Mirror's Edge

Mirror’s Edge is a first person action platformer by EA’s DICE branch, and tries to mix up the ordinary linear shootyness of the average first person game by allowing the player to maneuver the environment in never-before-seen ways, and centering the game around traversing the levels themselves rather than constantly killing things. Mirror’s Edge can best be described as a first person “Prince Of Persia” set in the future. You are Faith, a refreshingly non-sexualised female protagonist who is a ‘runner’; a rebel of sorts against a totalitarian government where communication is heavily monitored, and she sends packages and messages around to people without them being intercepted by the government (though this is only actually witnessed in the prologue.)  

The story is a bit weak and doesn’t really give a good impression, trailing off a few levels in and becoming less of an interesting motivator and more of your average setting-the-scene type of back story to give an excuse to be in certain places. It doesn’t help that it’s told through anime cutscenes while missions are loading which really detract from your immersion and are honestly just bad. I mean, I don’t like anime at the best of times, but it’s badly done here, like an amateur attempt; and just seems poorly animated… Not to mention how out of place it seems in this game.   

To be more precise about the gameplay; Mirror’s Edge is about speed, and momentum. It’s like a racing game on foot. You can leap over obstacles, run along walls, jump long distances, roll across the ground, etc, and the point is for you to do all these things while maintaining your pace without slipping or losing too much speed. Objects that can be interacted with in some way (vaulted over, jumped from, etc) glow red to indicate their significance, but this can be turned off if you want a challenge. Much like a racing game, one little slip can spiral you out of control and ruin everything. There are even time trials and speed-runs you can do separately from the story that are centered completely around this idea.

Not to say that Mirror’s Edge is strictly a fast paced platformer in the same vein as Sonic; it’s still very much an action game too, and there is enough combat involved to mix things up. Every now and then you bump into some enemies, and can take them out or (sometimes) just avoid them. The game emphasizes the idea that stopping to fight enemies isn’t a necessity and avoiding them is usually the better and less violent option; which is an uplifting tone for something like a first person game. The problem is, when you do stop to fight, or on the occasions when you simply have to fight, you find that the combat is very imprecise and just not refined enough. You can disarm an enemy by pressing a button at a certain point when their weapon glows red to indicate your chance, and this initiates some fantastic martial arts move, but it’s difficult to get it right, and if you’re not fast enough the enemy will hit you; and this, combined with others shooting in your direction, probably means a quick death. You can pull of a couple of other moves if you work out the keys, like a sliding kick to the nuts and a jump-kick, but it’s all a bit clunky to pull off no matter what you’re doing. When you get hold of guns yourself you are surprisingly accurate for someone who doesn’t use weapons often, but they slow you down a lot so you have to discard them if you want to be fast, which adds some strategy. 
 
Mirror’s Edge gives off such an amazing sense of freedom; though not because of the levels. The levels aren’t linear, as there are a number of ways to reach your objectives and the layout is good; but it’s other things that really capture your attention. Sprinting and jumping across rooftops, seeing cars below you and hearing the wind rushing in your ears gives this fantastic sense of speed which is a completely unbridled experience I have felt in no other game than this. Mirror’s Edge is the type of game that; if you are good at and focus on what you’re doing, you can get completely sucked into and maybe forget for a second that it’s actually a game you’re playing.
 

But the key phrase in the last paragraph is “if you are good at it.” Mirror’s Edge certainly won’t appeal to everyone, as it requires quite a lot of dedication for a fast paced first person game. Maintaining control of your speed and the momentum of your body is difficult to master; and you need good reflexes coupled with a good sense of direction and the environment around you. Either that, or you need patience to play through areas multiple times in order to get a good idea of the levels and how to navigate them properly. The people who just want to pick it up and zoom through the campaign aren’t exactly going to have a problem doing that, especially not on the easy difficulty; but they can expect to fall to their death an awful lot and go through plenty of trial and error if they don’t put some effort into mastering the various movements. The PC controls of Mirror’s Edge are enhanced over the Xbox360 version, making everything a little easier to pull off with the precision of a mouse. The layout of the keyboard controls may seem a little strange at first, but they are like that for a reason, and once you get used to a slightly foreign way of moving around it works very well.

Mirror’s Edge has some quite stunning visuals. Although technically inferior to a lot of games, there is such a bright, shiny and vibrant colour palette which is such a refreshing change to the dull, dark and gritty environments of most current generation games. There are a lot of whites used, as everything is supposed to look very immaculate in this city, and everything glistens in the sunlight in a wonderfully unrealistic, pristine kind of way. Bright reds shine through the whites, indicating your next move, and all the other textures are mostly made up of many primary colours, making absolutely everything stand out and catch the eye. It certainly doesn’t look real, but it’s not that kind of game, and it looks very striking in its own surreal way. The PC version is enhanced by higher resolution textures over its console counterparts, PhysX effects and the obvious such as higher Anti-Aliasing levels. It’s a fairly nice port job, but has a few technical issues preventing some people (such as myself) from using the PhysX option without severe slowdown during gameplay, even with high end PC’s. It also has some minor audio incompatibilities, which however, appear to be an inherent problem in many UnrealEngine 3 games from my experience. 

But when the sound works properly, it sounds marvelous. Mirror’s Edge has amazing sound effects, with little details that really stand out, such as the aforementioned rushing of wind in your ears as you run at high speeds, and the slight grunts of Faith as you pull of moves; catching her breath when you stop. Environmental sounds such as birds, the bustling of the city below you, and sirens in the distance set the tone of the game a lot; and it’s mostly a very peaceful sounding game, the occasional gunshot cracking through the calmness notwithstanding. This is coupled with a brilliant soundtrack, which is mainly electronic, but atmospheric; slowing into serene background tunes during the games many outdoor vistas and fast paced beats in moments of action. The main theme is outstanding; a beautiful tune and vocals, and the PC version comes with a free music CD of the single, plus remixes. 

From an objective standpoint, Mirror’s Edge is an acquired taste due to its tricky handling and trial and error gameplay. But if you are the type of person who would be good at a game like Mirror’s Edge and don’t mind some repetition to master an ‘art’, you will absolutely love this game, as I did. Playing through the time trials and speedruns and trying to beat high scores is the real meat-and-potatoes of the game here, as the campaign is too short. So, if you’re the type of person who gets enjoyment out of obsessively repeating levels for points and for the feeling of perfection, and also love a powerful feeling of speed and agility, Mirror’s Edge may be a new favorite. For the average gamer however, Mirror’s Edge is a fiddly game that requires too much precision, and the high price of failing even the smallest jump will put off a lot of people.