My Mirrors Edge Review
It is like nothing that has come before it. From the very start you can instantly tell that Mirrors Edge is something that you have never played. EA has taken a risk with Mirrors Edge but is it a good one?
Mirrors Edge is about being a runner, a runner is a person who delivers messages to people with the prying eyes of the government that rules the region seeing it. The government is so overbearing that you literely can’t walk the street because there are blues (cops) everywhere, so runners are forced to travel on rooftops. With a main character called Faith you are ready, for some seriously dangerous parkour.
There are only three buttons needed to play Mirrors Edge, one for jumping, one for sliding and one for combat. But with the two movement buttons it is amazing how many different moves you can do depending on the enviroment. For example she can wall run, roll out of large jumps, swing on poles, she can slide under things or she can jump over the exact same object but scaling things is her specialty. In my reckoning the controls are simple but work well with the game.
Combat is good in hand to hand because you can combine your jumping skills with your combats skills, for instance you can wall run and pounce on the enemy the enemy will then be spun 180 degrees making them and easy disarm, but disarming is a pain in itself because the timing is so small if you miss the enemy will beat you back shoot you and you dead. Gun play isn’t very good, there is nothing wrong with the shooting, it is a little worse than most FPS but I think everybody is bored of shooting and the hand to hand is just fun. Although I wish there was less combat because the free running is the best part of the game.
The graphics are stylized and look like what a near future earth could look like. I know that I would get lost in the maps in the even though the size, because if you want to you can wonder off at some points but the game doesn’t make you and the only reason you would is for the hidden runner bags that are scattered around the place. But what keeps you on course is runner vision, where ever you need to go or whatever you need to do next is normally colored bright red, and in this game bright red shows up, but even if you are really stupid and can’t see the bright red, all you need to do is tap B and the camera will face the next place you need to go.
Often when you get inside the office buildings will look the same and you will begin to feel like, haven’t I been here before except this room was red before and now it’s green. But I guess that comes with the game because they have to fill it with something and you will most likely be speeding through the maps, because that’s just what you do in this game. The music fits the environments perfectly although when you are just running around there is no soundtrack and when you encounter enemy the music turns into a simple yet upbeat sound, which fits what you are doing.
It is also a very short game with it only taking you 6 hours start to finish on your first run through. There are time trails but I tried them and the goals they set you were almost impossible for me, you can download other people’s ghosts to race against. There is also a harder difficulty but there is no incentive for completing the game on the hard difficulty except for the achievement, and the only thing that is
harder is the enemies are even more over powered than they where before, especially if like me you went through the whole game without using guns, this will just annoy you because you will probably never pass to the next checkpoint with out dying once. They also turn off runner vision on hard which is no problem because you can still hold B and the camera will face the next objective, and after one play though you can remember some of the routes.
The story isn’t as involving as you would think, in a nutshell, you have message, blues want message, you must deliver message. Then it takes a few turns and twists and it does change near the end with the involvement of some government leaders and other figures.
A bad thing about the game is the load times, every time you start the game and load your saved game it takes ages, then when you die it is quicker to respawn but I still prefer the new Prince of Persia’s respawn mechanic. Sometimes to mask loading screens you are required to get in an elevator, with is really long and boring, there is a scrolling screen of news head lines but there isn’t much of it to read, one of them is “Keep runners away from your children, because runners are dangerous” which also fits in with what the government is trying to do, but at least put more news in there. Maybe I have been playing to much Call of Duty and Prince of Persia but those load times are long.
The upcoming DLC is just like a floating city that you get to jump over and around and try to get the best speed which you will post online for other people to compete against, you will also be able to download others people ghosts for the DLC.
Over all this is a fun and enjoyable game but you will have the most enjoyment out of Mirrors Edge is when you are really free running and you at full speed and running, jumping and wall running all in one continuous combo. You should try it because it is a game that either you love it or you hate it, lucky for you there is a demo on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. So when you trying it if you like the demo you should defiantly try it. If they make a Mirrors Edge 2 that game should be a masterpiece.