A unique gaming experience is always a desirable and welcome threshold; if only this experience wasn't so frustrating.
Great Graphics
Good Environments
Satisfying Combat/Gunplay
First Person Perspective in Awesome
Simple and Challenging Trophies to Unlock
Ending feels satisfying as well
Rushing Through The Environments is Amazing
When it works, Mirror's Edge can be a lot of fun
Cons:
Noticeable Lag At Times
Punishing Difficulty
Directional Perspective Can Be Misleading
Hand to Hand Combat Doesn't Lock On All The Time
No Aim For Most Weapons
Surprisingly Weak Story
Unlikable Characters
There always comes a time where we all need a little something different to look forward to; something to spice up the usual gist of what we experience regularly. Since I'm used to playing mostly shooters (all though that's not a bad thing), I felt like I needed to play something a little different; and I saw Mirror's Edge as the perfect match.
I was excited to play Mirror's Edge; at first I was looking to buy it for a low price, but saw it available at my local library and decided to rent it. Then, if i did for sure like it, I'd buy it. Good plan right? But yea...........that plan didn't work out so well......
Now I must say that the game itself does deliver on some parts I was hoping would be there. When the game works, it works well. The rush of the game feels so satisfying, that at these parts I fell in love with the game. When you have the feeling of "Crap, I better get out of here; but in the mean time let's punch and shoot everyone in my way", you feel so enthralled. It's parts like these that make the game incredible to play. And for these moments I truly applaud Mirror's Edge.
The problem is.........these moments are way too short, few, and far between everything else in the game. The biggest dilemma that prevents you from staying into these moments is the difficulty of grabbing onto building areas and or reaching your next destination. When you press the O button to assist you with leading you in the right direction, you expect a pretty straightforward path right? But this is never the case. For you see, the assisting camera perspective sometimes likes to jump to different areas and confuse the player as to which way they would need to take, causing multiple unpleasant and often frustrating deaths. And although I applaud the innovation of a near complete first person experience, the fact that you're experiencing everything in a first person point of view makes figuring out if your going to make the jump or not a lot harder. Often times I would come close to grabbing onto a pipe or landing safely on a matted jump pad, but failed to make it and plunged to my death. And boy is it weird experiencing those deaths over and over and over again; thanks to the inelegant sound of every bone in your body breaking on impact of the ground.
Another disappointing aspect of the game was the story. Agree with me or not, I found the story, surprisingly, considerably boring. I found myself not liking any of the characters either, not even the main protagonist Faith. I did get into the aspect of the story of how she tries to clear her sister's name, that much was pretty good. But other than that.......the conspiracy theory, a world run by a strict government, an austere police force trying to stop you.........all had a feeling of been there done that.
But maybe I'm being a little too harsh on the game, even if there were times I almost gave up because of the game's incredible difficulty. What makes Mirror's Edge stand out from every other game on the market is the fact that it's incredibly unique. Living through the corrupt world, delivering secret message and packages, does feel fun. Also, the game is beautiful to look at; even in a futuristic city kind of way. After all, there's not many games that have you doing things like that. Sure, there are some common elements you can find throughout Mirror's Edge that you could very well find in other exploration games, but Mirror's Edge likes to take those ideas and put a new perspective on them; which is pretty fun. I applaud the developers for trying something new in a world full of bland knock-off shooters or rushed games. You can easily tell EA DICE put a lot of hard work into the game; and for that, I also applaud for them. I think EA DICE does deserve someone considerable credit for this game, even though it sometimes doesn't work well.
Graphics:
One of the great aspects of the game. Character models are pretty well done, and the environments can be fairly beautiful. I didn't care for the cut-scenes though.
Gameplay:
When it works, it works fine. But often times you will find yourself falling off the side of a building, just because you barely missed a platform to grab onto.
Sound:
Music is really nice. The electronic style suits the futuristic world very well. Voice acting is solid.
Story:
Some people will probably find it very interesting and engaging. I, on the other hand, didn't really care for it.
Replay Value:
Moderate. You will definitely come back to try out the time trial missions and to unlock the remaining trophies. You may visit the regular campaign again, but I doubt it'll leave as good of an impression as the first time around.
Final Verdict:
I know what Mirror's Edge is. Mirror's Edge is an experiment; a test applied to the gaming industry to see how it would fair and how well it would work. And while at times the game can work fairly poorly, more often you will find something unique and or exciting throughout the game. It may have it's fair share of problems, but I am in full support for a sequel. This way, we will be able to come back to this futuristic world of corruption (hopefully with a better story), and have even more fun with it. I know that if they do make a sequel, EA DICE will be hard at work to fix the problems that players faced in this game. And for that, with the added details of the pros of this game, I can firmly say this game was good. Although frustrating and confusing, it overall left me with a good impression. And that's all it really needed to do to help me experience something new.
7.0/10 or 3.5/5