Something new apart from the crowd. You owe it to yourself to give this game a try, at least.
around. I was interested in it when it came out in November
back in 2008, but I never ended up buying it.
Being 2 years old it's about a third of the original price now,
so I picked it up on the 360 after watching a Let's Play of it.
-Thoughts-
I think the first thing that came to mind when I initially played Mirror's Edge is that it's unique. I've never played a game quite like this, and in today's market that's saying something.
In case you don't know, Mirror's Edge is a first-person POV game in which you run, jump, climb, slide, vault, swing and perform various other parkour-style moves as you travel on your way. A lot of this takes place on rooftops, but many times you're inside an office building, on a construction site, or in the sewers, and surprisingly the game makes these locales work for it. But let's get into the main focus of the game.
-Gameplay-
This game controls nearly perfectly for what it is. You always seem to have a button for everything you want or need to do. If you want to catch that pipe and swing across to catch a ladder, it's very intuitive and easily performed. Run up a wall, spin and jump to another ledge, also easy.
This important in a game like this as it makes it so that if you make a mistake, it's more likely your fault than that of the controls. Skill is what determines how well you do.
There's a button to turn 180 degrees instantly, there's a button to jump and climb up, there's a button to slide and climb down. There's even a button to enter slow-motion for a short time which, while not really useful outside of combat, can sometimes give you that feel of being a hero in an action movie, leaping from the edge of a building, arms windmilling, legs kicking, landing in a roll on a building below and leaving pursuers to stand on the ledge behind cursing your escape.
When not desiring to purely escape pursuers, you have enough martial arts skill to teach them that getting in your way is a bad idea. Aside from an array of slide and jump kicks and straight-up punches, you also have the ability to perform impressive disarms against opponents, catching a rifle butt and planting a heel to the back of their head. These moves usually give you the feeling of being an elite professional, and they never got old for me.
However, as entertaining as the combat is, nothing is as exciting as the running.This game has a true feeling of momentum, and when you hit a perfect series, there's no feeling like it. Pick up speed, vault a fence, land and slide under a pipe, leap off a ramp, land in a roll, take two steps up piled crates and leap to catch a pipe, swing off that pipe, land in another roll and come up bashing through a door and sprinting down the hallway. And all of that is usually while you're being shot at. This game gets adrenaline pumping almost all the time.
Mirror's Edge has enjoyable gameplay, certainly, but that's not to say it's perfect. There are times when the momentum stops and you're standing in a room running in circles looking for whatever direction you're supposed to do. The game does have something called "Runner Vision" which highlights things you can use, such as a ledge you can grab, in red, but this doesn't always work.
You can also hold a button to look in the direction you're supposed to go, but this usually shows you your end goal, not the next step you need to take to get there, often leaving you just as lost as before. This gets frustrating sometimes, and led me to reading a FAQ several times in order to figure out where to go.
The game can also get very hard at certain points as it takes only a few shots to kill you. Sometimes you will run up to an enemy and perfectly time a disarm, only to be gunned down by his friends during the disarm animation. Also, to perform a disarm, you must hit the button the moment the enemy's weapon turns red, and in later levels this time frame is mercilessly short. The slow-motion button does help with this, however, and in these situations you can usually beat the room by playing smarter.
These complaints are overshadowed by what Mirror's Edge does right, anyway, and the ability to replay any portion of the game at any time, along with time trial versions of the levels and extra levels, negates these low points. After all, you won't be standing around lost once you've learned the way to go the first time.
Graphics
The graphics in Mirror's Edge aren't mind-blowing as they are in some games, but they are very, very interesting. The city is mostly smooth white, giving it a very Equilibrium-like feel of control, as a sterile environment with little emotion. Objects you'll use as you run are often bright red, and the game makes very good use of color, with many things being one bright color, standing out amidst the stark white background.
You'll see your arms and legs as you run and move, and the edges of the screen get a little blurry the faster you go. These things do a lot to put you in the game and increase the feelings of vertigo and momentum, really adding to the adrenaline this game injects you with.
Cut-scenes in between levels are done in a sort of comic-book style; it sort of takes you out of the game in my opinion, I prefer the cut-scenes that are from the first-person POV done in-game, but they do a good job of stylizing the characters and city, they're well-done so it's really personal preference.
Sound
The sound design is even better than the graphics for adding to the game. You'll hear your panting as your speed increases, the sound of your rapid footsteps on the ground, the creaking of each piece of wood you come across, and the rush of wind as you freefall or sprint at full speed.
The music is very nice, too, complimenting the game, and the final vocalized song during the credits actually gave me a few chills. The rush of a train passing beneath you or the shots fired behind you do a good job of adding to the tension and pushing you along. All of the sound in this game feels important to the game as a whole and really brings the world to life.
Story
The story in Mirror's Edge is relatively simple; this is a city run by a government that has grown so controlling that even every bit of communication is closely monitored. This of course doesn't sit well with some people, and an underground group known as the Runners is formed, carrying packages and messages across the rooftops and through the sewers of the city between clients.
You play as Faith, one of these Runners who happens to have a sister that is a cop, one who is early on framed for a murder, leading you through a chase for answers before her trial and possible execution.
This story works well enough, the only problem is that it is shallow and fairly cliche. It doesn't take much to guess the turns it will take, and there's even a betrayal at a late point during it that it's impossible not to see coming because it's far too obvious. As soon as I met the character, in fact, I said "I bet they betray you later".
The story works well enough as a frame for the game, though, and it does have one redeeming quality in that the ending is very satisfying and quite a rush, not leaving you wanting and tying up every loose end.
Replay Value
The replay value is where Mirror's Edge shines. Every level gets better on subsequent play-throughs, and the game gives you time trial versions of each without enemies to interrupt, as well as many brand new stages designed just for time trial. It's easy to get addicted to these time trials even if, like me, you don't usually like time trial modes. Many times you will replay a stage, saying to yourself "I can do that better" with each mistake, looking for any point where you can shave off a few seconds or save a few steps. You can even set it up to show a ghost of your previous best run as you play, so you can immediately see if you're doing better or worse.
The way this additional mode is set up is just perfect, letting you see every detail of your runs, every point where you lost or gained seconds, enabling even a casual player to improve.
Of course, replay value isn't just limited to time trial. Going through the main game itself gets much better the more you do it because you learn what paths to take and how to take them, and eventually you'll get to where you can do an entire level at a dead sprint, chaining moves together that you initially took minutes to find. And trust me, you will be able to do this, I am by no means an expert at this game, I can't even get above bronze in any time trial yet and I still learned.
Overall
In the end, this game is a solid 8 / 10 in my opinion. It delivers on every promise it makes, and when it's doing what it does best, there's no comparison. In any case, it's a unique and individual game that dared to try something different apart from the crowd, and I think you owe it to yourself to try it out on that basis alone.
There's a free demo available on every platform and I highly suggest getting it, you'll know immediately if you want more, and besides, there's nothing to lose!