Mirror's Edge
I look down the list of the games released in 2008 and I see an abundance of platforming games. One of which has me seeing real life platforms in my daily life. Mirrors Edge has taken the proclaimed "dead", bland genera and made it an gun-slinging, color red-loving, parkour professional zombie. Forget the babbling cartoon characters that you know from other platformers, because you'll be climbing real obstacles that you'll find out on the street of a realistic city. You don't need any mysterious mushrooms anymore to get vertical, what you need is to take a leap of faith into the large genre smoothie that is first-person platformer – also known as the Mirrors Edge.
Faith Conner is a runner, a courier in a city filled with conflict. The city's invasive surveillance has made Faith suicidal; she preforms dangerous jumps and stunts on city rooftops in order to transport and deliver packages for anonymous clients. Faith isn't just a floating head, you can see her hands and lower end of her body as she waves her arms when she's lunging for that last second grab onto the edge of a neighboring skyscraper. Forget what you know of other first-person perspective games. Mirror's Edge has its “shooter” moments, but don't be fooled -- its core is parkour. Climbing, wall running, and various other indescribable parkour moves are literally at your fingertips in order to find unique ways to escape the view of your pursuers. As you accomplish hurtles and accumulate speed, your palms will ooze with sweat as adrenalin courses through your veins. As you run, objects will turn red indicating a path to your destination. Its called Runner vision and you have the option to turn it off. Once Runner Vision is turned off the game completely changes. Finding exactly how to reach your destination using the vertical and horizontal spaces is up to you, and there are always a few different ways to reach that obscurely far ledge, or nab that out of reach pipe. Sometimes your next move is obvious, sometimes it isn't. I warn, Mirror's Edge is part puzzle game. If Runner Vision is off, you'll often be in a situation where you won't know how to reach the next rooftop and it is truly frustrating. With trial-and-error and many great falls to the sound of your body crippling against pavement, things will eventuality click, and you'll find undeniable satisfaction.
Combat In Mirror's Edge is structured so that every fighting experience is exactly the same as the last. Most of the time you'll be facing gun-wielding civil servants that shoot first and ask questions later. Kick, punch, then steal their weapon -- it's a formula that is interesting at first but eventually grows very repetitive and boring. Every gun you acquire has limited ammo. The game's shooter aspect feels stiff – rusty, even – and doesn't work very well. Loading screens advertise a method of fighting that I never experienced. Wall running and putting boots in foes' faces apparently never fails, but the game never puts you in such a situation. Combat is the same repetitive dance that will eventually numb your mind away. Mirror's Edge would have been better off without combat altogether because the parkour aspect is strong enough on its own to keep the player interested.
Story is told through two different methods. Faith's story is told using cartoon cut-scenes that are similar to the eSurance commercials you find on television, but it bothered me. I just spent twenty minutes running and dodging bullets while jumping off rooftops where I'm mortal and venerable, then when I finally land the last hurtle and reach my destination the game then game goes cartoon mode on me!? God damn it; I half-expected a poof of smoke to appear after Faith fell to her death. I didn't find the execution of Faith's story at all engaging. I still don't understand her motivations for pursuing her dangerous carrier and I eventually stopped caring about plot altogether because of the corny, one-sided characters that don't ever really say anything interesting. Faith's conflict is blatantly recreated twice. Once I thought I'd solved the story's conflict, the game spit in my face and took my last five dollars and made me solve it again. Another layer of story is told in-game, through billboards, televisions and informational posters. Elevators contain posters on “How To Identify A Runner;” Email messages are left open on computer screens to tell the unseen, untold, history of the growing and changing city that is Faith's true conflict. I appreciated the environmental storytelling much more than Faith's incredibly goofy and corny eSurance-esque cut-scenes.
I loved the environment of Mirror's Edge. I've never experienced a completely orange office interior before and I loved every second of it, even though I was being pursued by a blood-thirsty, trigger-happy SWAT team. It's the white color scheme of the buildings that makes other colors really stand out. It's a style that is consistently followed and something that I'm expecting from sequels as the calling card to future Mirrors Edge properties.
One very eerie thing that bothered me was the lack of life in this massive city. At some points the only life you'll ever see besides the city police is an occasional rat running across the floor. Office buildings, shopping malls, and train stations are completely empty in the middle of the day. The city's skyline is populated with endless amounts of white skyscrapers but it seems like there is no one except trigger happy swine to populate these buildings. It would have been nice getting some real contact with citizens of the city aside from the occasional dark profile of a person or moving vehicle as you look down on the street below.
The game's time trial mode is highly addictive. It's a game changer and it offers replay value. I enjoyed the story campaign to a degree, but now I'm in love with the challenge of beating my ghost to the finish line. I've already moved onto other games and I'm still coming back for more time trial sessions.
Something that I enjoy about games is that they always start out simple, then multiply into complexity toward the end game. Mirror's Edge has that spark – one that allows for simplicity and complexity within its mechanic that will set flame and spread like fire onto future games and titles. It's an imperfect building block that has great potential and promise. I played as Faith and now I have faith that Mirror's Edge has gone over the edge of my expectations and into its own realm of greatness.
