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Mirror's Edge

Reviewed by: Joaby 04:54pm 20/11/08 3 member comments Genre: First Person Shooter Developer: Publisher: Electronic Arts Classification: G8+ Release Date: 7th May 2008 Platforms: XBOX360	5 0 MEMBER RATING: Login to submit your review score
The Good bits Cool music. Visually outstanding.	The Bad stuff The game is a buggy mess. Clipping through objectives isn't fun. It's a game about freerunning where you have no freedom. The story is completely generic.

Mirror's Edge's gameplay embodies the philosophy of the game world it inhabits - false advertising. It's a game where everything is pristine and clean on the outside, and yet within it's an unpolished mess. Is this an unfortunate coincidence, or a sign of video games transcending into art?

I certainly came away more confused from Mirror's Edge than I did from any arthouse film. There are so many questions - why are there quick time events? Why does my character clip through the things she needs to grab on to? Why is the story, written by Rhianna Pratchett, a bland take on a tired idea? Why are all the characters either unlike-able or - worse - simply forgettable? Why is the game so short?

It doesn't seem like art, does it. It seems like a bad game. It's not all bad however. The game does look quite pretty, and the first person perspective is a very, very nice touch. Like we mentioned earlier, the world looks fantastic and the atmosphere - the sound, the looks and general feeling exuded - gives the game a sense of immersion they might not have achieved in a third person Prince of Persia style game.

Unfortunately, the sense of immersion created by the first person view, the bouncing camera and the fantastic use of sound and music is dashed every time Faith (the main character) clips through one of the objects you're reaching for and plummets to her death. It happens so regularly that eventually plummeting to your death for no reason will be something you come to accept - an average day at the free running office.

On the subject of freerunning, it can't again be coincidence that Faith is a free-running parkour expert starring in a game in which your freedom usually boils down to "Do I leap over that pipe or slide under it?" In every other case your choices are already made for you - there is one direction to take to get to your goal, and if you deviate from the path you will die. There was one incident in which a ledge was directly below mine - I dropped down to it and immediately died. The fall was not even close to being a killer. It took me a few tries to realise - the game wanted me to go a different way, and I wasn't following the destiny it had set me.

The quicktime events certainly don't help, either. At first glance you might not think Mirror's Edge has QTEs as you won't see any button icons on the screen - instead your "Runner vision" (the magic power Faith has that helps her take the most linear path possible through the game) will tell you its time to press a button. This occurs in fights when disarming your enemies and typically comes without warning - a flash of red on a gun or a fist, you tap the Y button and they're disarmed.

The disarming mechanism is ridiculous as well - Faith runs at an enemy while he empties his clip into her and then takes his gun away when he decides to pistol whip her. Some people can't be disarmed, either - apparently Faith's Martial Artistry only extends to submachine guns, pistols and shotguns and assault rifles are just a bit much - just another element of the game showing a clear lack of thought.

The story, as we mentioned before, is quite generic. You play the role of Faith, a

rebellious delivery chick whose sister gets framed for a murder. Your job is to find out why she was framed - if you can bring yourself to care. The game overall is short as well - I can't understand why they didn't throw in a few more actual deliveries (Faith is supposed to be a delivery person, although you wouldn't know it).

There's not a lot to redeem Mirror's Edge beyond its immersive atmosphere. The clipping is probably the worst thing about the game - it's simply inexcusable to have a game rely on something so much only to have it not work when it should. The game gets full marks for trying something new, but trying and failing is still failing. Mirror's Edge embodies a "Form over Function" design philosophy which doesn't really work for video games. With an extra six months and a storyline to speak of Mirror's Edge would have been a classic.

Comments

6.8

Game Comment by delta38

Mirror's Edge is a game of chance; you jump from a ledge and hope to get across to the nearby building and find that you have stacked it miserably; or you could land that perfectly timed jump with great success. Either way, you're going to get a mixture of both throughout this game and other annoying nuisances.

When you first start the single player campaign, you'll be given a training tutorial to try out your super acrobatic moves through all sorts of obstacles like poles, vents and ledges to jump from. The learning curve to time these jumps, swings and climbs aren't very long and you'll get used to having your mishaps and your achievements.

When Faith -the character you play- starts doing the job she does, being a Runner, she has to start delivering parcels to other Runners so they can then deliver it to an associate for some strange reason (why can't I just do it!) and another weird thing is that you only do this in the first level or so and then you have to do all these other missions and levels that gets too personal and the game ends up being about your sister in a framed murder which is kind of too unoriginal.

Eventually the cops will start chasing you from no where and for no really good reason, and then all hell breaks loose. You'll be evading these dudes for the rest of the campaign and since you can only defend yourself by running...and running, there's no real way to deal with these guys unless you go up to them and knock them down with your fists and other combat moves. This can get pretty hard considering the cops always stay in groups and so by killing one, you're practically going to get killed in the process.
You can however, take their weapons and start going berserk on every cop you see with your gun, but the ability to use guns has a few faults that DICE should have picked up on. For one, you can't aim down the sights witch is hell annoying if I may put it; you have to get close to kill people and two, your gun only has a few rounds in it; meaning you'll have to constantly swap guns all the time.

However, there are some pretty interesting aspects in Mirror's Edge such as bright and vibrant colours throughout the game on basically every building and structure. There is also a Runner's Vision mode, where your character will see objects that look good enough to do your acrobatics on which is highlighted red.
During the campaign intervals there will be cartoonish cut scenes which are kind of interesting when you have the quick time events going on in the levels as well.

If you get sick of playing the campaign, which you most probably will, then you'll want to try the Time Trial mode where you have to race on a level from the campaign and beat the clock to get to the finish. You can also race against your previous track record and they will be represented as a "ghost". And, if you get competitive, you can also race against your mates online to see who the best Runner in town is.

Mirror's Edge had me hyped up for months; the dream of being able to become a super-acrobatic on skyscraper buildings looked really sweet along with the glorious graphics. Sadly, elements to the game such as a boring story and a crappy weapons system, makes the overall experience not as enjoyable as one like me would of thought.
If you were planning on buying this game, I would suggest a rent first.

6.8

Game Comment by delta38

Mirror's Edge is a game of chance; you jump from a ledge and hope to get across to that nearby building and find that you have stacked it miserably; or you could land that perfectly timed jump with great success. Either way, you're going to get a mixture of both throughout this game and other annoying nuisances.

When you first start the single player campaign, you'll be given a training tutorial to try out your super acrobatic moves through all sorts of obstacles like poles, vents and ledges to jump from so don't worry if you think you're going to look like the world's crappiest amateur in the real world after the tutorial.
The learning curve to time the jumps, swings and climbs aren't very long and you'll get used to having your mishaps and your achievements. But most of the time you're going to die a lot from missing to grip that target of yours, so get prepared for repetitive playback.

When Faith -the character you play- starts doing the job she does, being a Runner, she has to start delivering parcels to other Runners so they can then deliver it to an associate for some strange reason (why can't I just do it!) and another weird thing is that you only do this in the first level or so and then you have to do all these other missions and levels that gets too involved with family issues and the game ends up being about your sister in a framed murder which is kind of too unoriginal.

Eventually the cops will start coming at you from no where and for no really good reason, and then all hell breaks loose. You'll be evading these badies for the rest of the campaign and since you can only defend yourself by running...and more running, there's no real way to deal with these guys unless you go up to them and knock them down with your fists and other combat moves. This can get pretty hard considering the cops always stay in groups and so by killing one, you're practically going to get killed in the process and this happens a lot.
You can however, take their weapons and start going berserk on every cop you see with your gun, but the ability to use guns has a few faults that DICE should have picked up on. For one, you can't aim down the sights which is hell annoying if I may put it; you have to get close to kill people, sometimes it isn't that viable, and Two, your gun only has one clip in it; meaning you'll have to constantly swap guns if there's a large gathering of enemies.

However, there are some pretty interesting aspects in Mirror's Edge such as bright and vibrant colours throughout the game on basically every building and structure. Another thing is that there's a system called Runner's Vision, where your character will see objects that look good enough to do your acrobatics on which is highlighted red. There is also a little feature which Faith has and that's called Momentum; when you can slow the world around you to exaggerate a leap you have just made and it looks really cool if it's a big leap too.
During the intervals in the campaign there will be cartoonish cut scenes which is interesting when you have the quick time events happening in the levels as well.

If you get sick of playing the campaign, which you most probably will, then you'll want to try the Time Trial mode where you have to race on a level from the campaign and beat the clock to get to the finish. You can also race against your previous track record and they will be represented as a "ghost". And, if you get competitive, you can also race against your mates online to see who is the best Runner in town.

Mirror's Edge had me hyped up for months; the dream of being able to become a super-acrobatic on skyscraper buildings looked really sweet along with the glorious graphics. Sadly, elements to the game such as a boring and cliffhanger story and a not-all-that-great weapons system, makes the overall experience not as enjoyable as one like me would of thought.
If you were planning on buying this game, I would suggest a rent first, or possibly not purchasing it at all.

Game Comment by 0curly0

At times you feel you want to go on a path, but the game really doesn't accommodate for that, and you feel yourself on a one way street to no where. At times you see how good this game could be, at others you cringe as you fall to your death when there is no particular reason (faith doesn't grab something that she should have).