Mirror’s Edge Review

Mirror’s Edge takes a defining leap into a combination of genre’s that have never really mixed before, and sometimes it is painfully obvious as to why it has never been tried.

Mirror’s Edge
Developer: DICE
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (reviewed)

You play as Faith, a runner who works as an on-foot courier set in an oppressed totalitarian society which looks far more utopian than its shady dealings let on. Since the streets are littered with police (or Blues) runners take to the rooftops and make their deliveries in the relative safety of the city’s skyscrapers. However, not long into the game’s story, Faith becomes embroiled in a murder of an important mayoral figure whose death is incorrectly pinned on her sister. The game’s story is pretty cut & paste stuff consisting of fairly predictable characters and just enough plot twists to keep the player semi-interested but does not be expecting Mass Effect proportioned background depth. The story is progressed mainly in anime cut scene form in between episodes which seems a strange choice when it would have been so much more immersive to keep the scenes unfolding in Faith’s eyes in a sort of Half-Life or Bioshock method.

The gameplay is mostly simple with players not really using a huge variety of button combinations to reach their destinations, and combat is just a case of disarming an opponent before mashing the attack button. Most levels consist of you having to get from point A to point B without being shot to death and / or falling down to the streets below. When you string together the moves required to pass the obstacles, it looks and feels amazing. When sprinting, Faith’s arms are shown pumping away in the corners of the screen and you can hear her panting as she vaults a fence before jumping from building to building before smashing open a door and running through corridors…into an elevator. It seemed that every time there was an open stretch of buildings and objects to surpass, there was a dead end in the form of an elevator to mask loading times or a cramped room which features some annoying jumping puzzle.

Since it is in the first person perspective, it is difficult to see where Faith’s whole body is which makes jumps in tight spaces increasingly irritating to pull off and wish that you could be back on the rooftops. It is these kinds of abrupt gamebreakers which stop Mirror’s Edge from being a really great game and turn it into something of a disappointment. For every wall run and leap of Faith (clever huh?) there is a small room in which you will fail multiple times to reach your goal or a large group of heavily armed enemies ready to tear you apart.

The combat mechanics in Mirror’s Edge are shallow and uninteresting with there being one button for attacks and another for disarming. Once Faith has a weapon in her hands, she can fire it until it runs out of bullets before it is automatically discard it. The guns are fairly bland and boring to fire which is not helped by it being nigh impossible to take on more than two enemies at a time without being destroyed as Faith is a pretty fragile person who can only really take two or three hits before hitting the floor.

One thing Mirror’s Edge has got going for it is an incredible art design. The majority of the environments are strikingly white with the brightness and contrast turned all the way up. The only exceptions are seemingly random objects that are all in a bright, vibrant colour. The interesting part of the art design is that no two colours will be seen next to each other, if you are in an area with green billboards, you will be hard pressed to find any other colours in the surrounding area to be anything other than white or green. Again, an exception being the optional ‘runner-vision’ which shows the player which objects are the easiest way to reach their destination, although this feature has a mind of it’s own and more often than not it will abandon you when you need it most.

Mirror’s Edge is a perfectionist’s game. It will take several playthroughs of levels and Time Trial stages in order to complete the level mistake free which does add longevity to the title, but also takes away from the fun factor of the first time you play the game. The online leader boards certainly act as an incentive to really practice all of the levels and et the best times, but it is not as fun as it could have been or should have been as you spend so little time doing the one thing the game does really well which is running fast and jumping high across the rooftops of the city.

Although a disappointing experience, Mirror’s Edge can still be a fun game in doses, but more than once the player will be left feeling confused after they successfully completed a jump they had just failed, without doing anything differently from the previous attempt. This will inevitably lead to the player feeling relived rather than satisfied at what they have just accomplished. At the very end of the game a shot of the entire city is shown (it is of Coruscant-esq size) and it gives you with the feeling that you haven’t explored even nearly enough of it to be satisfied and there will be a sour taste in your mouth when you think of what the game COULD have been rather than what it actually is.

The Final Word
Mirror’s Edge is just too inconsistent to be anything great but has enough exhilarating moments to not be a bad game either.

– MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average

By Andy Jackson