Thoughts on Mirrors Edge: Catalyst?

[CaitSeith]

Well I enjoyed the beta, so I'm looking forward to the full game when it unlocks on the 9th.

Metacritic user reviews seem to be hitting it hard though. Currently sat there at a 1.5 rating. 100+ negative reviews, but yet I can only read 3 of them.

Check out OpenCritic [http://opencritic.com/] instead, it's much better. Remove the sources you don't like/distrust and check what the score is.

Oh, for some reason that made me laugh. Pretty appropriate for the Internet, where people can't have different opinions without creating backlash. So, let's take the "out of sight, out of mind" approach. It sounds useful and practical, but it may increase the tribalism inside the gaming community.

 

[Burnouts3s3]

I have played and finished the game within 7 hours. The game left no impression on me (but then again I didn't think much of the first game either, so YMMV).

To me, while there is more than enough content to justify a 60 dollar purchase in my eyes, the characters, the story and the world meant so little to me, that I felt no desire to revisit the world again. I know many will counter on why I would play a Mirror's Edge for the story, to which I would ask the game developers/publishers the very same question as the constant barrage of cutscenes seems to want to emphasize story over gameplay.

I just find it ironic that the game continues to lecture me on the evils of rampart capitalism and corporations when the very same publisher of ELECTRONIC ARTS, happens to be the worst of these offenders.

Spoiler

But really, it just seems poorly written, hastily told and rushed all at the same time. Isabel Kruger turns out to be none other than Faith's long lost sister? Called it. Noah's heavily publicized death turns out to be fake? Called it. Even the end game of the corporations injecting everyone with a drug called Reflection in order to mind control the entire populus seems absurd. Why do the corporations want to control everything? Why does Kruger think this is the best idea? Also, remember that painting Dogen made Faith work for in the prequel comic? He just gives it to her at the end of the game as a reward.

But, there is excellent female representation within the game, feature many women who are persons of color. If that is a priority for you, I would definitely recommend this game.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Quick question, does Catalyst force combat on you (outside of maybe a tutorial one)?

Because I found the combat to be easily the very worst part of the first game.

 

[EHKOS]

I just got home from returning it. Fucking Gamestop and their return policy. Went to my usual used gaming store haunt across the street, still came out with a -$20 net profit.

My thoughts: Don't do it. It's soulless, it looks like garbage, and the clean feeling and that perfect paint texture is gone. It has to be the worst game I've played this generation. The city is empty despite have NPCs in it, in fact, that makes the atmosphere feel wrong. The gameplay is fine once you unlock the roll and 180 turn, but there's nothing special to use them on. Plus there's hardly any physical feedback, so you can't tell when you're wall-running or staring at the wall about to fall to your death. Last thing I noticed was that it was missing it's iconic sounds. Like grabbing the pipe, or rolling.

 

[Hawki]

Basically with Sheira on this. Unless it's from a genre like RTS, I usually get the console version of a game if I can. DRM is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to playing games on PC.

Anyway, it's a shame about Catalyst. I wasn't a fan of Mirror's Edge (poor story, iffy gameplay issues), but it was a game and setting that had loads of potential. It was irksome enough that they were rebooting it, but I'd have hoped it would at least be good.

 

[Skatalite]

No love for Bad Company 2?

I just say that, I never actually finished it. I hear it's good, or at least better than the average multiplayer FPS campaign these days.

I've never cared much about the Battlefield series, but I'll look into that one then. See if I can find some good campaign reviews.

 

[Zhukov]

No love for Bad Company 2?

I just say that, I never actually finished it. I hear it's good, or at least better than the average multiplayer FPS campaign these days.

I've never cared much about the Battlefield series, but I'll look into that one then. See if I can find some good campaign reviews.

The BF:BC2 campaign is rubbish.

I don't mean to shit on the game here. I actually loved it. I spent many, many highly enjoyable hours... on the multiplayer.

But I would definitely think twice about spending money on it for the campaign.

 

[Dalisclock]

No love for Bad Company 2?

I just say that, I never actually finished it. I hear it's good, or at least better than the average multiplayer FPS campaign these days.

I've never cared much about the Battlefield series, but I'll look into that one then. See if I can find some good campaign reviews.

I tried it. The problem is, it feels like it's mocking the Campaign of CoD: MW2(which came around not too long before) without actually being good in it's own right. So there's the feeling of "Yeah, MW2's campaign is silly" but there's no improvement on it. In fact, it feels clunky, as opposed to MW2's gameplay which works very well.

Even though Saints Row routinely mocks other game series, at least they make it fun at the same time.

 

[Skatalite]

The BF:BC2 campaign is rubbish.

I don't mean to shit on the game here. I actually loved it. I spent many, many highly enjoyable hours... on the multiplayer.

But I would definitely think twice about spending money on it for the campaign.

I tried it. The problem is, it feels like it's mocking the Campaign of CoD: MW2(which came around not too long before) without actually being good in it's own right. So there's the feeling of "Yeah, MW2's campaign is silly" but there's no improvement on it. In fact, it feels clunky, as opposed to MW2's gameplay which works very well.

Even though Saints Row routinely mocks other game series, at least they make it fun at the same time.

Doesn't sound too good so far. I've read a couple of campaign reviews as well and besides Gamespot none of them seem to think too much of it, so I guess that's a pass then.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

So they basically learned nothing from the first time around and added the additional quibble of trying to make a platformer more open-world when in fact open-world is not the kind of structure for precision platforming.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Alright, not that I played a fair amount of it, I think it's pretty good.

It's the same "almost great" game that the original Mirror's Edge was but that's good enough for me.

I really like the open world, some people are complaining it's a little empty, they're right. Per every main mission, there's two side missions and a boatload of time trials. Honestly, for a first step into open world, that's not too bad, just wish there were more real side missions was all. But like I said, I really like the open world, it's the first open-world game that I want to physically run to all the objectives, I don't think I've used fast-travel even once.

Other than that, I don't love the combat but it's alright, new controls took some getting used to but it's all alright.

And somethin' I just learned yesterday, open up the field-of-view at least a little, the wider it is, the faster you feel.