{"id":8273,"date":"2012-10-04T22:09:09","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T12:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=8273"},"modified":"2014-05-13T11:38:07","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T01:38:07","slug":"mark-of-the-ninja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=8273","title":{"rendered":"Mark of the Ninja"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Platform:\u00a0 <\/strong>Xbox 360<\/em>
\nDeveloper:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/strong>Klei Entertainment<\/em>
\nPublisher:\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong> Microsoft Studios
\n<\/em><\/p>\nI<\/span>t’s funny how things work out sometimes.\u00a0 Mark of the Ninja<\/em>, probably by virtue of its bland and generic sounding title, was never a game that was on my radar.\u00a0 I didn’t care about the concept, I didn’t care about the developer Klei Entertainment and I had no intention of playing this game prior to its release date.<\/p>\n

The big marquee Xbox Live Arcade title that I was looking forward to this year was the stylish side-scrolling zombie thriller Deadlight<\/em> which was featured in the 2012 Summer of Arcade.<\/p>\n

After five unbearable minutes of suffering through Deadlight<\/em>‘s wretched ham fisted dialogue and so-so gameplay, I deleted the demo.<\/p>\n

On the flipside, I couldn’t stop hearing positive word of mouth about Mark of the Ninja<\/em> and after giving it a try, I was hooked.<\/p>\n

The game pretty much does what it says on the tin, but with a level of polish you wouldn’t think possible.\u00a0 You play a ninja in a side scrolling universe who gets caught napping when his clan is nearly wiped out by a gang who use modern technology like guns and robots.\u00a0 Your mission is to exact revenge and stop the bad guys.\u00a0 Simple.<\/p>\n

What makes the game so good is the flexibility in the level design and the crispness of the control mechanics.\u00a0 Your ninja character can actually only take a couple of hits from a gun before keeling over dead so as you’d expect there is a minimum benchmark of stealth to be expected in your approach.\u00a0 But whether you choose to be a deadly killing machine in your play-through is up to you.\u00a0 In fact, its possible to be a pacifist and finish every level in the game without killing a single person.\u00a0 Further to that, its even possible to play a third style where you’re encouraged to play mind games with the hired goons in what’s called a ‘nightmare mode.’\u00a0 Typically you can do this by using a blowpipe and darts dipped in a serum that causes madness.\u00a0 Or stringing up the bodies of the enemies you’ve taken out as a warning to others.<\/p>\n

This versatility makes your approach to each level highly unique to the individual.\u00a0 To further customize the experience, there is a decent range of unlockable skill sets as you gain experience and rewards for performing various feats in your play-through.\u00a0 And once you attain a certain level of finesse in the game, it really feels satisfying to speed run through a level, effortlessly slipping through the shadows, scaling walls and taking out your enemies.\u00a0 The design is absolutely pitch perfect.\u00a0 It controls like a dream and each level feels like it finds the ideal balance between challenge and enjoyment.<\/p>\n

Few games offer the level of empowerment that Mark of the Ninja<\/em> does.\u00a0 It rewards creativity, encourages play that suits the gamer’s own style and looks visually appealing to boot.\u00a0 To my mind, this is best Xbox Live Arcade game of 2012 and one of the most pleasant surprises in gaming all year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nine out of Tenchu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1379,1378,651,294],"class_list":["post-8273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","tag-klei-entertainment","tag-mark-of-the-ninja","tag-xbox","tag-xbox-live-arcade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8273"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14795,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8273\/revisions\/14795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}