Mirror's Edge

"So much potential..."

Mirror's Edge can best be described as a game that sets out to deliver something new, and does, but sadly, at the cost of key gameplay implementations that were clearly scrapped at some juncture to deliver the new experience…

The game begins by giving you a tutorial and presenting the character of Faith, a “runner”. It seems that in this alternate reality of wherever, Faith is a citizen in a city with an overly oppressive regime in charge. As a runner you (Faith) are delivering messages/information between those in opposition to the regime…

Somehow your sister gets mixed up in all of this, and… honestly, the story is quite weak, and appears to be the casualty of more time being spent on the level designs and action sequences.

Functionally, what the player is tasked with doing is getting from point A to point B using speed and acrobatics. In real life, there are groups of people that do this sort of thing, and they are referred to as free runners. The gentleman from the beginning of Casino Royale - the one that Bond was chasing - is an example of one of these runners.

As a free runner simulation - which the time trial mode boils down to - this game is just about perfect. There is no other game on the market that has even attempted to do what is done here - the sense of speed and the technical detail to the platforming, all in first person, is simply mind-blowing. It would be a real boon to gamers if more games with this type of design focus were made.

The control set is incredibly simple, what with all of four buttons that see regular use. There is a button for jumping, another for crouching, one for an attack, and the final main button used is the button for a 180 degree turn. In concert with one another, they are balanced perfectly for the fundamental premise of the game - the addition of context sensitive uses of the buttons makes for the most fluid interactions that have ever existed in a game. Fulfilling the premise of the game - free running/base jumping as fast as possible - is made as easy as one could hope for in a video game done in the first person.

It is improved upon by the beautiful level design that actually makes the idea of running from rooftop to rooftop seem enticing to try in real life. The player can pretty much tell where they should be heading, and in addition to that, should you ever become lost in a level, there is a “hint” key (B button on the 360's default controls) that will show you the right way. There are some taxing points, but they ultimately make you a better player of the game moreso than ask you to “trial and error” a sequence to simply make it through (there is a caveat to this point, read on); which becomes key when playing the time trials or speed runs of chapters in the game…

By now the problem is the thesis stated in the first paragraph. How could the gameplay be flawed if the control is perfect and the level design is nearly the same?

The answer lies in curious decisions made by DICE (the developer). The most glaring is the way combat was shoehorned into the game. There are points in the game where you MUST fight police armed with anything from pistols to sniper rifles. The game falls apart like a house of cards at these junctures as the combat simply doesn't make sense in the game - at least in the manner you are asked to execute it.

Two more buttons exist in the control scheme - one to slow time and the other to disarm an assailant. The problem right from the start, is that these buttons make no sense being in this game. If this were an RPG, Faith's skill points are all loaded into speed and dexterity - why on earth would she need to engage anyone in combat directly? The simple attack button was enough, as the game should not even be asking the gamer to use Faith to fight…

Now, to the game's credit, these buttons are not always needed to fight; almost all grunts can be taken out with a sliding kick followed by two jabs, which fits more into the speed/dexterity thing than needing to go into bullet time to disarm a cop whom for some reason would rather try to hit you with the gun when you are close enough versus simply blasting a cap into your backside.

The rub in all of this is that when the police do decide to use their weapons they are what can best be described as over efficient. There are multiple points in the game where you are tasked with running along rooftops with cops in hot pursuit, be it on foot or in a helicopter. While this does the right thing by pushing the gamer to work faster, even the most experience gamers will slow to get their bearings, and when you do you are pretty much as good as dead if you do so in a spot that is even remotely in an open area.

It is at this point that the game metastasizes into a trial and error affair, as even accomplished gamers will fail on the timing needed for jumps when being pursued by SWAT packing M16s, tactical shotguns, mutantly good aim, and a hard on for your death.

Why they made the police this efficient is a completely mystery even on the design level. Adding difficulty is clearly one motivation, but it is difficulty for the sake of it being there, not for the benefit of the game. They had a perfectly tuned level prior to adding the enemy combatants. Adding them should have raised the bar of the challenge, not the bar on the gamers' patience. There are countless instances that even skilled gamers will mouth a preverbal “WTF” when you slow to measure out a jump and get blasted. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is the idea that the gamer should simply not stop at any point and keep running. The problem in this is that while well crafted, the levels require a moment on the first flythrough to understand how to tackle each obstacle. In essence there would be no problem if the game were rated based on the subsequent passes, but you would have to ignore the annoyance of the first time through.

What confounds the game further is the absolutely weak story alluded to prior. DICE took the time to craft some serious storyboards (which can be viewed from the “extras” menu) and develop an animation style that is truly artistic, but then employed them in a way to deliver simple dialogue. Honestly, what is that? It is one thing on a commercial to not be entirely engaging (Esurance - same animation style), but in a medium that purports to tell a story? Unacceptable.

Another major gaffe is the lack of online play. A game such as this could have certainly benefited from a co-op option - not the kind that is in Fable 2 mind you . Considering the length of this game, or rather the lack thereof, there is really no good reason for there not to be a multiplayer option to at least race another player through the levels - in real time, not the time trials.

Overall

It is hard to rate this game and come out looking like you did the right thing. It is very important that credit be given to the developers for going beyond the cookie cutter to attempt to deliver a product that is unique. And for what it is worth the game IS unique. There are few games on the market that capture speed and acrobatics this well in an action setting - Prince of Persia might be the only game that does it better, but it certainly is not a first person title.

So DICE gets a lot for doing that much correctly.

However, DICE needs to have its figurative hand slapped for fouling up the combat, forgetting that this is not a Battlefield title that doesn't need a real plot, and not giving legs to an overly short game. Those three things really prevent this game from being the generation-defining game that this should have been.

7/10, because just like Donald Duck, there is enough to love to ignore some of the glaring issues. Everyone should play this game at least once - STRONG rental option, though no one should kill themselves to buy this game...

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/21/08

Game Release: Mirror's Edge (US, 11/11/08)