On Gaming: Mirror's Edge

Goooood Sunday afternoon, empty abyss of a blog! This is Joe again, coming from on high to deliver yet another succulent post about another inane topic! As Jake mentioned previously, yes, I am in fact a gamer, and a rather heavy gamer as well. "But Joe!", you ask, "If you're such a gamer why haven't you posted anything about games yet and just posted stupid things about Pokemon and music we don't really care about?" Well, see, I have a sort of confession to make.

I....I....I play World of Warcraft.

Now don't get me wrong, it's an awesome game, despite what people say. However, because I play WoW, I all too often put some of my console games on the back shelf, because chances are when I'm not playing WoW I get commandeered to play Civ 4 or Warcraft 3 via AIM, or even while I'm playing WoW. So basically I end up doing a lot of things on the computer and less and less on my consoles.

That being said, my intertubes were crapping out on me hardcore about a week ago, to the point where I wasn't able to log into WoW, and my ping on Ventrilo was well over 9000, which created some interesting scenarios, such as the ghostly voice of my disconnected self drifting into Vent announcing the boss had spawned some adds, even though we had all died to the boss at least 10 minutes ago. What made it even better was that I could still hear the group in (relatively) real time, so I got to have some fun throwing random things into the middle of chat and hearing their responses.

ANYWAYS I totally digress. Because of this general internet failure, I decided to bust out my Xbox 360 again after at least a month of negligence, which I totally blame on my friend for borrowing my copy of Fallout 3. Since the aforementioned game was currently absent, I decided to bust out a game I hadn't even touched since I got it for Christmas, as I was too enamored with other things. And as you may have guessed by now, that game is in fact

MIRROR'S EDGE





The Game


Mirror's Edge is a game about a "Runner" named Faith in a seemingly totalitarian future city. Runners are sort of vigilantes that live on the outskirts of society, choosing to live on the run from the city rather than be run by it. Her sister is a cop, which are referred to the Runners as "Blues," and are regarded by the Runners as enemies. After a few basic missions to get the player accustomed to the city, the story opens with a high-profile person in the city being murdered, and Faith's sister is blamed for the crime. Most of the game then revolves around Faith's mission to clear her sister's name and solve the mystery behind the murder.

The story isn't exactly the greatest or most original and isn't developed too well during the game, but that's completely alright, as it really only serves to give the player a reason as to why they're going here and there. The game isn't story driven at all, which is entirely the point, as the real star in this game is

The Gameplay
At it's root, this game is all about getting from Point A to Point B. But the real joy is exactly how you get there. You'll leap across buildings, dart across ventilation systems, break through doors and do other batshit crazy things to reach Point B. And you'll have a kickass time doing it. The first person view and the complete lack of a UI keeps you focused on the task at hand, be it finding a way across a large chasm or beating up one of the many Blues that try to stop you along your path. Which brings me to the subject of combat...

The combat was, in a word, weak. Early on you're taught the basics of fighting, which involves various mechanics of punching and kicking, at different levels (high, medium, low). Unfortunately, you aren't taught about things like how momentum can affect your attacks (for example, a running jump kick can defeat some of the weaker enemies in one blow, while going toe to toe with a foe often takes a lot longer), and it turns out that half of the combat techniques you learn are completely useless against the more heavily armored foes you encounter later in the game. The game encourages you to single out opponents and take them out in one-on-one combat, yet throws you into a room filled with up to five enemies at a time and gives them each guns that can hit you from quite a range, so even if you can corner one you can still have others shooting at your unprotected back. And when you do have the misfortune to fight some of the heavily armored SWAT team members, practically the only way to combat them is through a very unforgiving button press to disarm them and knock them out. You have less than a tenth of a second to pull it off, and should you fail, you'll almost certainly be killed. Sounds easy enough, right? Apparently the guys at DICE thought so, since even on normal difficulty I've found myself dying dozens of times in the same room to the same groups of enemies.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's still an incredibly fun game. The parkour elements of the game are excellent, and you really feel in the middle of the action with the first person view. I have almost nothing to complain about with the platforming and adventuring aspects of the game, except that, similar to the combat, there is no room for error, as any mistakes will most likely send you hurtling to your death in the streets below. At the very least they give you the option to see about where you're supposed to be heading, and through "Runner Vision" anything you should and can interact with are highlighted in a bright red color. Save for the deaths, the gameplay is definitely worth it.

The GraphicsI'm not normally one to harp on graphics or anything like that, as I'm of the firm belief that a game can be fun regardless of how many pixels the main character is made up of. However, it must be noted the graphics of this game are absoulutely incredible. The entire city is of a mind-searing white, which helps to reinforce the totalitarian setting of the game. There are splashes of blue, orange, and other colors that really stand out among the white, and it's easy to tell where important areas of the city are based on the bright red of the Runner Vision. The conrast of colors and great amount of detail that have been put into this game is incredible, and is a visual beauty.

Final Thoughts
Mirror's Edge is an incredibly fun game, but it isn't without it's flaws. It has a simple story and very clunky fighting mechanics. In a game where keeping momentum is law and moving around quickly is key, why does it force you to die over and over (and might I add over) while you attempt to fight off some incredibly overpowered and impossibly difficult enemies? It is a visual beauty, one where you stop mid-leap to observe the brilliant design of the city only to quickly find yourself falling to the pavement. The music and sound effects are brilliant too, with only the sounds of the city to accompany you while you leap from building to building, enhancing the feeling of being alone among many, yet being the most free out of any of them. It quickly switches to an upbeat and fast-pased music once you engage in combat, creating a feeling of urgency and giving it a sort of movie fight-scene sort of atmosphere, which is rather suiting for this type of game.

Though it certainly isn't Game of the Year material, Mirror's Edge is definitely a noteworthy game, and should at the very least be tried by any serious gamer. For real platforming and parkour junkies, the Time Trial mode will keep you playing for many long hours. All in all, I enjoyed/am enjoying Mirror's Edge and would reccomend it to other gamers.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10