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Microsoft Windows Linux & OS X | genre = Action, stealth, side-scrolling | modes = Single-player }} ''Mark of the Ninja'' is a side-scrolling action stealth video game developed by Klei Entertainment and published by Microsoft Studios. It was announced on February 28, 2012 and later released for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade on September 7, 2012. A Microsoft Windows version was released on October 16, 2012, later released for Linux and OS X on September 11, 2013. It follows the story of a nameless ninja in the present day, and features a themed conflict between ancient ninja tradition and modern technology. Cutscenes for the game are rendered in Saturday morning cartoon animation style. The game received critical acclaim from reviewers. Aggregate scores for the game hold in the 90% range at websites GameRankings and Metacritic, and it received four perfect scores from media outlets. Reviewers praised the game's visual and audio atmosphere, strong gameplay and new take on the stealth video game genre, criticizing minor gameplay frustrations surrounding the control scheme and difficult puzzles. ==Gameplay== ''Mark of the Ninja'' consists of stealth-oriented 2D platforming. The character is required to sneak through a series of environments while staying out of sight of guards and performing silent assassinations. Levels are divided into areas of light and darkness; the player character is visible to enemies in the former and invisible in the latter, though passing within a certain immediate distance of an enemy's face results in the player being spotted irrespective of lighting. Sounds such as running may also give away the player character's location and are represented visually by a rapidly expanding circle.〔 Unusual for a platformer, ''Mark of the Ninja'' employs a line of sight mechanic, meaning that enemies which would be invisible to the character are also invisible to the player, though their sounds are represented on screen in the same manner as the player character's.〔 By approaching enemies undetected, the player character is able to execute a "one-hit" kill. To facilitate this, the player can extinguish light sources, hide behind objects and pass through narrow grates and shafts inaccessible to enemies.〔 If detected, they must evade their enemies and remain out of sight for a set period of time, after which enemies will return to their original patrol routes and one-hit kills on them will once more be possible. Although fighting hand-to-hand with the goal of quickly disabling an enemy is possible, doing so risks being killed or disabled in turn, as well as alerting nearby enemies with a noisy scuffle. Enemies respond to their environment and one another; they will sound an alarm if they unambiguously spot the player character or find a body, which will alert all enemies in the area and prevent them from returning to their previous patrol routes. If they hear a sound or get a glimpse of the player character they become suspicious, displaying a question mark over their head and actively searching for the player character until they are convinced he is not actually present. They are also subject to terror tactics, and the player can learn to kill and display enemies in a terrifying manner, such as leaving a strangled enemy dangling from a perch or throwing a dead body at an unsuspecting live enemy, causing them to display an exclamation mark over their head, scream, stumble, and fire wildly at anything which scares or startles them.〔 The player receives points for executing a variety of tactics such as silent kills, passing by enemies without being detected, successfully preventing the discovery of bodies, terrorizing opponents to cause them to fall into disarray, and achieving optional goals such as recovering artifacts and a series of haiku which tell the history of the ninja clan.〔 This score is reduced when an alert is sounded by enemy guards. Depending on the player's performance on the stages, they earn honor and complete seals that are used to buy or upgrade skills and weapons and also unlock alternate costumes. Players get honor by reaching a specific score on each stage, collecting the secret scrolls, and completing the special objectives present in each stage. Some of the scrolls are obtained through secret challenges, where the player is transported to a room to solve a puzzle.〔 Before each mission the player is taken to an upgrade screen, where they can spend their honor in three sections: Techniques (passive upgrades and skills such as new one-hit executions), Distraction Items (such as smoke bombs and firecrackers) and Attack Items (such as caltrops and poison-tipped darts). The next screen allows the player to select any unlocked costumes and equip items.〔 Each costume (except the starting one) gives special bonuses, but also a side effect in order to balance its power, and must be unlocked by completing a number of seals in the form of optional goals related to the specialty of that costume (for instance, optionally terrorizing enemies in specific ways to unlock a costume which improves the ability to terrorize). Completing the game once unlocks a New Game Plus mode where the enemies behave more intelligently and can kill the player with only a single bullet or hand-to-hand strike, the player's line of sight is limited to a cone aimed in whatever direction the player is facing (preventing players from seeing what is behind, above, or below them unless they turn to look), the player is unable to see the enemy's line of sight and must intuit it from the direction an enemy's face is pointed, and the player can no longer detect the radius at which their actions will be heard by enemies.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mark of the Ninja」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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