When Klei isn’t busy working on Shank, their busy working on games that look like Shank. Mark of the Ninja will look familiar to anyone who killed fools in Klei’s previous efforts, but that’s where the similarities end.
Get this, Mark of the Ninja is a 2-D steals game! Hold the gasps, you should have seen this coming. Everything I saw with my hands-on time was impressive, and coordinated to cater to some hard-core stealth fans.
Multiple paths add depth to each beautifully crafted level, along with a slew of techniques – like listening into rooms. Ninjas caught in the act of ninjary face an evasion-timer reminiscent of the Metal Gear series. What I liked most was seeing the sound radar implemented into the characters running animation; where typically implemented into the mini-maps of most stealth games, the sound radar often steals the players attention from the actual game.
I had my doubts about 2-D games lacking the visual-depth required to keep the stealth aspects of the genre interesting. Klei cleared that up using a simple shadowing mechanic that blends the avatar into such things as bushes or barrels. The demo sequence was long, with a welcomed spike in difficulty near end, and I was promised the game would amp up as it progresses.
Mark of the Ninja doesn’t look to disappoint fans of stealth-action, especially those with a liking to the Klei-brand art direction. The game played like a charm in both controls and animation, and kept my attention from start to finish. Klei has me sold on Mark of the Ninja and looks to add to their good reputation with its release this year.
Release: Summer 2012
Platform: 360
