User blog comment:USARMP/Ninjas in Mass Effect/@comment-2130363-20120410041405/@comment-5017885-20120414043250

While personally I cringe whenever I see things like this that are decidedly unrealistic (given I tend to try to have a "realistic" take on games), I also can't say they ruin the game. They're annoying, yes, and wielding a sword in a firefight is indeed silly (I believe Garrus even mentioned it in the Cerberus base: "Leave it to Cerberus to bring a knife to a gunfight" or something like that), but in the context of the Mass Effect universe, it's hardly something too out of place. It's just a gameplay mechanic, intended to break the usual "routine" of cover-based firefights and give melee combat a bit more "floor time".