Mirror's Edge [360/PS3]

[ezee ryder]

I love this, it is just a breath of fresh air. Played up to chapter 5 last night and would have kept on playing if I didn't have to wake up for work early in the morning! I hate to compare it to anything as it has its own unique style but this is 2008's Assassin's Creed, it will click with some people and with others it probably won't!

It has its flaws, combat is a bit clunky, sometimes it can be a bit difficult to work out where you are supposed to be going but strangely in those flaws you will find the charm of the game. The game is all about a little trial and error and experimentation, sometimes this can lead to a little frustration on some sections but when you nail a section the satisfaction just overshadows everything. Going through a section at high speed, jumping, sliding and wall-running perfectly....its just feels so natural and exhilarating.

The look of the game is superb, suits the theme very well. Everything is bright, clean and crisp. There are few jaggies and a few bum textures here and there but you don't really notice them when you are immersed in the game.

DICE/EA have the foundations of a great game here, if they improve on the weaker points of this game for a sequel then could have something really special on their hands. As it is, what we have here is a very good game that could have been great. I think every self respecting gamer should at least try it out and experience it for themselves.

[Eight Rooks]

You can use bullet time on the SWAT guys, yes, but that's just one of them and it takes a looong time to charge it up. Unless you're good at doing parkour around underground car parks/cargo holds, I guess, which I'm not.

I do agree it's worth playing through at least once. But I could never see myself doing this again on Hard - certainly not weaponless, and even then, I doubt it. I dread to think what the SWAT teams must be like, let alone the

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pursuit cops

. I just don't think it lives up to its promise in any respect, not the look, not the gameplay, not the narrative... maybe the audio? The voice-acting's pretty good, apart from one or two roles, and Solar Fields' score is frequently excellent.

[elaniel]

I love it, but i do have to agree that the

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SWAT on the catwalk

are a pain in the backside. I ended up just shooting them and will run through on easy with the "no guns" achievement later on.

Also just came across the

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Blue Runners. Scare the crap outta ya as you can hear them chasing you right behind but you daredn't turn around!!!

Really gets your blood pumping.

The music really gets you going too

[Eight Rooks]

Thing was with the

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pursuit cops

- that's what the game calls them, anyway - I'd bet if someone had spoilt that for me beforehand I'd have thought it sounded great on paper. Just like everything else, it didn't feel that way in practice;

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I was already thinking "This? This is your big twist? Like something out of a ****ty 80s action movie?" and then the chase started. Only I didn't realise it was a chase; I tried to fight them (you know, since there's only two of them), got my ass kicked, then they started pouring in from everywhere and I ended up thinking "Jesus, I wanted to run away from all the enemies who could instantly kill me, I didn't want them to come after me in the ****ing process!" Just like everything else, trial and error until you're blue in the face; you stop, you mess up a jump, they catch you instantly, you're dead (well, two hits is all it takes).

The kicker at the end was having to redo the jumping onto the train several times because I'd clearly got there at the wrong time to do it properly, but there wasn't anything I could do to correct that - in the end I just glitched onto it. Thought I'd got crushed yet again, but then flipped into the end sequence lying on my back. Not impressed.

[ChrisF]

Just spent the last 15 minutes trying to latch onto a bloody zip wire. Losing the will to live.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Just finished it without shooting anyone. The last room was a bitch. The story was complete garbage and felt no emotional attachement to anyone, for something that was hyped on that it left me completly dissapointed.

The gameplay itself was good, Faith's combat not so good. Its completly broken for her and the enemies were drones than acual people, they just stood there and shot at you.

Overall a give this a grudgingly 7/10. As i loved the running. Just wish it was all that and a great story.

[Sixty]

I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but I'm really not bothered by story in games. I mean, if a game has a fantastic story then great, but if it doesn't that's fine, too. As long as there's some kind of reason for doing what I'm doing in the game I'm happy. It's the gameplay that matters, after all, and gameplay doesn't always need story. A game's story would have to be really awful and somehow affect the gameplay in a big way for me to list it as one of the reasons for why the game was bad. This is why I don't personally understand the dislike of Mirror's Edge's cutscenes that's going around at the moment. But hey, to each his own, and all that.

I have a feeling I'm going to regret posting that quite soon.

[Eight Rooks]

If anyone still thinks the story in ME is... unobjectionable after stage six or seven, then, eh... just remind me never to listen to your advice on movies, or books, or anything else, really. Of course gameplay matters. But gameplay plus a great story is even better - or fair to middling gameplay becomes something far more memorable with a great story (Bioshock would have been a good FPS at best otherwise). Conversely, good gameplay with an awful story thrown in your face can't help but suffer. I've never understood the idea image and presentation don't matter. Like hell they don't - Mirror's Edge is blatantly trying to reach some relatively high bar with its narrative. You don't talk about totalitarian governments, oppression and abuses of power without meaning to use these themes properly, or at least you won't write a very good story if you don't. By turning them into some daft action movie without any character development to speak of

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"Watch out! Here come the gymnastics police!" "Oh, hey - weren't you my best friend five minutes ago or something?" etc., etc.

ME doesn't even come close to writing anything memorable - the only way I could understand anyone not getting ticked off with the story is if they were literally ignoring every last word. Which is fine up to a point, but when the game is clearly trying to sell itself on its story, at least in part, those people don't get to comment.

[Goemon]

Maaaaan! WTF is the deal with having to sign up to an EA account just to access TTs - what a cnuts trick, EA are sick!

Also, what's the deal with leaderboards only going to 100!? You can sit and practice your heart out and still not even get a ranking! Really gutted by this...

Done the first couple of chapters, haven't had too much trouble so far. I can imagine this game was very hard to balance.

[Eight Rooks]

Well, you do have to sign up for an EA account to play anything of theirs with an online element...

[mr_woo]

Finished the story tonight on normal and loved every second of it. The thing that gave me the most trouble was my own skills at times, missing jumps etc. The police were pretty easy to avoid except for two occasions where you have to fight them to get to where you have to go (no way round). It was a great rush and added a lot to the excitement for me, especially later on where you are really running for it. The combat was OK but mostly easily avoidable so didn't really care that much about it. Got the achievement for no bullets fired too.

The environments are just so much fun, so vibrant and clean and lovely and some of the level design is brilliant too. Characters and story are a bit pish bit don't really care.

Will have a look at the Time Trial this weekend and will probably replay the main game soon too where I shoot every mofo about

[ezee ryder]

I also finished the campaign tonight (well this morning now) and my earlier thoughts still stand up.....mostly!

I have to side with mr woo here, didn't really have alot of trouble with the police apart from the final section which was just plain unfair but I somehow got through it. I just stuck to one tried and tested combo which worked on most enemies (slide kick and then 2 or 3 punches) apart from the tougher SWAT guys who took a bit more of a beating before they went down.

I did have a few frustrating moments and at some point during them I tried to dislike this game but something just kept bringing me back in. Even when I failed to make a jump or couldn't get past a few of the blues there was something in the back of my mind saying "I can do it next time" or "Hmm let me try this that way". Then when I nailed it perfectly and put together that flowing move it just felt great and those moments of frustration were forgotten. The flow of the free-running is down to some decent level design on the developers part so they must be applauded for that even though towards the end of the game it does falter slightly.

Story wise, yeah I agree with what most people have said, it is pretty forgettable. By the end of the game you don't really care about Faith or any of the characters for that matter which is a shame really. I did like animation cutscenes/loading screens though, they were pretty well done.

It is just refreshing to see and play a game like this, it's a breath of fresh air even if it is flawed. If DICE/EA can build upon this for a sequel (will there be one?) then they would have something special. Bit more attention paid to the story/characters, slightly longer campaign with more set pieces and more smooth/intuitive combat system would be a good start!

So yeah, I would give this game 8/10, flawed but still a very good game.

[Goemon]

I don't understand why people have such a beef with the combat, if it was too easy it would make the game pointless as you would just chin everyone rather than running from them.

At the points where you have to fight I've never really had an issue. Flying kick, then stand over them waiting for the impending melee and perform a take down.

I'm quite a one with this game and so far up to chapter 6 I'm really enjoying it, I've even turned runner vision off as I think it spoils it.

I have to agree with the story tho. TBH I don't even really know what's going on I just love running and figuring out how to get to places. I don't like the comic style cutscenes either, I think they lower the overall quality and wish they had done something more stylish.

Also, I'm already thinking about the replaying of missions on hard and TT

Lastly...Edge 5/10 - No way this game is average IMO

[Miguel007]

I love this game! It deserves way more than 5/10, it did have frustrating moments but the good far outweigh the bad IMO. Just completed it tonight, love the little touches like hugging in the third person camera.

The story reminded me of a couple of Jackie Chan films, i.e the story is absolute pants but the action is awesome.

[SmokeMeAKipper]

Finished it last night. I don't think I can add anything new really - when it works as it's intended, it's breathtaking. When it doesn't, it's frustrating trial-and-error gameplay make it a chore. The biggest letdown was the combat - I managed to finish it without shooting anyone (and getting the achievement) but I really struggled on the last bit - took me about 10 attempts to nail it.

Had a quick blast of the Time Trials - that's much more fun. Managed to get 3 stars on the first Playground after a few goes, it's amazing how some of the alternate routes I didn't even think about until I started exploring the area a bit more.

Overall it's better than a 5/10 for me but I don't think I'd give it more than 7, maybe 8 at a push. I just hope this lays the foundations for a much improved (inevitable?) sequel.