Like running atop any number of Apple products.
Parkour, for the uninformed, is an activity that involves maneuvering an environment by any physical means possible. Go to Youtube.com and search ‘Parkour,’ and you’ll find myriad videos of individuals from all sorts of urban locales over the world jumping from rooftop to rooftop, running along walls, and just generally getting from “point a” to “point b” in ways which would require considerable dexterity and flexibility; at its best, parkour appears exhilarating, fluid, quick, and extraordinarily physically demanding.
That last bullet point sure is a drag, eh?
Well, not entirely. Mirror’s Edge, a product of the creative minds at Swedish developer Digital Illusions CE (DICE, for the informed), successfully provides those aforementioned feelings to the incapable schlemiel, when it’s at its best. Set in an effervescent, eerily-clean-looking city (which is no doubt a result of the IKEA-design world in which we live), the game throws you in a C-rate Orwellian plot not worth writing home about; despite the mediocrity in storytelling, however, the narrative at least gives you enough reason to prance through some well-designed, vivacious levels.
Though there is a learning curve that at first seems vicious and illusion breaking, you find that you quickly learn the environmental set pieces that the levels are made up of, streamlining the pace of the game considerably. When this realization occurs, the trial and error gameplay that such an innovative title uses becomes more tolerable, and the most intoxicating element of the game becomes lucid: the speed.
The feeling of skipping around all sorts of environmental barriers, jumping from wall to wall, and barely landing death-defying leaps, all at a break-neck pace, is something I can describe as nothing less than invigorating. When you’re on the run from a squad of machine gun-laden police – or worse, sniper rifle-weilding authorities – you feel legitimately tense, and the impact and intensity of the gameplay increases noticeably. Similarly, surreptitiously bypassing these same baddies, on the fly, gets the heart racing, and will have you letting out a pleasing sigh of relief at the end of said affair.
That’s not all, though: there are times when you’ll find yourself in a non-threatening situation, with a bunch of environmental barriers to scrutinize and overcome. Serving as the thinking-man’s portion of the game, these are generally meticulously crafted, and at first a little puzzling. During one, in particular, I got so immersed in the scale of what I was figuring out, and maneuvering through, that I became utterly disappointed when I had finished the segment, simply because I wanted it to go on longer.
And, therein lies the biggest flaw in the game. Though the earlier levels find you confronted with a welcome modicum of combat, it’s during them that you are frustrated by the controls of the game, which you’ve probably not acclimated to yet. However, just as the gameplay becomes second nature, more and more waves of baddies are thrown at you; and, despite the fact that the combat is tolerable and works relatively well, it’s not the reason for which the game is enjoyable. As such, it becomes tedious and a chore over time; at no point towards the end of the game will you want to abandon the superb, smooth parkour gameplay for fighting, yet you constantly have to.
When all is said and done, though, Mirror’s Edge is an innovative title that introduces the world to a new type of game. For all its faults, it’s still an enjoyable experience, and something that most people should take a stab at. The good definitely outweighs the bad, and the game ultimately leaves you with the impression that a refined, more focused sequel could be something incredibly special.
