Mirror's Edge tries to make a bold leap in the platformer genre, but unfortunately, it doesn't always have a smooth landing. The game does offer the occasional sense of thrill and momentum while you slide under pipes, bound over objects and leap over chasms. However, Mirror's Edge more often than not tends to trip over its own feet when it throws you a tedious jumping puzzle or the sense of confusion. There isn't anything quite like Mirror's Edge, and it deserves a rather cautious look by anyone who enjoys platformer games.
In the fictitious, totalitarian-governed society of Mirror's Edge, you play as Faith, a female runner who delivers messages from sender to receiver. What these messages are about is never made clear (much like the rest of the plot), nor does it matter much; the conflict revolves around Faith's sister, Kate, a cop who's been framed for murdering a mayoral candidate promising to bring change to the totalitarian government. Faith tries to get to the bottom of this murder and clear her sister's name. The plot itself is bland, boring, and entirely forgettable. None of the characters are interesting (including Faith, who lacks any sort of personality) and why you're sent to do something or chase after someone is never really explained. The story is told through either animated cutscenes that look like the animated show featuring Jackie Chan or through in-game cutscenes. Can't they just pick one type of cutscene and stick with it, for crying out loud?
For the majority of the game, you'll be running across rooftops, jumping across chasms, rebounding off walls, and just about anything else a runner can do. The main twist here is that all this is done in a first-person perspective rather than the third-person camera view featured in the Prince of Persia series. As you run, you start to gain momentum. Once you gain momentum, you'll be able to jump farther or wall-run for a longer amount of time. Things like sliding down the side of a building, balancing on a narrow beam, and jumping on top of objects in a rapid succession are all fun to perform and look neat, but it would've been nice to see what Faith looks like during these stunts, and that isn't possible in the game.
It's very exhilarating to sprint across rooftops and leap on top of various objects. However, Mirror's Edge has a tendency to bring the sense of exhilaration you experienced just a few seconds ago to a halt with a simple tedious jumping puzzle or sense of confusion. One simple mistake can send you plummeting down to the street below to your death, or it'll at the very least interrupt your momentum. A good example of a tedious jumping puzzle is when you have to get onto a ledge in an indoor environment. Most of the time you encounter these puzzles, the solution will be to wall-run and leap in mid-air onto a pole of some sort and then to leap onto the ledge from the pole. If you're confused on where to go next, there's always the option of Runner Vision. This centers the camera on where you're supposed to go next. Unfortunately, it isn't all that helpful because it often points you to a long-term or short-term objective.
Another inconsistently helpful tool is the game's art design. It does have a too-clean-to-be-good feel to it, which is largely due to the amount of white walls and surfaces you'll see. Nevertheless, everything looks sleek and impressive. Important ramps, doorways, ladders, boxes, poles and other objects are painted in a bright red color, which is an important visual tip. However, the color sometimes won't fade in until you're extremely close to the object, and in other situations, Mirror's Edge expects you to figure things out on your own without the visual assistance.
For a game that relies so heavily on momentum, Mirror's Edge has a way of bringing the speedy pace to an unexpected halt in more ways than one. Some of this is due to the game's simple trial-and-error design: fall, die, and start again. Thankfully, the checkpoint is usually right where you died, which is extremely helpful. Some jumping puzzles remove the sense of speed entirely, like the one where you descend into the depths of the water supply system, and then come back up again (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense). Other times you'll be running down a hallway inside a building (which is usually painted in either, green, orange, red, or blue) and end up inside an elevator, reading the news on the wall's electronic panel while the level loads. These sequences aren't terrible, but they're not particularly engaging, either.
Things really start to go downhill when the men in blue make their debut. The best strategy is to just run right past these guys whenever possible, but occasionally be forced into combat. Some foe-heavy scenarios are particularly annoying and frustrating, such as the sniper sequence in the last level. If you feel it's necessary, you can engage in melee combat, but it requires careful decisions and perfect timing. You can perform jump-kicks, slide-kicks and punches, but these are best used as hit-and-run tactics for escaping. Somehow punching dudes in the face ultimately seems awkward and incorrect. Trying to melee down more than one or two enemies will result in an automatic death. You can disarm an enemy by pressing Y when their weapon flashes red, but this is best done when you enter a limited slow-motion mode, and this makes it easier to disarm an enemy. Obviously you weren't intended to use guns in the game, because the aiming is imprecise, you don't know how much ammo is left, and the enemy AI is atrociously bad.
Once you beat the game's story mode, which lasts about 6 hours (and it somehow felt way too long), you can participate in speed runs and beat-your-record races. I'd imagine that only a small percentage of people would actually enjoy these race modes. When you really think about it, the single player story mode is merely practice for being a show-off on Youtube, but those people will most likely see Mirror's Edge at its best, unlike casual players.
The visuals in Mirror's Edge are far from cutting-edge. They're far less impressive than what I saw in various Youtube videos and video reviews. There are often times aliasing issues, along with various clipping issues, on doors, character models and buildings. Some surfaces are pretty impressive with divots and scarring, while others look extremely bland. The character models for enemies can use some work, but Faith and other characters look good, and the draw distance is significant. The audio department is overall better than the visuals. The sound effects, such as Faith breathing and her footsteps on the ground, heighten the sense of speed and exhilaration. The voice acting could've been better, but it's not cheesy or anything. The musical soundtrack is also great.
Mirror's Edge is the perfect example of awesome ideas that didn't come out the way they were intended to. The world is a bit too restricting, along with the amount of combat attacks, and that hinders the experience. Even with its various flaws and frustrations, Mirror's Edge does make some great leaps; it just doesn't quite nail the landing.
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