EA are almost world renowned for making the ever popular FIFA, Need for Speed, Burnout and Medal of Honour series as well as publishing a host of games such as Command & Conquer. They also tend to give away Gamerscore to Xbox 360 players (e.g.. FIFA 2009 in which buying a player for 50 Million credits rewards the player with 50 gamerscore.) But when it came to the making of Mirrors Edge, they seemed to throw alot of their company traits out of the window, and with good reason too.
DICE also took part in the making of Mirrors Edge, and it seems that it has benefited alot from that choice. Lets start with the most noticeable feature of Mirrors Edge, and that's the fact that it is a first person parkour (freerunning) game. This seems like a crazy idea, but in reality works quite well, and if this was presented in third person, I'm sure that we would all feel quite differently about it.
Whether it was DICE or EA that came up with this gameplay choice, they've also set it in a world where information is highly monitored, and therefore, people titled runners are hired to send packages, messages or important information to people across the city without getting caught by the police.
Why on Earth information is highly monitored isn't quite explained in the game, although it's quite convenient that it is, as if it wasn't the game would revolve around you been locked in jail (you'll need to play the game to understand that.) All of a sudden however, after a murder framed on the main character's sister, there seems to be a serious crackdown on these runners, again, why this happens isn't really explained in the game.
So, you must now run from the coppers as well as deliver packages, AND try to clear your sisters name.
Now that the scene is set, the graphics are a mix Anime/Manga and celshaded 3D models, with some hand drawn cutscenes throughout the game, allround it looks quite nice and is a change from gunmetal grey and crimson blood red of which see more and more of everyday (I look at you Gears of War.....) The city is primarily white and red, with white highlighting the buildings and surrounding terrain, where as red indicates useful items, objects and things to wallrun on. Whereas the weapons aren't merely so nice and seems lacking in detail when compared to everything else in the game.
The gameplay is more complicated than run with one button and kill lots of people with another, but after a while it does set in well, and feels like the actions couldn't have been assigned to the buttons better than they already have done, and flows quite nicely with the game.
With an arsenal of over, ooh, 6 weapons (although I can't really blame them for this) you'll be hard pushed to use anything but the pistol in general as the other weapons lower your speed, and the height of our jumps. This however does cause a problem, at some points in the game, such as one set in a train station, you will be asked to get from one side of the room to the other, in this case to escape. Sounds easy, right? Yeah, well then add around about 10 Swat police officers, armed with machine guns that constantly call for reinforcements whether their team has died or not, and you are presented with alot more of a problem. Common sense dictates that the easiest method would be one of two, either to take out one with your fists and use their gun to take out a fair amount of armed police, then continue, or attempt to run past them all without resorting to violence. The former will end up you getting shot before killing two people, while as the latter will end up you getting shot to death before making it to the exit. This makes a large wedge of the game more chance than actually doing something, and therefore takes all feeling of accomplishment when you pass these stages.
Another problem that many games have is annoying camera angles. Mirrors Edge does try to rectify this problem by giving you the ability to move your head and look around. As much as this helps,though, it doesn't completely stop you from missing completely and falling 60 feet to your doom.
Despite the flaws, I enjoyed Mirrors Edge (and I use that term loosely) even though it can be completed in well under a day. Still kudos to EA and DICE for experimenting with something that nobody has really tried, so to conclude Rent it, or rather download the demo (if you can) and play these first two levels, then just leave it alone, or if you REALLLLY need too, Rent it, otherwise, don't waste your time.
DICE also took part in the making of Mirrors Edge, and it seems that it has benefited alot from that choice. Lets start with the most noticeable feature of Mirrors Edge, and that's the fact that it is a first person parkour (freerunning) game. This seems like a crazy idea, but in reality works quite well, and if this was presented in third person, I'm sure that we would all feel quite differently about it.
Whether it was DICE or EA that came up with this gameplay choice, they've also set it in a world where information is highly monitored, and therefore, people titled runners are hired to send packages, messages or important information to people across the city without getting caught by the police.
Why on Earth information is highly monitored isn't quite explained in the game, although it's quite convenient that it is, as if it wasn't the game would revolve around you been locked in jail (you'll need to play the game to understand that.) All of a sudden however, after a murder framed on the main character's sister, there seems to be a serious crackdown on these runners, again, why this happens isn't really explained in the game.
So, you must now run from the coppers as well as deliver packages, AND try to clear your sisters name.
Now that the scene is set, the graphics are a mix Anime/Manga and celshaded 3D models, with some hand drawn cutscenes throughout the game, allround it looks quite nice and is a change from gunmetal grey and crimson blood red of which see more and more of everyday (I look at you Gears of War.....) The city is primarily white and red, with white highlighting the buildings and surrounding terrain, where as red indicates useful items, objects and things to wallrun on. Whereas the weapons aren't merely so nice and seems lacking in detail when compared to everything else in the game.
The gameplay is more complicated than run with one button and kill lots of people with another, but after a while it does set in well, and feels like the actions couldn't have been assigned to the buttons better than they already have done, and flows quite nicely with the game.
With an arsenal of over, ooh, 6 weapons (although I can't really blame them for this) you'll be hard pushed to use anything but the pistol in general as the other weapons lower your speed, and the height of our jumps. This however does cause a problem, at some points in the game, such as one set in a train station, you will be asked to get from one side of the room to the other, in this case to escape. Sounds easy, right? Yeah, well then add around about 10 Swat police officers, armed with machine guns that constantly call for reinforcements whether their team has died or not, and you are presented with alot more of a problem. Common sense dictates that the easiest method would be one of two, either to take out one with your fists and use their gun to take out a fair amount of armed police, then continue, or attempt to run past them all without resorting to violence. The former will end up you getting shot before killing two people, while as the latter will end up you getting shot to death before making it to the exit. This makes a large wedge of the game more chance than actually doing something, and therefore takes all feeling of accomplishment when you pass these stages.
Another problem that many games have is annoying camera angles. Mirrors Edge does try to rectify this problem by giving you the ability to move your head and look around. As much as this helps,though, it doesn't completely stop you from missing completely and falling 60 feet to your doom.
Despite the flaws, I enjoyed Mirrors Edge (and I use that term loosely) even though it can be completed in well under a day. Still kudos to EA and DICE for experimenting with something that nobody has really tried, so to conclude Rent it, or rather download the demo (if you can) and play these first two levels, then just leave it alone, or if you REALLLLY need too, Rent it, otherwise, don't waste your time.
