Consolation Prize

Mirror’s Edge has a lot of potential. It promises to take the FPS in a new direction focusing on the art of free running - Parkour - and away from shooting. In fact, FPS is probably the wrong acronym to use and it would be best described as a first person action game.

Mirror’s Edge is placed in a seemingly utopian city with clean streets and gleaming skyscrapers. All is not as it seems however, and this perfect society is in fact a mask for a totalitarian government with a penchant for over the top big-brother-like surveillance. The only way to deliver sensitive information in this day and age is to employ a runner - specialists in moving data under, over, and around the radar. This is where you come in as you play the role of Faith.

There are a couple of things that you need to get used to before you can get the most out of Mirror’s Edge. Firstly the controls are a little more complicated than one would usually associate with a first person game. This is mainly due to the fact that Faith can perform a variety of manoeuvres that allow her to traverse the environment with speed and grace or disarm dangerous opponents. But, it is also true that you’re brain will require a minor rewire to automatically associate “jumping” and “ducking” actions with the assigned left shoulder buttons on the controller. Secondly, you need to be aware of your environment and make good use of Faith’s “runner’s vision” which conveniently highlights objects that will be of assistance when traversing the cityscape a bright red.

Once the controls are mastered then Mirror’s Edge becomes a fluid and entertaining game to play as you scamper around rooftops hurdling objects and leaping across precipices. The level design has been excellently designed to give you a feeling of freedom, and figuring out the best route, even with all the little clues from the runners vision jotted about the place, results in some sense of accomplishment. It’s inevitable that at some point you’ll mistime a jump and plummet to you’re death, but there appears to be a sensible check-pointing system in place which should help keep frustration at bay.

Visually I don’t think Mirror’s Edge can be faulted; the city looks unusually clean and tidy, and in some respects characterless (but in a good way) – it’s exactly what I’d expect to see from the art design given the setting and back-story. It also makes a change to feel like you’re actually viewing the action from within a human body and not from the perspective of a floating camera, and to that end the screen bobs and weaves with arms and legs which are clearly visible when running and jumping.

So after playing the demo, Mirror’s Edge has managed to race its way onto my playlist. It may not be right at the top, but it is pretty close.

Yeah, after playing through the demo repeatedly I finally stopped long enough to add it to my GameFly Q. Not before everything else, but I’m really looking forward to it.

I find it interesting that even though it is unknown if Mirror’s Edge’s primary mechanics actually execute as efficently as has been believed to, people are still willing to slap down a pre-order for this game. I guess this can and should be said for any games, but why not wait until it is released, scruitinized and sampled, before jumping into this. I know the point of the demo is to do this, but still.

Looks good, I am reserving my opinions.

It also made it to my GF queue

It is interesting Daniel, and I’m certainly guilty of pre-ordering before the reviews come in - sometimes based on my impressions of a demo and on other times just on blind faith.

It’s sometimes hard not to get wrapped up in the hype of a game and remain analytical, no matter how much the resolve, when bombarded by publicity. I do however think it’s wise to always keep one eye on the media and I’ve no problem canceling a pre-order if it’s below par or fundamentally flawed.