Every great game has its high and the moments that stick with us long after the credits roll, but even the best of the best can sometimes stumble with mandatory sections that feel completely out of place, painfully paced, or downright irritating. These are the parts that end up hampering the quality of the experience with such baffling design choices. From clunky vehicle segments to forced stealth missions and unexpected difficulty spikes, here are 15 awesome games that still managed to frustrate players with totally off-putting mandatory sections, no matter how iconic the rest of the journey was.
Mass Effect 1 – Mako Segments
Mass Effect’s first outing laid the foundation for what would end up becoming one of the most beloved sci-fi RPG trilogies of all time, but even those who swear by the franchise will tell you that the Mako segments are easily the game’s most off-putting mandatory sections. On paper, cruising across alien planets in a six-wheeled all-terrain tank sounds like a thrilling opportunity to explore strange landscapes and uncover hidden secrets. But in execution, the driving experience turns into a bumpy nightmare in the face of weird controls and awkward handling. The Mako handles like a bouncy toy through and through, ricocheting off the slightest hill and sliding around at every slope. It also doesn’t help that most planets you explore are barren with little variety between them and the enemy encounters presnet within. And when mission objectives force you into these segments repeatedly, it becomes painfully clear they were more ambitious than polished. They can break the narrative flow, drag the pacing down, and leave anyone dreading the next time the game says, “Time to deploy the Mako.”
