f13.net

I've been playing Mirror's Edge for about 2 or 3 hours now, so I figure I could give it a mini-review.

The Good
- Cityscape is beautiful
- Soundtrack, when played, fits the game perfectly. Has an open air feel to it.

The Bad
- There's not enough good about this game
- Combat is clumsy and almost impossible to manage which would be a problem if...
- They didn't force you to fight in 3 - 1 or 5 - 1 battles.
- Mastery of the moves is necessary otherwise...
- Lack of fluidity in the game because sometimes thinking on the fly isn't possible
- What I've come to call load-kill. Loading at key points can really break up the pacing and kill the intensity of a chase
- Elevators. Did you hate Mass Effect's Elevators? Even Stormwaltz could make fun of Mirror's Edge elevators.
- Hidden QTEs. Remember disarming in training? It's a masked QTE necessary for certain "scenes" in the game.
- Too much time spent inside buildings, sewers and tunnels. Layouts are bland.
- Some things thrown in just to make you use the moves.

Bad Things That Shouldn't Matter: If the game had kept any of its promises, these two things wouldn't have mattered. Since the game doesn't deliver, they matter and flop on both accounts. I'm 2-3 hours in and already half way through the game.
- Terrible Storyline
- Short

Summary: I wanted to like Mirror's Edge because it promised to be so much more and very unique. I kept playing in the hopes that there was one level that would instantly rectify what had been done to what was supposed to be a parkour style free running game. There lies the problem with Mirror's Edge though, there isn't any free running to be seen. Sure, there are a couple ways you can tackle each situation, but overall it's heavily on rails and often times in a very frustrating manner. There's a reason why they only showed the training and select scenes of the game, it hid the fact that they were selling you an idea that you would inherently make up to be something else (free running parkour), but in the end just offer a new twist on the same old FPS style game.

Verdict: Rent it.

Fucking hell.  I looked at the art style and the premise and really wanted this to be a great game, but as soon as I saw the trailers with gunplay I knew they were going to fuck it up.  The demo only reinforced that second impression.

Brilliant concept and artistic direction dragged down by the need to be like other first-person games.  Would have been better as an open world title with no plot and nothing but time attack modes/challenges.

In other words, kind of like skate. I really enjoyed skate and from playing the demo, this kind of game would flourish in that framework.

Fuck yes.  I loved Skate and can't wait for the followup.  I'm just deeply disappointed that they squandered all of this title's originality in an attempt to appeal to the shooter crowd.  Parkour time attack with Skate's replay features and a wide open world would have kept me playing for quite some time.  Shit plot + bad fighting/shooting - not so much.

Well, at least you've freed me from having to choose between this and L4D. Zombpocalypse here I come.

This game is so unfortunate. Somehow, the game as a whole is less than the sum of its parts. It has some cool (at least deisgn-wise) characters, a refreshing artistic vision (especially in the environs and use of color), and just a very different and exciting concept.

Then, somehow, at least for me....the game falls flat on its face. Especially when combat is involved. I've thrown aside any attempts at finesse and just jumpkick people and punch them in the face until they fall. The disarms are Stupid.

And the level design...needs some help. It just seems so random and disjointed. A lot of time I feel like I'm looking around, trying to figure out where I'm actually supposed to go.

From all I heard you are not supposed to fight in this game. You even get a bonus if you make it through without killing anybody.

There are plenty of parts in the game where you have no choice But to fight. So far, I've gotten through half the game without firing a single shot, though I am sure at least one guy died...after I jump kicked him off a skyscraper. :awesome_for_real:

Even so, I probably won't be playing the game again. I'd rather play Fallout 3/NHL 09/Gears 2/Dead Space/maybe even open my copy of Fable 2/if I'm crazy, work on my pile of unplayed PS2 games.

Some parts of the game are just really frustrating, even outside of combat...such as when I leap to grab an edge, and Faith just refuses to, even though it looks like I smack right into whatever I am leaping at.

The sequel needs to have less shooting at you.

And yeah, an open city would have been better. But the level designers would probably fall over dead trying to create a decently large enough city detailed enough for letting you do any sort of hijinks.

Haven't played Skate, but I'd guess that it's a pretty low detail city apart from the "skateable" objects.

Like I pointed out in my review of it, this game says it's a lot of things, but manages to avoid actually being them. There are instances where it's you against 4-8 cops and more often than not if it's a large group you can count on there being a guy with a .50 cal gun. Now, tell me, do you think you can run from that? Even attempting to separate the group is met with frustration as they INSTANTLY stop to shoot at you and wait a couple seconds before coming at you.

By the end of the game I was so sick of trying to be a pacifist that I said fuck it, grabbed the .50 cal and rambo'd the entire building. Fuck multiple retries for a silly achievement some pompous dev threw in there because they actually think the game is easy to get through without firing a shot.

Some people think I had too high a hope for this game. In reality I just went by what DICE said would be in it: Parkour and an open world concept. The former was there but clearly hindered by the lack of the latter.

Fuck, more potential down the drain  :heartbreak:

I played a few hours of this at a friend's house over the weekend.  The four of us who were there had more fun trading off with this game  than we did playing Rock Band.  It's that pretty.  Having a big screen is a MUST. 

I enjoyed it myself except for the clumsy shooting controls in a goddamn UT3 engine game. The parkour handled great IMO. Not Prince of Persia level perfection in terms of control, but really well done for being first person.

I just now finished this.  Surprisingly dark ending.  Definitely cries out for a sequel.

I wish there were more opportunities to use the wall-run-kick-disarm maneuver.  Pulled it off once in a rooftop fight and it was  :drill:.

Was this on Hard difficulty?  I had no problems beating the game without shooting anyone on normal.  I can only think of 2-3 places where you actually HAVE to fight, and none of them had anyone with a .50 Cal.

Basically, if you're trying to defeat your opponents in this game, 90% of the time you are doing it wrong.

The only fights I can think of where I felt really compelled to take people out are the first couple on the boat, where you've got the guy with the machine gun.  And even then I bet it's possible to run past them to cover, or get behind them and do a disarm.

I am kinda tempted to run through it again and see if I can finish the whole thing in pacifist mode.  Most of the time when I went rambo to clear an area it was because I didn't know quite where I was going and needed to take some time to puzzle it out.  Any time I knew what my exit route was I could just run past the bad guys and not look back.

It's easier than you think, WAY easier.  Most of the time you feel compelled to shoot you can indeed just run past.  The few places you can't I believe the guy on the headset tells you that you'll have to fight.

One thing that kinda bothered me is kicking that one guy off the side of the building.  I'd like to be able to take him out without killing him. ;)  Maybe I'll go do that level again..

I wish there were more guys standing in front of ledges like that.  So satisfying.

I liked to do a sliding nut-kick to propel them off of the buildings.

I got the "Test of Faith" trophy, which is the one where you finish the game without shooting anyone.  I even did it on Normal instead of Easy.   :drill:

The only part that was made significantly more difficult by not using a gun was dealing with the very last PK dude, who's parked up on a catwalk with a machine gun (blocking the way to the roof) and won't come down to get kicked in the head.  It took me several tries, but I was eventually able to deal with him by running straight at him, sliding under most of the bullets, and then doing a slow-time disarm once I got to him.

All the rest of the fights are either easy to run past or have enough cover and corners that you can melee the bad guys before they can shoot you up.

Grats, now you can go for a no-kill/no-alert run of MGS4.

Sam, did you just call everyone who hated Mirror's Edge a giant pussy?

 :why_so_serious:

Yeah I did it on normal too, and that last guy IS pretty rough.  The way I managed to get him was to vault up on the right side of the T junction where he stands and run right at him as soon as I got on there.  Kept dying if I tried to run all the way down that junction but this way seemed to work just fine.

Now I'm working on completing the game on hard difficulty (with guns) for the Pro Runner achievement..

This game plays way better with mouse look.

Err...Hey, I just finished Mirror's Edge on the PC: what a great gem of a game, this is. Pure fun, great pace, and an incredible atmosphere. I loved the sense of freedom it gave me while running and jumping around. Music fits perfectly, ending is open and REALLY begs for a sequel that, at this time, is uncertain :(

 :heart: :heart: :heart:

Sadly, playing this game gave me wicked motion sickness and I just had to give up after the first couple missions.  Great concept, but I prefer Assassin's Creed style parkour just because it doesn't make my head spin.

Mirror's Edge is the closest I've ever gotten to feeling motion sick from an FPS.  It's also one of the most immersive experiences I've had in an FPS as far as feeling like I was actually running through a real space, so.  Tradeoffs.

How long does a playthrough of this thing take? I got given this on 360, and if it's short enough to be worth a playthrough on Easy I might just manage to do it sometime.

It's very short once you know where you're going, I remember it being something like 5.5 hours for my second playthrough, it really depends on how many wrong turns you take in the levels. 

Oh, you posted that four days ago... oh well.

That doesn't matter - just wanted to know if I should bump it to the top of the queue from the abyss (if I can get through it in a weekend the way I tend to play games - slowly).

So.. maybe a typical 10-hour game type thing then for a first playthrough?

10 hours or less if you're not going for any achievements or whatnot, yep.

That game is pukeworthy, not figuratively, but literally. My motion sickness is strong with this one.

So 6 years after it came out and this BiiF was written, and over three years since I asked if I should play it, and I've finally started it - wanting to play through a few short games before going back into longer ones. I did Force Unleashed II over three days, and started this today. Wow. Just so fucking awful. Controls are horrible, and as Tebonas says, the game makes me feel ill. (and I don't usually get motion sickness from games). It's just.. painful and boring. I don't mind the pacifist thing, but man the parkour is bad, the game is ultra-linear, you can't see shit all too often, and the controls are arse. Press the button to jump and the idiot just lets go of a pipe or whatever. What a fucking waste of time, space and potential.