I gave Mirror's Edge a really good shot. I played through a number of levels and completed a number of achievements - Ubisoft's Montreal studio never seems to let up on their enthusiasm and willingness to take risks by defining new styles of gameplay and even in developing new genres. The downside of taking these risks is that our fingers, hands and brains just aren't trained to play the game in the manner in which it was intended - and we give up in frustration. That's what eventually happened to me in my play through of Mirror's Edge - my 42 year old brain is just not fond of the rapid rate of thought that is required to find the shortcuts, make the jumps and escape unharmed from seemingly incredible odds. I enjoyed the game in the parts that worked for me - it's the kind of game that it is worth playing over again with some foreknowledge of the level so that you can amaze yourself and your friends at how amazing everything looks on the screen as you run across building tops and jump from anchor to anchor while disarming enemies of their weapons with some amazing moves. The challenge is that it is finicky at times, and I just don't have the time or the inclination to replay a level five to ten times before I can proceed to the next section - particularly when my death is caused by an inability to grasp a small ledge... and in which I must replay the ten previous minutes to get to that same point - only to die again, and again, and again. Why oh why don't game developers add a "save anywhere at anytime" option to their games? I just don't get it.

I moved on to another game on my backlog after I put Mirror's Edge away - Silicon Knights' Too Human. Silicon Knights is a St. Catherines, Ontario based developer that has created some huge hits on Nintendo platforms in the past, and Too Human was their coming out party in terms of a new relationship with Microsoft and with the Xbox 360. The game was mired in controversy and even lawsuits, it was delayed, re-started, and finally delivered to the masses to less than stellar reviews. I purchased it on the day it was released (maybe 18 months ago... or more?) but it got stuck in the deep backlog due to some degree the release of other, better games. I finished the game with a Champion character - it took me about 12 hours for the play through and I ended up the game on Level 29. The game is designed as a bit of a Phantasy Star Online (actually more than a bit) clone in that the fun in the game isn't really in the storyline or in the single player game - but in replaying the game over and over online in order to grab better and better loot for your cast of characters. Unfortunately, the game was shipped in an unfinished fashion. For a game of this type to only support two players online is just unacceptable: even PSO supported four players in 1999 over a 56k modem for crying out loud! The control scheme is also a bit off - one might get used to it over time, and it works well once you understand it, the problem however was that most players gave up on the game before they learned the in's and out's of the control scheme, likely out of frustration. Finally, the story just ended. It ended in the middle of the game - in fact the whole game ended in the middle of the game. It seems to me like somebody, likely Microsoft, got tired of waiting and ordered SK to ship the game in whatever state that it was in. Six more months of development would have served to polish up the game (the graphics also needed work as did the sound quality) - there's a good and perhaps even great game in here... it just wasn't there when the shipped it.As I recall, Too Human was going to be the first part in a trilogy - I don't expect that we'll see a sequel, and I haven't heard or seen anything from SK as to what their next project might be. Hopefully they stick around to deliver it - and hopefully they can ship a finished product to their customers this time.