@believer258 said:
I should be clearer. I do think that a game with a wonderful narrative and a reason to care about what you are doing is a great thing; this is why, despite not finishing it yet, I'd consider Walking Dead to be one hell of an achievement in gaming even though the game part of it actually isn't all that wonderful. And, really, the same goes for the Mass Effect games - sub par gameplay and levels made up for by a story you can get invested in.
But at the end of the day, story isn't why I play games. Story actually takes quite a backburner to my purchasing motivations in most games. I do value it, and greatly so, I think it can go a long way toward making me care about a game and toward pushing my favorite past time forward. I play games for their gameplay, and that's what Mark of the Ninja apparently boils down to. And so do some of the greatest games ever. What I meant to say was that , and apparently you, put a greater value on story than I do, and so do many other people, the Giantbomb crew seemingly included. And I do. And if a game promises a story, but fails to deliver, then it deserves to be criticized properly. But a bare-bones story is not something that makes a game somehow lesser than one with a great story. It's merely a game with different intentions and catering to different tastes.
I think you make a generally fair point here-- that being said, I think the failing of Mark of the Ninja is not that it is lacking a story, but that it is lacking a soul or identity. Often that is derived through narrative, so I think that's what the OP was getting at-- that story would have been a viable option to provide context for your actions and tonal context, thus creating something resembling an identity. Like if it had been modeled after a bad grindhouse ninja flick, similar to Shank's grindhouse tone. Instead what little story exists takes itself much too seriously.
I won't speak on the behalf of the OP, but for me the game is starkly lacking creativity. It uses mechanics established previously in games that utilized stealth mechanics and arguably hones and visualizes them in an intelligent way. But it does nothing new, and I would argue that much of what the game does it does well but not remarkably so. It continues to fail in the way that many stealth games fail-- the AI is simplistic and easy to manipulate, it relies heavily on trial-and-error, the game even uses the MGS-style alert meter, and you often only have one method of proceeding through a section of the game in a stealthy manner (and it often involves hiding in doorways).
Playing this and Shank evoked very similar emotions from me-- I began excited, enjoying the experience, and then upon discovering that there was little left to discover after the first 30 minutes I found myself bored. But at least Shank had style.
It's a well-made game that is a notable improvement over Shank, but is not at all deserving of the praise being heaped onto it.
It's the dictionary definition of a forgettable experience.
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