There are few moments in a game where I get so frustrated that I just want to quit. Most of the time, I’ll get annoyed with a flaw in the design, but I try to stick to my guns and get through it. In Mass Effect, there were a few moments where I got so frustrated that I would swear profusely. However, I knew that I would avoid the game if I had a seemingly insurmountable obstacle waiting for me, so I stubbornly persevered.

The first major source of frustration that I ran into were battles with alien creatures called thresher maws. Like overgrown sand worms, these creatures would appear with no warning from random places in the ground and attack. One of the main sources of frustration in these battles stemmed from the fact that thresher maws appeared while exploring in the mako. Due to the unwieldy controls of the mako and its offensive weapons, this became quite the issue. Not only did the thresher maws appear in random places, but they would kill you instantly if you happened to be on top of it when it shot up through the ground. Then, the thresher maws would shoot toxins that went straight through the mako’s shields. They were tough creatures that gave me only a few seconds to shoot in one tiny area.

I found that there was little strategy involved in fighting a thresher maw. I fought two and ran from another two because I felt that it is simply not worth the effort. The vague strategy I developed consisted of continually moving and shooting as much as possible in the general direction of the maw. If you’re careful, you can also try to jump over the toxins. This will keep your mako in good repair. The main issue here is just trying to survive long enough to outlast the thresher maw.

The second source of frustration was fighting rocket drones on Earth’s moon. There were three stations to explore in this particular sidequest, and each station’s defenses were stronger than the last. In the final station, there were geth rocket drones. The rockets would destroy my shields and kill me instantly. I grew incredibly frustrated because there got to be five to ten geth enemies stuck in a little hallway, and I couldn’t shoot at them unless I was exposed. Once exposed, I would get shot with a rocket and die. I started adapting my strategy, using techniques such as running back and forth in front of the enemies while shooting, throwing bombs, and sending my companions in to get shot in my place. (I could revive my companions, but if I died, it was game over). Eventually, my strategies paid off and I got past the rocket drones.

I have enjoyed most of the gameplay so far in Mass Effect. However, the few design flaws can lead to a lot of frustration for a player less experienced with shooting games like me. I have found the difficulty to be well-balanced for the most part, and most enemies provided a reasonable challenge. I’ll continue playing Mass Effect, but I hope that I don’t run into too many thresher maws or rockets drones. If I do, I’ll probably just run.