{"id":1231,"date":"2014-06-29T00:28:45","date_gmt":"2014-06-28T16:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gametrader.sg\/blog\/?p=1231"},"modified":"2014-06-29T00:31:28","modified_gmt":"2014-06-28T16:31:28","slug":"high-marks-for-mark-of-the-ninja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gametrader.sg\/blog\/high-marks-for-mark-of-the-ninja\/","title":{"rendered":"High marks for Mark of the Ninja"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stealth games have became more prevalent lately, in a very familiar fashion in our typical\u00a03D forms. We see them coming in as a third person view, such as\u00a0from Hitman<\/em> series, to The Last of Us<\/em> to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. <\/em>And with the explosion of the stealth genre, we have also lately seen\u00a0stealth infused with FPS (think Crysis<\/em> series or Dishonoured<\/em>)\u00a0or mixed\u00a0with an action title (think Uncharted<\/em> or Splinter Cell: Blacklist<\/em>) or in its purest form in the Thief<\/em> series. We thought we have seen them all.<\/p>\n

We thought wrong.<\/p>\n

You see, Mark of the Ninja is a 2D side-scroller with handdrawn graphics. It doesn’t have cutting edge breath-taking graphics or does it try too hard to conform to that. The look and feel\u00a0is nostalgic and beautiful thanks to the talented team of artists and animators\u00a0in developer Klei Entertainment that reminds me of the cartoons I used to watch on TV. And with that, it does an amazing job at showing how stealth mechanics can still work even in a 2D platformer. How? You ask. You are flabbergasted by the concept because you can’t exactly hide behind corners or peer out of it, nor can you shoot your dart or stun gun from cover.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(I can’t do this, you say)<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, let me explain. Mark of the Ninja does an excellent job playing with the light and sound mechanics. Light\u00a0sources reveal to everyone where you are if you happen to be in the line of sight of the guards, and sounds are represented visually as circular waves emanating from your running footsteps, to dogs barking to light bulbs breaking. A neat line-of-sight effect shrouds areas beyond view in murky uncertainty, while the colour vanishes from your ninja\u2019s garb and the surroundings\u00a0to show when he\u2019s hidden in the dark. And from a 2D platform, the ninja can hide from a hidden sewer grate on the side, to the drain grate beneath, or to\u00a0a chandelier above. Additional objects, such as doors or pillars can allow you to hide behind it on a 2D scale.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So for example, say there is a guard blocking my way to the objective, and from\u00a0his position\u00a0its is well-lit from a single light source\u00a0and metres away from the darkness my ninja is shrouded in. No issue there, because\u00a0Mark of the Ninja provides you with\u00a0so many options at\u00a0your disposal.\u00a0You could use\u00a0the grappling hook to zip to the\u00a0hanging\u00a0platforms overhead and then\u00a0drop down behind him\u00a0to do a lethal stab sword in his back. The cool thing is anytime you make an undetected kill like that, the camera zooms in and darkens the background, highlighting you and your victim as you plunge your blade into him and then toss his body aside. Or if you are feeling both creative and sadistic at the same time, you can throw a spike mine behind him, and then subsequently throw a dart to smash the light bulb. The sound stemming from that will distract the guard and prompt him to investigate, and after\u00a0walking a few steps, triggering the mine and finding himself impaled in so many different angles that\u00a0he instantly\u00a0becomes swiss cheese.\u00a0Or if you are feeling very nice and merciful that day, you could always deploy a firecracker\u00a0behind him to distract him, and quickly sneak above him unseen while he\u00a0walks back to check things out.<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/p>\n

You begin with very basic moves of moving, grappling and stealth killing from behind, but as you finish levels and secondary objectives within each mission (such as completing an area without being detected or successfully pickpocketing your foe), you\u2019ll earn medals redeemable for new moves that significantly liven up the game and open up your options. There is a move that you can redeem, for example, that allows you to string up your dead victims from an overhead perch, guaranteed to terrorise any guards witnessing that traumatic image. Terrorised guards panic and\u00a0usually starts shooting blindly, potentially leading\u00a0to friendly fire as your ninja watches gleefully at grown men peeing their pants and killing their comrades.\u00a0Or you can\u00a0use the infamous Metal Gear Solid\u00a0cardboard box to hide within it, and ambush unsuspecting guards like a trapdoor spider when they walk past you.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The scoring system is very rewarding, achieving its balance between a stealth gameplay and being a killing machine. Your ninja is just a human, and when detected, a few gunshots can kill him pretty\u00a0fast. This means you can’t brazenly walk into a room and start stabbing the guards in the open.\u00a0While many stealth games claim you can play them lethally or non-lethally, Mark of the Ninja rewards you with XP when you use either style.\u00a0If you are like me, preferring to stab every fool that you cross,\u00a0you\u2019ll earn some points along the way. But if you bother to hide their bodies, the\u00a0scoring system will reward\u00a0you more. Terrorize the weak-willed guards and you\u2019ll gain even more (see my tactic above). Or you can just sneaking by the\u00a0guards undetected to gain plenty of points that way. All these styles are\u00a0complemented by different “Paths” to suit your playstyle. Take the Path of\u00a0Silence for example,\u00a0and the game will\u00a0remove your sword, forcing you to sneak by everyone and will\u00a0give you extra distraction tools to do so. Take the Path of the Hunter however, and you will have extra lethal items, but they cannot by replenish and you cannot carry any distraction items. These gives a great deal of replayability.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(No, you will not be able to do that in this game<\/em>)<\/p>\n

The only flaw I can think of is the maddening controls sometimes. You see,\u00a0on the PC, the right mouse click is used for picking up a corpse, and also to hide behind a room or an object. What if\u00a0the corpse is very near the room? Then the control will have difficulty differentiating what you intend to do. You might end up holding the corpse when the guard walks towards\u00a0you, instead of\u00a0hiding into the room as you originally\u00a0wanted. It is frustrating, but thankfully not game-breaking.<\/p>\n

Mark of the Ninja is a very smart game with a very intuitive design, filled with exploitable\u00a0logic from guards and\u00a0challenges you to be creative and to think.\u00a0 Its linear but multi-route levels are really just collections of puzzles\u00a0and you gain satisfaction\u00a0through creative employment of your ninja\u2019s bursting utility belt and moves. And with that said, Mark of the Ninja is really one of the best stealth games you can ever play for its value. Now at less than USD10 on Steam, this is the kind of game that slaps those $60+ multi-million blockbuster hits in its face and screams for attention because it is as good, if not better than those releases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stealth games have became more prevalent lately, in a very familiar fashion in our typical\u00a03D forms. We see them coming in as a third person view, such as\u00a0from Hitman series, to The Last of Us to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And with the explosion of the stealth genre, we have also lately seen\u00a0stealth infused with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p13AlF-jR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1323,"url":"https:\/\/www.gametrader.sg\/blog\/best-buddy-award-for-metal-gear-solid-5-phantom-pain\/","url_meta":{"origin":1231,"position":0},"title":"Best Buddy Award for Metal Gear Solid 5 Phantom Pain","date":"October 31, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the cool feature of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is the buddy system. 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