Have faith in Mirror's Edge
One game in particular that was missed and overlooked by many was EA's Mirror's Edge.
Mirror's Edge is both a tranquil and intense game about a runner named Faith in a totalitarian city where lines of communication are watched as frequently as communications are made. Early on Faith plays the roll of a modern urban roof-top courier. She makes her way over, between, through and beneath buildings, often all the while being chased by trigger-happy police.
Mirror's Edge is not primarily a first-person shooter, but an action game with a first-person view that at times has guns at your disposal, provided you can get them out of the hands of a policeman. Called “free running”, Faith is highly athletic and the game's city is her jungle gym. As such, to traverse roof-tops, Faith employs wall running, vaulting, sliding and a lot of running among many other combinations of means to scale literally deathly heights.
After a brief tutorial level for some roof top obstacle-course-stumbles and falls to teach players the flow of gameplay in Mirror's Edge, the game kicks right into an immersive and intense first level. Unlike typical first-person games, in Mirror's Edge when faced with a helicopter raining down fire on you, you have no choice but to run. Further unlike other first-person games, this is exhilarating while not being particularly frustrating thanks to the attention to detail in Mirror's Edge's gameplay mechanics.
The game places Faith in many different puzzle-like environments to climb-up and weave through, but when you do die it's not overly frustrating and many times funny, bringing solace to your inevitable pitfalls. Players aren't punished much for dying. For example, after plunging to the bottom of an elevator shaft, Faith usually respawns where she fell from. The exception to this is during action packed sequences under gunfire where Faith respawns back at the start.
Initially the controls in Mirror's Edge are to blame for frequent deaths. They're not bad, but they definitely don't follow first-person shooter conventions, mostly because the game downplays using guns and has to accommodate for the controls needed to run, jump and maneuver so intricately through and over buildings. Really they are unique and work well, but easy to forget due to their uniqueness.
The immersive and clean feel of the game cannot be solely awarded to the great flow of gameplay, but equally to visuals and sound design. Mirror's Edge is constantly breath taking. Carefully chosen colours and lighting ring in a serene atmosphere for players, even when running for your life. The smooth pulsing ambient music alongside realistic sounds of wind in your face and your feet clapping against pavement and metal further complete the games immersion.
The length of Mirror's Edge feels comfortable and very alluring to replay at eight-to-10 hours. Between stages the story features 2D animated cutscenes, and while not expected at first, they are a nice addition to the game even if the animation does seem knowingly clunky.
Overall Mirror's Edge plays great and constantly fuels a players sense of accomplishment. However, at times load screens, while brief, can interrupt exciting sequences and elevator rides seem to take ages as they mask the next area loading.
The story is above typical fare in quality, being a bit more than a reason for Faith to put her life on the line to leap across certain death. In the end the story does come together nicely, with a satisfying movie-like ending.
Mirror's Edge is highly recommended and worth buying. While many gamers today judge value by game-length, Mirror's Edge overcomes this short-sighted outlook with its fluid gameplay and immersive style.
