I'm going to pick off this review piece by piece.
"Unfortunately, Mirror's Edge has a tendency to trip over its own feet, keeping you slipping and sliding blissfully along, only to have a tedious jumping puzzle or hazy objective put the brakes on. Leaderboard chasers looking to set a speedrun record will find Mirror's Edge to be pure gold. Others will give up, alienated by the inherent trial and error of the game's basic design."
So have many other games such as Assassins Creed and Prince of Persia which were games along a similar vain of trial and error, however that did not stop those games from getting 9.0s.
"Faith is a runner, in more ways than one. In the oppressed, fictitious society of Mirror's Edge, runners are an underground network of couriers, carrying sensitive information and documents from sender to receiver. The content of these messages is never clear, nor does it matter much; rather, the story's conflict revolves around Faith's sister, a cop who is framed for the murder of a mayoral candidate promising to bring change to the totalitarian government and bring hope to the runners living on the fringe. Soon, Faith is running for a different reason: to uncover the conspiracy at the heart of the murder and clear her sister's name. The story is straightforward, but it's interesting enough to keep you involved, and though it ends with a sequel-hinting cliffhanger, it wraps things up enough to feel fulfilling nonetheless. More intriguingly, the story plays out between missions in stylish animated cutscenes, as well as scenes within the game engine itself, which also look attractive but feature a completely different art style. Both types look good, but the disparity is a little odd."
No complaints about this story aspects.
"And so you run--across rooftops, through train stations, and along walls. As you run, you pick up speed and are able to string a number of moves together in rapid succession. You can slide under pipes, bound over railings, and leap across impossible-looking chasms, among other techniques. The most obvious twist in Mirror's Edge, of course, is that you do all of this from a first-person view, rather than with the typical third-person camera we've come to expect. It's an interesting spin, if not wholly new (Montezuma's Return for the PC was blazing this trail in 1998), and it has a way of immersing you as you speed toward your destination. Actions like balancing on a narrow beam, sliding under a ledge at top speed, and tumbling when you land a long jump are fun to execute and look neat, but it may also make you wonder how much fun it would be to see what Faith looks like when she pulls off these neat stunts, which isn't possible in this game."
Referencing an extremely obscure PC game is a bad excuse to not give this game innovation marks.
"Nevertheless, Mirror's Edge excels when you hit that snappy stride, and once you've found the best route through a particularly tricky scenario, it's exhilarating to rush through it without a care to weigh you down. But this doesn't happen the first time, or even the fifth time, you do it. You will need to experiment and hone your skills, because a simple mistake can send you plunging down onto the street below, or will at very least interrupt your stride. You're expected to play each level multiple times to learn the routes that best propel you along, which is great the 10th time around but is often an infuriating series of false starts, mistimed jumps, and full stops the first few attempts. If you need a hand, you can hold a button to activate runner vision, which turns the camera toward your destination, but it's an imprecise solution that sometimes points you toward a short-term objective and other times points you toward your long-term goal."
So have games such as Portal has points of trial and error. The point of both games Portal and Mirrors Edge is to make observations of your environment and react to them. Did that stop Portal from getting a 9?
"Another inconsistently helpful tool comes directly from the game's impressive art design. Mirror's Edge is a game of visual contrasts, in which stark white environments contrast with vivid colors. It looks beautiful and clean, and it's a great way of demonstrating both the bleakness of an authoritarian society and the unique manner in which a runner would see the world--as an array of landing points and jumping opportunities. Important ramps, doorways, ladders, and other points of interest are painted in a vibrant red, which is an important visual cue in some of the broader levels. However, this element too is delivered inconsistently; in some cases, the red hue may not fade in until you are close to the pole or vaulting point in question, and in other cases, Mirror's Edge expects you to figure things out without this visual assistance."
Would you like your game to hold you by the hand at all times? The red hue is there for a guide to players to get from point A to point B. Not only is this mechanic very innovative in itself, the fact that it may fade out tells the player "do you need someone to tell you to jump on this ramp or pole?" when your several hours in the game. If it was always there people would complain that the game was too easy, because you could easily blow through the whole story in less than the 7 hours it takes because there is no experimentation element that real free runners actually do.
"For a game that relies on so much forward momentum, Mirror's Edge has a way of bringing the pace to a halt. Sometimes this is because of the nature of trial-and-error gameplay: fall, die, reload checkpoint. At other times, it's because you're faced with an intricate jumping puzzle that eschews the sense of speed entirely, such as one that has you descending into the depths of the water supply system and then up again. These aren't bad, but they're not particularly engaging either; you're more likely to feel relieved when you reach your destination, rather than fulfilled. Or you'll be zooming along, only to find yourself in an elevator, reading the news crawl on the wall's electronic panel while the level apparently loads in the background. In all of these cases, you're torn from the experience and reminded that this is, after all, just a game."
No real complaints
"Armed enemies further complicate matters. It's best to run right past them when possible, but their bullets have a way of bringing you to your knees as you rush around looking for the best escape route. Some foe-heavy scenarios are particularly annoying, such as a sniper-loaded sequence in the final level. You can confront the threat head-on in some cases, but it requires careful planning and excellent timing. You can perform some close-combat moves like jumpkicks and punches, but these are best when used as hit-and-run tactics; trying to engage in melees with more than one or two enemies at a time is a quick path to the most recent checkpoint. Conversely, you can disarm an enemy with a quick-time event, pressing the disarm button when your foe's weapon flashes red. If you want to hold on to it, you can fire off a few shots until the clip runs out. Faith is ultravulnerable to gunfire, however, and the gunplay is loose and unfulfilling. If you have trouble keeping things in check (it takes some split-second timing to land a pitch-perfect disarm), you can enter a limited-use slow-motion mode, which comes in handy and makes some of these action-focused moves look cool but ultimately doesn't add much to the gameplay."
Way to spoil the final level Van Ord. Mirrors Edge tells you explicitly that you shouldn't involve yourself in combat unless absolutely necessary. It also teaches you early on that using a gun is not reccomended as it slows you down dramatically. Fallout 3 also had very unfulfilling gunplay and that game was most likely heavily focoused on the use of weapons for most players playing. If you are playing Mirror's Edge as a shooter, then you are doing something wrong. The slow motion mode is there for helping you in those split second moments of disarmerments, and also dodging gunfire, plus other such things as giving you more time to observe the enviroment. Perhaps you did not experment the use of slow motion in the game. Faith is vulnerable to gunfire, but she is ultra manuvarable as well. Have you not tried dodging gunfire by wall running or weaving side to side?
"If you can overlook the array of quirks long enough to find your stride, you'll want to check out the beat-your-record races and level speedruns. Both modes feature online leaderboards, and both cater to the players most likely to get the most out of Mirror's Edge. In a sense, the single-player story is simply a practice run for being a virtual show-off, yet the players repeating these levels, because they'll learn them to perfection, are also the ones likely to see Mirror's Edge at its most thrilling. But even casual players will take to the unusual controls, though the trigger-centric jumping and crouching may take some getting used to. For what it's worth, the PlayStation 3's Sixaxis and Dual Shock 3 controllers offer a slightly more comfortable experience in this regard; the clicky shoulder buttons on the Xbox 360 pad are fine but are a little less enjoyable to use."
Slightly a bit confusing of what your telling me here. Casual players get controls more than hardcore players? What?
"While the visuals deserve kudos for their unusually crisp style, the audio deserves its own high praise. Sound effects like Faith's breathy heaves and plodding footsteps are authentic touches that heighten the sense of speed and tension. The voice acting is equally terrific, but it's the pulsing, driving soundtrack that impresses most. Its rhythmic flow augments Faith's most fluid runs, while subtle notes fill in the silence during downtimes. The superb musical journey culminates in a fantastic vocal track that plays during the game's final credits."
So in the old gamespot scoring system woulden't the audio get a 10? or a 9? Leading up to this, this has been the only real positive thing to come out of the review, meaning that the game would have been about a 6.5 or something up until now. Or, the reviewer finds the audio and visual qualities do not contribute enough to warrent this game's score to be anywhere higher than 7.0.
"Mirror's Edge is many things: invigorating, infuriating, fulfilling, and confusing. It isn't for everybody, and it stumbles often for a game that holds velocity in such high esteem. But even with all its foibles and frustrations, it makes some impressive leaps; it just doesn't nail the landing."
So are many other games that are not for everybody. No game is going to be perfectly suited to everybody's tastes.
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