interface of all things might seem absolutely ridiculous at first, but it makes a little more sense when you think about Mass Effect's outside-the-box approach to the feature.

Rather than present the dialogue options in the usual list form, Mass Effect offers them up in a wheel, where each segment corresponds to a given character attribute - for example, top-right is the selfless Paragon, middle-right is diplomatic and neutral, and bottom-right is the hostile Renegade.

Your choices of course have a knock-on effect on how other characters regard you, and it's ultimately the granularity of the wheel's choices that makes it unique.

While it has actually appeared in a few other BioWare games, the company's 2006 patent filing will prevent it from being freely replicated outside of the company.

The patent is good until 2029, by which time the Mass Effect franchise will hopefully be back on firm footing.