IT CAME FROM THE BACKLOG: Mark of the Ninja

IT CAME FROM THE BACKLOG: Mark of the Ninja

10/7/2015

Game of the Week: Mark of the Ninja

Date downloaded: 12/20/2012

            Just like the titular ninja in today’s game, this week snuck past me before I knew it. It didn’t help matters that I purchased Destiny the other day, which took up a ton of my time. Combine that with work and those pesky necessities called eating and sleeping, I ended up not having much time for Mark of the Ninja. But I made a promise to myself and all you fine people that I would grab my shuriken and katana and take to the roofs in the dead of night, so that’s exactly what I did.

            Mark of the Ninja starts out simply enough. You are awoken to your dojo under siege by an unknown armed military force. Your ninja brethren are falling left and right. It appears you may be the next to join the fallen, until a female ninja shows up to help you escape. The game takes it easy on you for the first ten minutes but it turns on you very fast. The enemies are hyper aware of all the sounds you make. Sneaking through an area without being detected at all felt practically impossible.

            Judging by the achievement list, I believe I made it about halfway though. The two hour deadline I gave myself was surpassed by an hour and a half, although I must admit that a chunk of that was being stuck on a particularly challenging room. Let’s just say, lasers and armed guards are not a ninja’s friend. Making things harder is the fact that it only takes about 2 shots to drop you, so being seen is almost always game over.

            After playing so much Playstation 4 lately, the game doesn’t look great to my eyes. The cell shaded art style helps make it seem less dated, but I felt like I could see all the rough edges. I know my eyes just need to get readjusted to the 360, and they will as I work my way down the list. But the time has come to eliminate this game from the backlog. The plan is to finish Mark of the Ninja’s story this week. But even if I don’t, I feel confident that I experienced what this game has to offer. So goodbye Ninja, get the hell off my backlog.
 
Backlog Games

Xbox 360:

Alice: Madness Returns                                          

Beyond Good and Evil HD

Borderlands 2

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Charlie Murder

Deadlight

DmC Devil May Cry

Dungeon Defenders

Dust: An Elysian Tail

El Shaddai

Eternal Sonata

GTA San Andreas HD 

Halo: Reach

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Lara Croft: Guardians of Light

Mark of the Ninja

Mass Effect 3: DLC

Monaco

Portal: Still Alive

Rock of Ages

Runner 2

Shadow Complex

Shank 2

Playstation 4:

Apotheon

Broken Age

Costume Quest 2

Don’t Starve

Ether One

Far Cry 4

Fez

Grim Fandango

Grow Home

Home

Infamous: First Light

Journey

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeros

Never Alone

Oddworld: Abe’s ODDysee

Rayman Legends

Rogue Legacy

Secret Ponchos

Skulls of the Shogun

Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones

Styx: Master of Shadows

Super Ultra Time Force

The Swapper

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

Transistor

Uncharted 1,2,3 (Nathan Drake Collection)

Valiant Hearts: The Great War 

            Next week's game will be Alice: Madness Returns for Xbox 360. I'm trying to get my hands on a video capture card, so hopefully soon I will have more pictures and of a better quality. I will normally have stories about things that happen in the game, but nothing crazy or funny happened with Mark of the Ninja so this post is shorter than it normally will be. Until next week everybody, hopefully we don't get too hurt falling down this rabbit hole.

-Rory