Circles even indicate the footsteps of the guards, and let you know when the guard has walked away. Aim a noisemaker with the left trigger in the direction of a guard, and you'll know he heard it fall if the pulsing circle sweeps over him. Break into a sprint by pressing the right trigger, and a gigantic blue circle pulses around the ninja. Such visual cues are tremendously useful, and the game makes excellent use of them. As you finish up your shoddy execution (dubbed a 'peasant's death' by the announcement that floats up afterward), you see pulsing yellow circles in the distance that indicate the location of guards who have heard the noise, so you know where not to go when making your escape. It's moments like this when the beautiful simplicity of Mark of the Ninja's stealth design starts to show. You can knock out standard lights with darts-but not these sturdy searchlights. Mark of the Ninja reminds us that ninjas should take no glory in messy kills. But when you botch a job, it shows, and the clean kills of a stealth assassination give way to embarrassingly rough kills that leave the target kicking, gurgling, and attracting the attention of other guards. Or you can nab bonus points for using an unlockable skill that leaves them hanging from the ceiling and frightening their friends (thus allowing you to rush in and finish them off). Often, though, moving in for the kill is quicker done right, stealth assassinating the majority of guards is a rewarding affair of sneaking up on them, clicking X, and following a directional prompt based on your position.įor added safety, you can drag and stash the guards' bodies in the game's many doorways and ventilation systems before another guard finds them and switches on the alarm. Look long enough, though, and you sometimes find a ventilation shaft hidden behind a movable crate that lets you bypass the obstacle altogether. Mark of the Ninja best quality is that it almost always gives you a choice between murder and avoidance, such as when it seems like the only way around a wall of lasers is to kill a patrolling guard and drag his body under them to deactivate the sensors. If you want to change your loadout, you have to stumble across one of the rare kiosks or wait until the end of the level to switch them out or spend points on new tools.

You also find plenty of uses for unlockable tools such as smoke bombs that disrupt trigger beams and noisemakers that distract guards, although you're limited to using only two of these 'ninja tools' besides the default (and limitless) wooden darts. Hiding places abound, such as doorways and potted plants that the ninja can flit between with a tap of the B button, which helps if you've accidentally triggered an alarm and need to hide while the alert dies down. Evasion is key, as highlighted by the scorecard at the end of each round that awards points for remaining undetected and keeping all the guards alive.ĭrag bodies out of the way if you wish to avoid alerting nearby guards. In its best moments, it's a work of kinetic poetry, with the ninja climbing walls, flying between platforms with grappling hooks, and sneaking into vents only milliseconds before a deadly laser sweeps around or before he's revealed by the flashlights of a patrolling guard.

Mark of the Ninja's controls are unfailingly responsive, and few platformers have handled stealth mechanics with such facility. The rest of the story reveals itself through tidbits dropped by your female accomplice (who's a bit on the cynical side), and still other narrative touches are found in the scrolls hidden in the nooks and crannies of each level, but nothing defines the experience so much as the ninja's unrelenting pursuit of justice in the game itself. The story is strangely compelling despite its lightweight exposition, told as it is through competently voiced animated cutscenes that look like they were pulled from lost episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, although it ultimately serves little more purpose than providing context for your actions. He's occasionally accompanied by a female accomplice who drops hints and tutorial advice as the two prowl through fanciful Asian urbanscapes and Eastern European castles on the heels of a bad guy in a business suit with a Russian accent. There's a catch, of course: the marks may eventually drive him insane. The hero is the Kratos of ninjas, a scowling, silent type wrapped with red tattoos that give him greater powers than his shadowy brethren. Now Playing: Video Review - Mark of the Ninja By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's

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