Dear God. I'm having too much fun. Send help immediately.
Seriously though, this is easily the most fun I've had with a game in years.
I was always a fan of the original Mirror's Edge, regarding it as something of a diamond in the rough. The new game feels like it was made after DICE scanned my brain for feedback and ideas on how to improve, well... just about everything.
First off, it's open world. Now, I personally don't like open worlds and I'm getting sick of seeing them. They tend to be just big boring commutes between the ostensibly interesting parts of a game. Plus developers love filling them with meaningless, samey collectibles and busywork and calling it "content".
But in a game where efficiently getting from Point A to Point B is most of the fun it actually makes sense. I'm genuinely having fun with collectibles. It's ridiculous. The linear levels of the original game always felt too constrictive to me, not giving the mechanics enough room to breath. An open world solves that immediately.
The combat has seen a number of changes and improvements, my favourite being what the game calls "traversal attacks". Essentially they allow you to hit enemies with light attacks while you're on the move without slowing down. The actual attack can range from shouldering someone aside to goomba-stomping them from above. I find it immensely satisfying to spring over a railing and boot a hapless guard in the jaw mid-jump then continue on my way with nary a backwards glance.
I think the movement strikes a nice balance between accessibility and skill. You can bumble through without being much good at the game and or you can learn to be satisfyingly graceful and efficient.
The visual aesthetics and music remain much the same as the first game, which is fine by me.
Now that my gushing is done, I do have some quibbles:
- No custom keybinding. The default setup isn't terrible, but it's not quite how I'd prefer it. I'm assuming this is just a beta thing. Especially since playing with M+K otherwise feels good and has clearly got some attention. If a feature as basic as keybinding doesn't make it into the full game I'll be very puzzled.
- The pathfinder wisp guide thingy is a bit much. I like having waypoints in games, but this feels a bit too much like being yanked around by the nose. Fortunately it can be turned off or changed to the "classic" version that just highlights vaults and whatnot in red.
- I'm still not quite sold on the toe-to-toe combat. It's great when you're slapping dudes across the chops as you sprint past, but once you stop to trade blows it gets a bit ungainly, especially when three or more enemies are involved. Although being able to knock enemies into one another is awfully fun. It rewards precision and planning and gives a nice kinetic quality to the fights. I love the first person combat animations as well.
- Lastly, DICE's brain scanner seems to have glitched when in comes to vents and pipes. That is to say, they're still bloody in there. I'm really not sure why one would make a free-running game that occasionally brings everything to a screeching halt so the player can crawl along a conveniently spacious vent.
- The portion of the story included in the beta is unimpressive. My expectations in this area were low and those expectations were met. DICE just don't seem to have much in the way of storytelling talent on hand. Plus I guess there's only so much you can do with a premise like Save-The-Day-With-Parkour. The setting seems to have cranked up the corporate dystopia angle a fair bit. It's almost cyberpunk now, albeit unusually clean and shiny cyberpunk. That's not really a criticism though, just an observation.
...
Phew. This post ran longer than intended. I'm a bit enthused, can you tell?
I know some other people on this forum got into the beta. I'm interested to hear their thoughts. If anyone else has questions I'd be happy to try and provide answers.
Personally, I'm just grateful that this game has been allowed to exist and overjoyed at how it's turned out.
Seriously though, this is easily the most fun I've had with a game in years.
I was always a fan of the original Mirror's Edge, regarding it as something of a diamond in the rough. The new game feels like it was made after DICE scanned my brain for feedback and ideas on how to improve, well... just about everything.
First off, it's open world. Now, I personally don't like open worlds and I'm getting sick of seeing them. They tend to be just big boring commutes between the ostensibly interesting parts of a game. Plus developers love filling them with meaningless, samey collectibles and busywork and calling it "content".
But in a game where efficiently getting from Point A to Point B is most of the fun it actually makes sense. I'm genuinely having fun with collectibles. It's ridiculous. The linear levels of the original game always felt too constrictive to me, not giving the mechanics enough room to breath. An open world solves that immediately.
The combat has seen a number of changes and improvements, my favourite being what the game calls "traversal attacks". Essentially they allow you to hit enemies with light attacks while you're on the move without slowing down. The actual attack can range from shouldering someone aside to goomba-stomping them from above. I find it immensely satisfying to spring over a railing and boot a hapless guard in the jaw mid-jump then continue on my way with nary a backwards glance.
I think the movement strikes a nice balance between accessibility and skill. You can bumble through without being much good at the game and or you can learn to be satisfyingly graceful and efficient.
The visual aesthetics and music remain much the same as the first game, which is fine by me.
Now that my gushing is done, I do have some quibbles:
- No custom keybinding. The default setup isn't terrible, but it's not quite how I'd prefer it. I'm assuming this is just a beta thing. Especially since playing with M+K otherwise feels good and has clearly got some attention. If a feature as basic as keybinding doesn't make it into the full game I'll be very puzzled.
- The pathfinder wisp guide thingy is a bit much. I like having waypoints in games, but this feels a bit too much like being yanked around by the nose. Fortunately it can be turned off or changed to the "classic" version that just highlights vaults and whatnot in red.
- I'm still not quite sold on the toe-to-toe combat. It's great when you're slapping dudes across the chops as you sprint past, but once you stop to trade blows it gets a bit ungainly, especially when three or more enemies are involved. Although being able to knock enemies into one another is awfully fun. It rewards precision and planning and gives a nice kinetic quality to the fights. I love the first person combat animations as well.
- Lastly, DICE's brain scanner seems to have glitched when in comes to vents and pipes. That is to say, they're still bloody in there. I'm really not sure why one would make a free-running game that occasionally brings everything to a screeching halt so the player can crawl along a conveniently spacious vent.
- The portion of the story included in the beta is unimpressive. My expectations in this area were low and those expectations were met. DICE just don't seem to have much in the way of storytelling talent on hand. Plus I guess there's only so much you can do with a premise like Save-The-Day-With-Parkour. The setting seems to have cranked up the corporate dystopia angle a fair bit. It's almost cyberpunk now, albeit unusually clean and shiny cyberpunk. That's not really a criticism though, just an observation.
...
Phew. This post ran longer than intended. I'm a bit enthused, can you tell?
I know some other people on this forum got into the beta. I'm interested to hear their thoughts. If anyone else has questions I'd be happy to try and provide answers.
Personally, I'm just grateful that this game has been allowed to exist and overjoyed at how it's turned out.
