|
dkirschner's Mark of the Ninja (PC)
|
| [July 29, 2013 05:15:41 AM]
|
I keep reading that Mark of the Ninja is peoples' favorite stealth game ever. I wouldn't go *quite* that far, as it doesn't top the Metal Gear series, or even Assassin's Creed for its stealth bits, but it is still pretty incredible.
Premise: You're a ninja. Someone dishonored your clan. Go kill them. Find out something else is afoot. Kill the person responsible. You get tattoos that mark you as the vengeance of the clan. Turns out the tattoo ink bestows madness. Story twists. Have you gone insane or not? What's real and what isn't? Who can you trust?
There wasn't a single thing about the game that I didn't like. All the requisite stealth game stuff is there -- fun little items to use like smoke bombs, darts and plague beetles (my favorite), character has incredible agility, artwork and sound design are fantastic, very stylized. The controls are amazing. You are in total command of the ninja. Every level has tons of paths and tons of ways to reach your goal. There are a zillion different ways to kill enemies, and you can always sneak up on them some way or another, by using distractions, by coming out an air vent, assassinating them through a door, choking them with poison gas, and more. You can terrify enemies, which is fun, by stringing up dead bodies, letting one see another get killed (with the beetles or in a spike trap, for instance) and more. Terrified enemies shoot anything that moves and cower and get real jumpy.
The enemies and levels are quite challenging, but never impossible. You'll die plenty, but you'll always figure it out because the game tells you what you need to know and never feels cheap. You see the sound radius of everything that makes a sound, see all the lighted areas from headlights, light bulbs, night vision goggles, and so on so that you always know where enemies can see and hear. I would get into a nice rhythm of assassinating, sneaking, grappling, creeping, setting traps...there are a lot of little achievements and extra challenges, pick ups and points for unlocking abilities and more. New enemy types and environmental hazards continue to be introduced right up to the end which makes each level feel like something new and exciting. The puzzles are good, the challenge rooms are fun and take a little thought sometimes, and are a little easy sometimes to be called challenge rooms. When you beat it, there's a new game plus. I hope I can get someone to play this in the future so I can watch. Hell, this'll be near the top of my list of games to replay or go achievement hunting in.
add a comment 
|
|
|
 |
dkirschner's Mark of the Ninja (PC)
|
|
Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Sunday 28 July, 2013
GameLog closed on: Monday 29 July, 2013 |
 |
| other GameLogs for this Game |
|
This is the only GameLog for Mark of the Ninja. |
|
