User blog comment:Legionwrex/Comparing the Mass Effect Trilogy!/@comment-3492791-20120921192248/@comment-5607673-20120921200511

I hate it when people say that micromanagement and looting, etc. is what defines RPGs. I mean, RPG stands for role-playing game. So, all of the three games are RPGs, as the player plays the role of Shepard.

And thermal clips, while pretty much are there just to introduce an ammo system to the game, actually have a pretty good in-game explanation. See, weapons generally took a long while to cool off (and no, mods like Frictionless Materials don't function exactly like they do in gameplay. If they did, everybody would just pick their weapon of choice, slap two Frictionless Materials VII in it and fire away), so they introduced the thermal clips. With them, they just remove one clip and insert another. Much quicker than waiting for guns to cool off.