Re-Marked

Mark of the Ninja Remastered taught me that I've been spoiled by the last 5-6 years of video games.

What I remembered from my original Ninja-ing was all awesome -- largely because of how great the game was at clearly telegraphing enemy line of sight, hearing ranges, alert status, light cones... et cetera. It was such a breath of fresh air from Hitman-style stealth games, where if you don't know what path to take through a level, you have to try, die, and try again until you find it.

What I hadn't remembered was that Mark of the Ninja's mechanical sophistication takes a little while to develop. Your ninja doesn't gain access to gadgets like smoke bombs, or abilities like the trap-sensing Farsight, until several missions in. And in the meantime, I felt like I was underequipped.

I was kind-of down on the game in those early missions. It's not like they took very long to get through, and sneaking up behind dudes to slit their throats was still fun, but the whole time I was thinking: why can't I distract my enemies with noisemakers, or dangle their corpses from lampposts? (Because I hadn't unlocked those abilities yet.)

Maybe it wasn't the past several years of video games that spoiled me -- maybe it was just Mark of the Ninja's later missions. Huh.

Better than: Shank, Shank 2
Not as good as: when I played it the first time.
And the Special Edition bonus level: even remastered, is still pretty "Meh."