Downloadable Diaries: Volume 1 – Mark of the Ninja

I love downloadable games. Granted, the term "downloadable games" can mean anything; I just downloaded Rock Band 3 from Xbox Live Games On Demand the other day. When I say I love downloadable games, though, I specifically mean games that are built from the ground up for services like Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation Network. I love their limited scope, especially in the face of today's AAA-or-bust gaming landscape, and I love that I can get a quality, game-of-the-year experience for a quarter of what I would pay for a game at Walmart or Game Stop. I even love that I don't have to get off of my ass to put in a disc.

My hard-on for downloadable games is long and committed, and it's with this in mind that I'm kicking off an ongoing series here at Diversion 2.0 Games. More and more top-tier games are finding their way to XBLA and PSN, and I want to chronicle my efforts in experiencing the best of what downloadable games have to offer on a semi-regular basis. Also, spending the first two paragraphs of any given love-fest about Shadow Complex and Magic: The Gathering – Duel of the Planeswalker invariably going "boy, I shore do loves them downloadable games!" gets real tedious.

Anyway, that's your Hello World for Downloadable Diaries. Let's get to the good stuff, then, shall we?

Mark of the Ninja

One of my favorite Christmas memories involves playing through all of Shadow Complex during a holiday break three years ago, and I bought Mark of the Ninja during Microsoft's Huge-Ass Xbox Live Blowout® in order to slavishly recreate how happy winter-time 2D platforming makes me. Also, I remember loving the demo I played at PAX Prime in August, but seriously, I like my exploration-heavy side-scrolling with at least a foot of snow outside and underneath four-to-six blankets.

Contra to my initial understanding, Mark of the Ninja is not a Metroidvania-style platformer, with an open-world map and unlockable areas galore. This is not a deal-breaker, however—for what Mark of the Ninja lacks in hidden Missile Tanks, it more than makes up for in incredibly intuitive and fun stealth gameplay. For that is what Mark of the Ninja ultimately is to me: the first stealth game I not only want to play through to the end (a feat not even the first Metal Gear Solid could achieve), but that I actually felt good at. Here is a game that presents me with an ever-expanding set of rules on how to make enemies look like an army of Mortimer Snerds, and makes me feel powerful enough to bend all of them to my will.

Stealth games have always been my Achilles Heel because I lack the surrounding- and situational-awareness needed to actually progress. I always feel like stealth games require players to juggle an awfully large number of plates: guard movement and behavior patterns; spatial positioning of both your character and enemies around you; level layouts and any one "right" path that needs to be taken; above all, I feel like most stealth games are inflexible in their design, punishing players who don't solve the scenario the way the programmers intended. That's not including any suspect gameplay mechanics involved, either; nothing is more frustrating than spending ten minutes meticulously plotting out a path through a stage, then accidentally alerting a guard because I didn't line up for a from-behind stealth kill exactly right and having to reset because the combat sucks.

Mark of the Ninja has none of these problems. Chiefest among Mark of the Ninja's accomplishments is how well it telegraphs everything you need to know about any given situation: how much noise you're making, whether or not enemies can see you, enemy cones of vision, what you can shoot; all presented cleanly with surprisingly little UI. The shift from three dimensions to two also greatly simplifies Mark of the Ninja's gameplay, eliminating many of the variables that can bog down gameplay during games like Splinter Cells or Hitman. Enemy patrols are easier to predict, and because your vision is less tied your character's perspective than his position onscreen, it's much easier to monitor enemy placement and environmental detail—all the better for playing cat-and-mouse with your unsuspected quarry.

Nearly as commendable is the breadth of choice presented by Mark of the Ninja, letting you choose multiple paths through some levels and allowing for multiple playstyles. Want to go through and stealthily murder every last guard? Slice some throats and watch the points stack. Prefer to pass through each level like a shadow, alerting no one to your presence, even in death? Mark of the Ninja offers all sorts of tools and bonuses for sneaking through undetected. As I understand it, there is even a skill tree that emphasizes terrorizing the holy hell out of guards before you execute them like a homicidal Batman. Flexibility reigns supreme in Mark of the Ninja, encouraging additional playthroughs using different approaches.

Mark of the Ninja even sands the edges off of other frustrating elements inherent in so many stealth games. Checkpoints crop up nearly every five feet and respawn times are almost instantaneous, minimizing punishment for failure and encouraging experimentation. This does lessen Mark of the Ninja's tension somewhat—I've yet to encounter a moment so far that makes me fear for my life the way I might even during GoldenEye 007: Reloaded's stealth section. As far as I'm concerned, though, that's the whole point. From the ease of stealth kills to the Ninja's absurdly powerful moveset, Mark of the Ninja isn't about instilling dread of discovery, but instead about providing a power fantasy, elevating you into heightened layers of hyper confidence and badassery. Fear is for the weak. That's why your victims are so scared.

I'm merely a few levels into Mark of the Ninja, and haven't even unlocked my ability to choose my skillset. I'll be damned if I stop now, though. Tight, responsive controls, concrete-solid mechanics, and a lovely gameplay hook based on an inarguably truth—ninjas are totally sweet—make Mark of the Ninja one of my new favorites, and fodder for more Christmas memories in the years to come.

On playing more games and actually finishing them

Last week, when I wrote about my initiative to play more games, I started taking stock of games I could play when I didn't have the chance to rent. I thought my library was reasonably well-played through, with maybe one or two that I was only a few hours away from finishing. I came up with seven titles that I was not even halfway through, and four that I hadn't played for but a few hours.

This is a huge change from how I used to play games. From the time I got my Nintendo 64 at age nine, up until I graduated high school, I generally played all of my games to completion before I bought another one. Granted, I stopped 100%-ing my GameCube games the way I did Star Wars: Rogue Squadron or Super Mario 64, but I at least took the time to finish the critical path before moving on.

Now, I chew through new releases, playing them for a few hours, then putting them aside until later. "Later" being some indeterminate future, of course. Seriously, out of my shelf of Xbox 360 games, I've finished maybe—maybe—around 60% of them.

That's not including games I bought for other systems, either. My Super Nintendo has been poised and ready to play Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and Final Fantasy II for months, and I made a big to-do out of buying The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the GameCube, only to shelve it after playing it for an hour and a half. And my poor Wii U, shunted to the side after playing it for like two hours =(

Worst of all are my digital purchases. Most of my Xbox Live purchases are made because the game is on sale; I bought Dark Void, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and Halo: Combat Evolved solely because they were five dollars. Hell, just yesterday I picked up Mark of the Ninja, Fez, and Super Meat Boy—all super stellar games that I won't have time to play, but couldn't help getting because they were all half off. This is must be what it's like during Steam Sales.

I've even started a small pile of games I've simply given up on. I hit a wall in Batman: Arkham Asylum sometime back in 2010, and I don't care enough to try to unstick myself, especially since I have Arkham City on PS3 (which I still need to beat, whoops!). I reached the final boss of Gears of War and gave up, and I figured I had gotten everything I needed to out of Final Fantasy XIII without playing its boss rush-style endgame. FIFA 10 has been kinda sitting there for about three years, but it's a soccer game, and you can't really beat those, right?

I realize I don't have time to play videogames the way I could in high school. I have several jobs, and I'm still trying my best to write as much as I can (a games writer must write, after all!). Still, there must be a way I can run games to at least a complete finish before moving on.

One reason why I halt a game partway through is because, frankly, I don't want it to end, and want to hold on to the experience. I'm sitting on a half-finished copy of LA Noire because I loved the hell out of the first parts, and I'm waiting for a magical circumstance when I can enjoy the back half just as much. Same goes for Halo 4: I don't want the ride to end, and I especially don't want to feel like I hurried through the campaign at the expense of ignoring everything. In my efforts to savor, my meals, I'm allowing them to cool and collect mold in the fridge.

There's also my psychosomatic idea that I don't have time to play videogames, which, frankly, is bull. Like I wrote before, I need to play videogames if I want to keep in this games-writing race, and abandoning ship before I can ingest the full experience won't do me any favors.

So how do I clear my backlog out and go? Bettering my time management skills would be a great place to start. Playing games in short bursts would give me slow, steady progress, even when I am in the middle of other games. For longer experiences like RPGs or adventure games, I can focus only on the critical path and leave any extraneous sidequests. Lastly, if I want to get really serious, I can set up a schedule for which nights I'll play what; keeping up in gaming is serious business, one that organizational skills can only help.

Fortunately for me, the next few weeks until the end of January are barren with new releases, giving me plenty of time to make headway in my backlog. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have more loot to collect in Darksiders II.