This week’s deal offers up the seminal adventures of Mega Man on Xbox Live Arcade. Capcom’s Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10 are both available now, through February 4, for …
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The announcement of Mark of the Ninja‘s release date came without a price tag, leaving us to wonder whether the game will be priced similar to Shank or Shank …
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When was the last amazing Friday release? Fez? The Simpsons Arcade? Add one more to the list with Shank developer Klei Entertainment’s new, original title Mark of the Ninja. …
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Klei Entertainment’s new title Mark of the Ninja throws a shuriken at a dart board for a development team used to creating violent brawlers like Shank , but the shift in genres is a natural fit considering how gruesome Mark of the Ninja really is. Gruesome in a delightful way, of course.
Our demo at PAX East began with our protagonist lurking in the shadows of a scarcely lit environment with lots of vents, rooftops and things to hang from with the grappling hook, so gamers can expect plenty of options to wipe out foes. And wipe out foes they shall, because the silent takedowns are visceral and satisfying to execute. When you approach an enemy from behind, instead of having a simple button press do the trick, the game enters into a quick time event (QTE) mode where players must press a combination of the analog stick and the X button to kill. It adds an extra layer of interaction rarely seen in a game of this type.
Klei, developers of Shank and its recently released sequel, Shank 2, recently announced their new project, Mark of the Ninja. We have the fortune of bringing you another interview with Klei’s founder, Jamie Cheng. This time, he’s been kind enough to talk about Mark of the Ninja in some detail regarding the team’s approach to the game and their gameplay goals. We’ve also got preview content coming up after PAX East, so stick around after this!
Shank is definitely a kinetic, quick paced beat ’em up and never denies that, but Mark of the Ninja is no brawler; in fact it’s far from it. So we had to ask: why a stealth game?
According to Cheng, the team at Klei that’s been working on Mark of the Ninja grew up with ninjas and, simply put, they wanted to make a game that does ninjas justice. “When I play other stealth games you don’t feel like a ninja, you feel like Shank actually. We wanted one where you actually felt sneaky, felt like an actual ninja.”
Klei Entertainment just recently released Shank 2 this past month and we really liked it but what’s next for the Vancouver studio? In an update today, they announced their brand new game Mark of the Ninja, a stealth based action game with a similar style to their previous games. They’ve pulled back the emphasis on hardcore action for stealth which you can see on their website. You can go through a text adventure with the end providing a teaser of some gameplay with the ninja utilizing the environment to trap a guard, catch the trailer after the break (thanks to Vox Games for that). Mark of the Ninja sneaks to XBLA this summer.
After releasing Shank 2 last week, Klei Entertainment has released a free downloadable Shank comic. The comic occurs in the “period between the two Shank games” and features sixteen …
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It’s a bumper episode this week, with one of our longest ever. We kick it off by talking about last week’s release of Shank 2, which we pretty much universally enjoyed. Be sure to check out our character unlock guide if you decide to pick it up. Speaking of guides, after spending a lot of time with Rise of the Martian bear for the guide, Todd isn’t keen to play it again any time soon.
After discussing some of the other random games we’ve been playing Perry brings the news. Which includes some Kickstarter discussion and debate about Gotham City Impostors approach to DLC. Then Andrew poses @MizzouGaming‘s twitter question to us, which leads to a long discussion about our thoughts on the past and future of XBLA. He then challenges us all to play Assault Heroes, so check it out and let us know what you think on twitter or the comments.
Please subscribe, rate and review the podcast on iTunes. We appreciate it! Check us out on twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question. We are also now on Stitcher, so you can stream the show on your smartphone, give it a go!
Big thanks to Chris Green for the awesome theme music, be sure to check out his site BlurredEdge and why not follow him on twitter too @BlurredEdge.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp49.mp3[/podcast]Our full Shank 2 Guide will be launching next week. In the meantime, please enjoy this guide to the unlockable character skins which we will be updating throughout the week.
Shank
Pros
Unlocked by default
If you’re a fan of games cheaper than before, you’re in luck since we got some recently reduced titles for you for the month of February. First, …
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