Mirror's Edge Review

I don't typically buy a lot of games; if you looked at my Steam library you'd see a lot of free-to-play titles that I've picked up over the last two years. With that said, I do occasionally buy games as well when there's a sale on and Mirror's Edge is one of those titles that I picked up on sale at the end of last year.

It had a good reputation and a cool concept so I'd been looking to try it for a while so when it went on sale I jumped at the chance.

What is Mirror's Edge?

Mirror's Edge is a first person action-adventure game developed by EA DICE and was published by EA Games. It was initially released in 2008 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The PC release came out in 2009.

The game sees you using parkour and navigating various urban settings in an effort to evade enemies.

Reception-wise, Mirror's Edge did well garnering praise for the various environments and uniqueness of the game itself; with criticism aimed primarily at the plot and gameplay. The game won the Annual Interactive Achievement Award for the Adventure Game of the Year and spawned a mobile game in 2010 as well as a reboot - Mirror's Edge Catalyst - in 2016.

What's the Story?

The game is set in a far-off future - in an unnamed dystopian city where the government monitors pretty much everything - including information. This is where the runners come in. Runners are couriers who transport information i.e. messages while evading government surveillance.

You play as Faith Connors, one of the runners in this city. Her sister Kate is a cop; an officer with the CPF - I'm guessing this is City Police Force. When Kate is framed for murdering a mayoral candidate she turns to Faith for help.

Faith must move fast to figure out who killed the guy and clear her sister's name.

What Works?

Visually, the game is a nice blend of 3D rendered environments and gameplay and 2D cut-scenes. The level designs are all brightly colored, interesting and challenging. The 2D animated cut-scenes are unique and very well-done.

With regards to the gameplay itself, this isn't my first time playing a game with parkour as a core component of the gaming experience (that distinction goes to a free-to-play shooter called Brink) but the parkour-style of movement makes things very interesting by placing a heavy emphasis on momentum and timing. If you're running and jump too early, you die. If you jump too late, you die. Not running fast enough? Well, guess what: you died again!

The combat mechanics are very straightforward as well once you get the hang of things. You're also encouraged to avoid fighting more than one person at a time - yet another difference to the norm.

As far as the characters are concerned we don't have too many to worry about: Faith, Merc (her communications dude), Celeste, Kate and Miller are the main ones and they're all pretty unique in their own ways - though Faith gets the most attention and has the most personality out of the lot.

What Are Some of the Problems with Mirror's Edge?

Okay, let's start by looking at the level designs. I loved the level designs; they were all unique and had a strong element of puzzle-solving/platforming to them. That puzzle-solving element was what made each level unique and interesting. Having said that, the game relies rather heavily on a trial and error-style of gameplay. This really tests your patience as it takes multiple attempts, in most cases, to get around on the levels. If your fingers aren't quick enough you end up dying. That doesn't sound like much of til you consider the fact that you could potentially spend 3+ hours on a single segment of a specific level.

The soundtrack is pretty much the same throughout which, while not really a problem; it does get annoying at times.

Story Problems

Many who were critical of the game pointed out that the story was very weak and I have to agree - to a point. When you get right down to it, it's a murder mystery with some family drama sprinkled in but there's no logic to the murder mystery part of the plot. I realize that sounds odd so let me explain.

Towards the end of the game, Faith uncovers a training program that would allow the 'blues' (police) to come after the runners. Why? Well, we don't really find out; we don't know if the runners are going to be killed or captured or both - which is kind of annoying.

Faith figures out that it was the mayor who was behind the whole thing but there's no real evidence or hint of that; she just sort of goes: "Oh, it's this guy" without having any sort of reason to believe that - beyond hearing a cryptic statement. If you want a character to figure that out then they have to pick up clues or something along the way; this allows a more believable conclusion than having them listen to some cryptic remark and figuring it out from there.

The game's final ending with Kate and Faith on the roof of a building looking out over the city is fine but it leads to a question: what happened to Kate? She was still a fugitive - did someone expose the program and the mayor's dirty dealings and clear her? There's no resolution here, there aren't any post-credits scenes to show us what happened to them and so we're left with this huge dangling plot thread.

Underused Parkour

The last problem that I have, and this is more a nitpick than a real issue, is that the in-game parkour is underused; resulting in a very linear gaming experience. What do I mean when I say that the parkour is underused? Well, the idea of parkour is to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible and, when doing free running, to be as creative as possible with your routes.

With that in mind, you'd think that there are multiple routes in each level; but over the course of two complete play-through sessions of Mirror's Edge I only found one - sometimes two routes to a point in the level. It's a very linear experience; you go from one point to the next without many options in terms of how you can get around.

Getting around should be a creative endeavor where you have multiple options for obstacle and environment navigation.

It's not a bad thing but the lack of variety in route/level navigation does somewhat make things a little monotonous.

Overall Thoughts: Is Mirror's Edge Worth Playing?

Yes, I think the game is certainly worth playing - if nothing else; it's worth looking into.

Just a few things for new players:

• Take REGULAR breaks with this one! The first-person perspective and camerawork can, and in some cases, will cause motion sickness so prolonged gaming sessions are ill-advised.
• You may want to set the difficulty level to easy for your first few runs before moving onto a higher difficulty setting.

Mirror's Edge certainly has its issues but it's a challenging and sometimes frustrating experience and if you're looking for a game that'll challenge you then check it out. If you're looking for something different to play and you just want an interesting experience then this is certainly worth a try as well.