The stealth genre has lost a lot of steam over the years thanks to games copying Call of Duty's formula over and over again. I remember the good ole days of playing games like Splinter Cell and Tenchu, feeling like a cougar hunting his prey and how satisfying it was to take out a room full of armed guards who were completely oblivious to your presence. After the stealth game's hay day, games started incorporating and shoe-horning stealth missions into basically every game imaginable and the genre sort of died off a bit, with even it's biggest titles turning into action games. Mark of the Ninja, an indie title by developer Klei Entertainment (who also created the Shank games) came to us like a shining beacon of light from the heavens and once again made stealth games fun again.
Mark of the Ninja mixes elements of new and old, taking form of a 2D sidescroller that feels reminiscent of classic Shinobi games and mixing in advanced stealth elements from modern stealth games like Splinter Cell. Climbing walls, taking out lights, popping out of air vents, peeking through doors, using tools to distract and stun bad guys, all of those are intact here in a cool 2D world. The art style is sort of 'Saturday morning' cartoon-ish (think Samurai Jack), but the kills are still lethal and quite brutal. The story isn't really anything special, but do we really play stealth games for the story? The game also has very tight, silky smooth controls that make sneaking, climbing, and killing a breeze. Stealth kills require timed button presses to pull off properly, which mixes the gameplay up and requires a bit of skill in order to clear a room without alerting anyone in the process.
Completionists will also appreciate the collectibles scattered around each level and a point system that grades your performance, which gives the player plenty of incentives to run through previous levels again. Each mission also includes bonus objectives to complete that are optional, but greatly enhance your score at the end of each mission. One thing that always bugged me about stealth games is my perfectionist mentality that always nags at me to stop and reload the game when I mess a stealth kill up. Mark of the Ninja includes a great checkpoint system that allows the player to return quickly to a difficult area and give it another shot without having to pause, restart, hit loading screens, and backtrack through what you've already played.
The fact that Klei were able to take the best elements of classic stealth games and incorporate them into a 2D plane that work just as perfectly as it would in three dimensions is staggering. Mark of the Ninja is the first stealth game in years that brings the thrill of the hunt back to gaming. The game is well-paced, controls like a dream, and simply flat out fun to play. Mark of the Ninja is my #6 favorite game of 2012.
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