Does Faith succeed in her parcour adventure or does she fall on her face?
In Mirror's Edge, you take on the role of Faith Connors, a runner who uses Parkour to to stay out of sight and to use rooftops and other means to help deliver physical messages between revolutionary groups within the city. Without spoiling too much of the plot, let me just say that Mirror's Edge doesn't exactly have a great story. The story does very little to grab your attention, and some players may even just skip the Esurance-esque cut scenes. But with that being said, the lack of an intriguing story doesn't do much to hinder the experience of Mirror's Edge.
From a graphical standpoint, Mirror's Edge has its ups and downs. The simple yet brilliant art design looks very crisp and clean. The vibrant colors give the city a unique look and feel. Unfortunately the same can't be said for the graphics technically. It doesn't look horrible, but the player models look plasticy and you'll come across blurry textures here and there.
Mirror's Edge truly shines when you're able to string together a segment of perfectly executed moves. Sliding under a rail, walking on a wall, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, etc. in perfect harmony just feels great. Sadly, you'll come across a section that requires you to try numerous times before finally completing, or you'll run into a tedious jumping puzzle which can really slow down the flow of the gameplay.
On the other side of the immersive first-person platforming lies the combat. Whether you're duking it out with for fists and feet or picking up a gun and blasting the enemies, Mirror's Edge's combat just doesn't feel good. Often times it feels clunky, unpolished, and just unsatisfying. While the combat parts in Mirror's Edge are playable, consider yourself lucky that they chose to stick with the fun side of Mirror's Edge the majority of the time, and decided to keep gunplay and combat to a minimum.
The story mode in Mirror's Edge is rather short, and should only take you around 6-8 hours to complete. The good news is Mirror's Edge has more to offer. The time trials and speed runs can add a lot more hours of play time. However, if you're not a fan of trial and error, you probably won't like time trials and speed runs, because anytime you mess up you'll have to restart the entire race if you want to get a good time.
You have to give kudos to Mirror's Edge in the sound department. Mirror's Edge has an excellent soundtrack, with songs that vibe almost perfectly with the game. Sound effects are well done, if you run for a long period of time, you will hear Faith breathing heavily, when you take a long fall the impact with the ground mixed with Faith's cry of pain sounds very realistic. Small sound effects like that are really noticeable and add to the gaming experience. The voice acting is decent, but nothing spectacular.
The verdict is, Mirror's Edge delivers fast-paced action, but falls short in some areas. It's hard to knock EA Dice for trying something new, but it's hard not to wish that some aspects of Mirror's Edge had turned out better. The eye-popping art design and innovative gameplay make this a game you should play, but with it's short length and other flaws, it's hard to recommend Mirror's Edge to someone for a full 60 bucks.