It's been an intense year of videogame playing for me. I've been playing catch up with a lot of game series in anticipation of new sequels as well as new ideas altogether. Something I've noticed about myself in playing through all of these games, is a threshold. It's become sort of a gauge that really allows me to judge whether I'm enjoying a game or not. A few of the games I've played through had me wondering, "How long is this game?" At a certain point, I would Alt-Tab out, and start searching for general times completion times. After awhile some games tend to drag on with repetitive level design, or lack of obstacle variation (ie: different enemies). So, I thought I'd talk about a game where this didn't happen to me. It's also a game I believe that is heavily underrated and misunderstood.
I'm talking about Mirror's Edge, a game I have to whole heartedly defend. It's a First Person dramatic experience. A shooter in limited form, it tackles a new kind of gameplay in a very fanciful way. Some might be dismayed by not being able to shoot down everything in sight all the time, it's become a single minded track for gamers. I'm so glad this game isn't a Battlefield, or a Call of Duty clone, because in the world of cinema, not every movie is a poorly written action flick either.
Hi, I'm Faith, and I will be your protagonist today. Enjoy!
Mirror's Edge takes liberty in mystery. It's set in a nondescript city setting, where we don't know if it's a future representation of an earth city, or a parallel fantasy. This adds that all too vacant elements in games today, the ability for us as the player to fill in our own wonders. Much like a book allows us to build our surroundings, Mirrors Edge only gives us simple information while providing a lush world of opportunity to cast ourselves inside it.
Short clip I made of some of the games starting level.
You play a girl named Faith, a messenger, a parkour master of overcoming obstacles. You're dumped into a mystery involving your sister being set up for murder. Albeit you don't have any choices in the social path you take within solving the mystery, you are endowed with the taking part in all of the action and experiencing the carefully crafted environment. This is what I'm talking about when I proclaim the future of cinema will be like this. You are involved in a story, but instead of just sitting and watching, letting your brain die, the movie let's you participate.
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Bold vibrant colors and shadow depth make this game as lush as a jungle scene.
The Mirror's Edge level design is flawless in my eyes. I want to say that I get exactly the feeling that the producers were aiming for, but That's just my opinion. They attack us with bold vibrant colors. Meant to be a utopian society, where the only thing serene about it is the clean exteriors and interiors. You transport yourself over rooftops, through utility halls, and offices. The bulk of this game take place during the off hours of businesses and stores as you rarely see come across pedestrian life. It adds to the eerie feeling, that something about the world isn't right.
There's a richness to the choices they made in level design. Purity comes to mind.
The gameplay is 100% solid. I never once ran into a bug, or game breaking element. You traverse the world fluidly and your timing doesn't need to be as precise as you would think because the mechanics pick up gracefully on what needs to be done. I would say that it's a little easier with K/M than a controller, but I believe that to be true of most all first person games. The experience of motion is enhanced ten fold by excellent sound engineering. As you fly through the air, or skim across a wall, you hear the wind, and the footsteps with great depth in the environment. There's nothing like leaping from one rooftop to another, only to look down, hear the wind, see your feet and fly. Then, if you miss your mark, you fall, and it's handled perfectly. Wind increases, clothes flutter, your eyes close facing impending death, and splat! Try again! This is all enhanced even further by an excellent musical score of electronica by Solar Fields with the title theme "Still Alive" by Lisa Miskovsky as the mellow centerpiece to round out the games aura.
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I'm probably going to decorate like this.
I can't say enough about this game, but I must choose to let it speak for itself because it is a truly wonderful change from the same old crap. One of my favorites to date and it stays on my hard drive for replay because the immersion is mastered here. Dice knows how to make games, and have good faith that they will try to put out a sequel to this one which I look forward to. If you're a die hard call of duty player, you probably aren't even reading this. If you have an open mind about trying new things, then give this game a shot.
FrostKing
Honestly speaking mate, I didn't like the game much. It sure was fun jumping and doing the acrobats but I felt it was very repetitive most of the times.
ok, single entity.
I do not see how it is any more repetitious than 95% of all FPS genre games. They all have you doing the same exact thing level after level, shooting an enemy with all of your standard fare, assualt rifles, rocket launchers. I haven't seen a ground breaking story from any of todays "big hits" either. The only other game that comes to my mind right now that doesn't use the same tired old tricks in first person perspective is Portal, another excellent game that could be considered just as repetitive as Mirror's Edge even though neither are. Mirror's Edge does a great job of delivering a much more solid experience than games that have you playing the same "elite commando, who's with a highly tiered squad of some sort but gets seperated for awhile and has to stop a bomb from going off!" or some crap like that. Such a refreshing change of pace to have played a game that focuses on a new concept devoid of the routine I've seen too much of in todays "cookie cutter," and "please the cattle" gaming society.
People praise so many indie games for their charms and credit them with with making due on short budgets. I see ME as a game that calls from indie inspirations and applies a handsome budget thanks to EA and DICE.
Mirors Edge is such an awesome game. The only reason people didn't like it was because it wasn't your typical shooter. Mirors Edge was a brand new fresh idea on the fps genre. and people didn't like it. Sorry guys i have to agree with @FrostKing on this. Shooters have grown stale and stagnate in the past many years primarily because of Call of Duty. @FrostKing is absolutely correct. All the Indie games get so much praise while new IP's a drove straight into the ground. It's almost as if today's generation of gamer's have become zombiefied by the garbage shooters that have come out.
I loved the game. I understand why some people didn't though. It WAS a frustrating game...but in the end more fun for me than frustrating perhaps...I loved finishing this one.
However there are multiple bugs in different versions of the game...Not ones that I feel impact it enough to warrant not playing it but they do exist.
Anyways I agree it is a highly under-rated game.
More people should give this one a go and put some effort into it! :D
No offense, but another thing about modern gamers is that any criticism of an innovative but flawed game is written off with comments such as "well, you probably can't appreciate it because you only like CoD". This is an easy excuse to write off legit criticism of this game, as you'll see that nearly all reviewers agreed that this game had the right idea, and that it was the execution that left things to wish for rather than the concept. This includes my own review for NF, and I think some of my posts on the forum will attest to me not being a CoD fanboy in the least.
The thing is, I don't really understand why CoD comparisons are even brought up with this game. Mirror's Edge isn't a shooter. It has (dare I say, disposable) FPS elements, but the main focus of the gameplay is first person platforming, and it should be judged as such. What dragged the game down for me were the pacing issues. The action scenes were completely unnecessary, and some levels really lacked balance in that the fast-paced platforming was often cut short by a bit too many environmental puzzles. I often had the feeling that this game didn't really know what direction it wanted to take. It tried to be a fast-paced platformer, an action game and a puzzle game at the same time, and this didn't really turn out well in the end. I can go on for a while, but I'll refer to my review on here for a full analysis on what this game does wrong and right in my opinion.
That being said, Mirror's Edge does have a phenomenal presentation. The graphics are near-perfect, and so is the artistic design. The soundtrack and voice-acting are really good as well. The story is disposable, but seeing as the same applies to 95% of the video game stories out there, I won't hold this against the game. All in all, I really enjoyed the vibe of the world of ME, so I wouldn't mind playing it again even if it meant facing all of the frustration the short campaign generates all over again.
By the way, I wouldn't expect a sequel anytime soon. There were plans for ME2, but I think EA had it cancelled in the end.
Hey I like the new banner. Just need time to get used to. Hope that you all are doing well. Blessings of March on the way!
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Late but always nice to read a good impression about a game which I've enjoyed playing. You were wrong in the end. I am a direhard COD fan but I still am waiting for Mirror's Edge 2 as much as I'm waiting for MW3.