Backlog: Mirror’s Edge
I had been dying for a game that made parkour more than just pushing a button to scale anything – Mirror’s Edge ended up being that game for me. Being the eternal eye-candy gamer, from the first trailer I saw I was in love of the visuals. The whole world has a very utopian look: everything is clean, organized, almost dream-like with lots of bloom. This idealistic society is a facade though, playing counter to the military-state rule.
As I don’t do well with first person shooters on the console, I thought I might have problems with the control scheme and I did. My first look at Mirror’s Edge was when I downloaded the demo on the Xbox 360 – the experience turned out to be so bad that I was thinking I would have to pass on the game. I decided to wait and try it out on the PC and I’m glad I did.
The controls handled much better with a mouse and keyboard, from the precise movement to the fast directional changes. A temporary slow motion feature is added to help you through some of the more difficult sections, but after using it in the tutorial area I quickly forgot about it and never used it once. I imagine the slow-mo is more useful on the console.
While I’m sure the pathing was well thought out, I rarely felt like I was being forced down a certain route. The game will color an object bright red to indicate where you should go but it doesn’t always tell you how to get there. I often would find myself stopping to figure out one of the parkour puzzles, only to figure out that I was missing a wall-run. There are also many ways of doing something, with the only difference being skill and time. Getting through some of the more difficult areas though gives the player a true feeling of accomplishment. I should mention too that while many people felt the game was very trial-and-error, I didn’t really have that problem.
One of the weak points of the game was the plot. While the game world is interesting and holds a lot of potential, the writer goes with the tried-and-tested trope of [SPOLIERS] sister-in-trouble-and-you-must-save-her. Another disappointment was the cut-scenes. I’m not sure why the developers would spend so much time to create this beautiful world and then use flat cel animation in their cut-scenes.
While not really a negative, combat was difficult. This could be on purpose though as to make one want to avoid combat as much as possible.
The best part of the game, as it should be, is the gameplay. I really enjoyed Mirror’s Edge, playing through its eight to ten hours of content in less time, and look forward to playing it again.
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