Mirror's Edge

It cannot be overstated how apparent it is that Mirror's Edge is a labor of love.  Every part of the game is finely crafted, from the musical cues to the graphics to even the death animation.  The voice acting is for the most part superb, and of course the mechanics are reasonably finely tuned.

So where does Mirror's Edge stumble?  Two main points–– the story and the action.

The premise of Mirror's Edge is promising, if somewhat banal.  There exist runners that serve as a counterculture to the utopian, highly patrolled and controlled city.  Runners deliver messages between organizations that would prefer some privacy, and given that as far as problems go messengers are fairly minor, the city police live and let live.  Soon, however, things go awry as a mayoral candidate promising change is assassinated – and your sister is framed.  It's a decent premise, one that unfolds fairly well for the first six or seven chapters of the nine in the game.

Unfortunately, once the main conspiracy is discovered it seems the writers felt justified phoning in the rest of the story.  Characters turn on you for little apparent reason, and the final sequence of the game is rather disappointing – the game just sort of leaves you, and not with a cliffhanger either.

[insert token comment about weird esurance cutscenes here]

The other stumbling block is the action.  Unlike, say, the Prince of Persia, Faith controls realistically – most of what she does is reasonably feasible in real life.  The upshot of this is that the level design is fairly restricted – you'll hardly ever be chaining moves together, but rather moving from point to point.  Usually this involves getting from ledge to ledge, ledge to pipe, or ledge to ladder.  Half the time your task boils down to jumping onto the roof of a shorter rooftop shack to jump onto the roof of a taller one so that you may leap over a barbed wire fence or gain enough clearance to leap across buildings.  Apart from two or three fresh combinations that happen later in the game which are fairly exhilarating, once you pass the third chapter you've pretty much seen all the action there is in the game.

One major exception is later in the game, when you run into foes that you're not strong enough to take out.  The only thing you can do is run – with them on your heels.  These segments were the most intense in the entire game, since all you can do is pick routes as fast as you can without stopping and praying that they work out, since there's no way that you can turn around and check where they are – though you can hear their footsteps right behind you the entire way.  More of this, please!

A lot of complaint has been levied against the feel of shooting in the game.  I strongly disagree.  While the aiming mechanics don't match those of a real first person shooter for obvious reasons, I found it incredibly easy and satisfying to take out foes with the weapons supplied in the game.  Sniping also feels surprisingly solid – perhaps the most solid shooting in the game.  Note that I played with a 360 gamepad though I'm on the PC, so your mileage may vary.

Not enough can be said about how beautiful this game is.  The graphics reveal everything from a gleaming utopian city to somehow spectacular storm drain systems and metro tunnels.  Most of the reason the graphical style works is because the lighting system is so fantastic.  There are segments with walls of glass with colored support metal, all of which is bathed in blinding sunlight, and the way everything diffuses is fantastic – perhaps the most realistic I've seen in a game.  Props to DICE and Illuminate Labs for upgrading the Unreal Engine with this fantastic lighting.

At $20 on Steam, I'd say that all in all Mirror's Edge is well worth your money.  I'm eagerly anticipating a sequel with tightened mechanics, story, and perhaps some of the inhibitions about true-to-life realism cast aside to make way for some more exciting platforming.