Firstly, apologies for the poor humour of the title for this post. Secondly, welcome to the first ever review for We Live In Games, thank you, but please, hold your applause until the end.
For those who haven't guessed by the title, today we'll be looking at Mirror's Edge a game that set out to defy convention by applying the first person prospective to a free running meets fighting meets shooting game (you may breathe now). Lets tackle these three mechanics before we get to the meaty part of the game itself.
Now, you may have heard about how the first person perspective can be a little nauseating. Well, I wont lie, that's for uninformed employees at Game to do, it does take a little getting used to and can be disorientation at first. However, once you get used to it, the movement is beautifully fluid. It's like you're controlling an action packed cut scene full of Prince of Persia style wall running, but you're in control of every step and jump you make. The feeling you get once you clamber up a particularly daunting obstacle and have yourself a second or two to take in the beautiful view is truly magical. As the game progresses you learn more and more to look for the less obvious route through your particular level, allowing you to express yourself within the game.
Before we tackle the mechanics of the fighting and shooting, lets make friends with the core game itself. In the game you play as Faith, the new poster girl of illegal package deliveries in a tightly controlled ideal utopia city. Faith fights against the suits that wish to quell freedom and force control upon its citizens, by delivering packages... I know, it sounds a little silly, but trust me, the story does the job of keeping you involved. The suits in the game send crack shot security guards after you and later some free running agents of their own.
This is he point in the review where we need to discuss the combat and shooting. Please tell me you just heard me breathing in through my teeth? The combat seems to slow the game right down, the idea is that you learn how to pull off combos and disarms, giving you a combat system that is supposed to be as fluid as the free running. I have heard people have enjoyed the system, but personally I found that the combat was sluggish and unresponsive. Unfortunately the shooting wasn't much better, and after being spoilt by genre standards such as Call of Duty 4 feels like an alien mechanic in the game. However, escaping the police without tackling them provides some of the most adrenaline fuelled moments of the game.
Ultimately, the confrontations in the game do spoil the fun and excitement of being a super strong free runner who should be able to outrun everyone. The time trial mode allows you to improve your free running by shaving more and more seconds off your time, although the time trial levels are set in the single player levels, complete with police and don't really offer any extension to the game other than the chance to keep on replaying levels until you get a better time.
The game is very short and shouldn't take you much more than 7 hours to finish, hopefully the upcoming map packs will give the game something special to keep you playing it, especially as it looks like they wont have the dreaded police to bother you.
With an adequate story, an amazing free running system and beautiful sights to be seen, the games only failing point is the combat system that slows the pace of the game down. A recommended buy if you can find it at a good price.
8/10
I'm still making my way through the wonderful brown world of Dead Space and things have reached the stage where after each nasty little encounter I feel the need to take a break before I carry on. It's at this point that I have to admit that the game may actually be scary. Just a little bit. But I will persevere dammit! Otherwise I'll never get around to watching the Dead Space anime on DVD. That I've already bought. In case Dead Space was any good... I've said too much.
