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This thread has been linked to the game 'Mirror's Edge'.
Mirror’s Edge is a first person action platformer developed by DICE and published by EA. This game can be played on PC, PS3 & XBOX360 and it has been released recently for the Windows Phone on July 13 2012 with initial exclusivity given to Nokia Lumia phones.
The game takes place in a city which is under control of a totalitarian state. The state controls the media, monitors all forms of communication and upholds unpopular laws such as smoking prohibition. The state holds control through the rigging of elections and the people are coerced to follow the law through the police who are known to open fire on those who are disobedient.
The game starts with a 24 year old woman, Faith Connors, who makes her living as a “Runner”. A Runner is a messenger who delivers physical messages between parties so that the state cannot monitor them. When she was younger, she campaigned against what the state was about to become and her mother died during a peaceful protest which the media called the “November riots”.
The story begins with a new candidate running for Mayor of the city, Robert Pope, who vows to put an end to the heavy state control. After Faith delivers baggage to her fellow runner known as Celeste, she hears that her sister Kate is in trouble. Faith finds Pope dead in his office where Kate works as a police officer and finds that Kate is framed for the murder. Kate requests Faith to discover the true cause behind the murder as she is arrested for murder by the police.
This starts off your adventure which has you running, sliding & vaulting over obstacles, ziplining and leaping across the rooftops. The game also has you being pursued by the police whom you normally try to avoid, but there are cases where combat is compulsory.
During the tutorial you are shown all the moves that you will need to perform throughout the game. You will first notice that if you run without pausing for a few seconds that your running speed increases dramatically with the edges of the screen blurring out for effect. The controls are easy to remember as you are told that L1 is up, which will make you leap forward when running or jump upward to grab hold of ledges. You are told that L2 is down, so that you will slide along the ground after running to get under closing doors and crouch down when stood still so that you can crawl through ventilation shafts.
If you run at a wall and press L1 you will do a wall run. During the tutorial you are taught to combine this with R1 and another L1. The R1 button turns Faith 180 degrees from where she is facing which only has any use when performing this move. This move allows you to reach higher places by running up the wall, turning around and then leaping off the wall to the ledge. R2 is used to kick open doors, smash glass and attack in combat. The “X” button is used in context sensitive situations such as pressing buttons or turning a valve.
The game makes you associate the colour red with interactivity or direction which is a good colour choice considering the game is mostly white with a lot of bloom effects. The game also gives you an aid in direction in case you get lost by pressing Circle which will turn Faith in the direction of where she is supposed to go. Although this feature is sometimes useful, it isn’t always. In one area you will be facing your ultimate destination and when you move to another area you may be facing where you need to go right now which is what you always want. When in confined buildings this button usually has you looking at a wall which isn’t helpful either. This move shouldn’t be used near ledges while moving as it will change the direction you are facing which will likely make you walk off the edge of the building.
On many occasions the game pushes you forward by having policemen chase you which helps get the adrenaline flowing when you are trying to escape from them, but on a few occasions they seemed to punish you for hesitating when you are unsure of your next move. I say this because sometimes the room is completely empty with no guards and if you stand and wait they break in and gun you down rather than other occasions when they will only trigger if you move to a specific area.
Although the game trains you to avoid confrontation, you sometimes end up being forced to take out guards before you can progress which you figure out by trial and error. Combat in this game is either easy or frustrating as there seems to be an element of luck to it. One time I ran past armed guards near point blank range and they all missed me and on other occasions they took me out from long range. Punching and kicking guards is fairly ineffective and takes five or so punches to take a guard down, but it is your safest option when a guard is alone. Against two guards there isn’t enough time to do this and so your best bet is to disarm one of the guards by pressing triangle when it flashes red. Faith has the Matrix style ability to slow down time by pressing square which is ideal to help with disarming. However, a guard’s weapon only briefly flashes red and if you don’t press triangle at the right time you are pretty much dead, which is frustrating if you are fighting the last guard, as you will be forced to take them out again.
When you disarm a guard you can then use their weapon. Even though the guards seem to have an endless supply of ammo, your stolen weapon runs out after a short burst. Even if you have defeated other guards who drop their weapons, you can’t walk over the weapon or pick it up at all. This may have been a design decision so that the game doesn’t feel like an fps or something. You are forced to drop the weapon after it is empty as you won’t be able to fight back.
The game can be fussy about how close you have to be to a pipe to cling onto it and there were a few occasions where it took many tries of leaping from a building towards a red pipe before Faith finally clung to it. This would be fine, but the game can sometimes be cruel with the distance between the checkpoints. The worst thing about the checkpoint placements is when you are forced into combat and you manage to defeat all the guards and then miss a jump. This means that you will have to fight all the guards again which can be frustrating depending on your luck.
The story’s strong political and personal themes seem interesting initially but once the game goes on you will find that story isn’t a strong point in the game’s favour.
The game is fairly short and typically takes around 5-6 hours for the story mode for a first playthough, although if you know what you are doing you can speed run through it in an hour and fourteen minutes. I found Mirror’s Edge to be enjoyable when it flows. The rush of being in pursuit while vaulting over and sliding under obstacles and leaping through the air and wall running accross buildings is the driving point of this game, but the frustrating occasions did grind down the experience. All I can say is that its Parkour style gameplay is something different and I respect EA for giving a chance on it. Hopefully EA will take another leap of faith with a sequel that has smoother gameplay and a more involving story.
7/10
The game takes place in a city which is under control of a totalitarian state. The state controls the media, monitors all forms of communication and upholds unpopular laws such as smoking prohibition. The state holds control through the rigging of elections and the people are coerced to follow the law through the police who are known to open fire on those who are disobedient.
The game starts with a 24 year old woman, Faith Connors, who makes her living as a “Runner”. A Runner is a messenger who delivers physical messages between parties so that the state cannot monitor them. When she was younger, she campaigned against what the state was about to become and her mother died during a peaceful protest which the media called the “November riots”.
The story begins with a new candidate running for Mayor of the city, Robert Pope, who vows to put an end to the heavy state control. After Faith delivers baggage to her fellow runner known as Celeste, she hears that her sister Kate is in trouble. Faith finds Pope dead in his office where Kate works as a police officer and finds that Kate is framed for the murder. Kate requests Faith to discover the true cause behind the murder as she is arrested for murder by the police.
This starts off your adventure which has you running, sliding & vaulting over obstacles, ziplining and leaping across the rooftops. The game also has you being pursued by the police whom you normally try to avoid, but there are cases where combat is compulsory.
During the tutorial you are shown all the moves that you will need to perform throughout the game. You will first notice that if you run without pausing for a few seconds that your running speed increases dramatically with the edges of the screen blurring out for effect. The controls are easy to remember as you are told that L1 is up, which will make you leap forward when running or jump upward to grab hold of ledges. You are told that L2 is down, so that you will slide along the ground after running to get under closing doors and crouch down when stood still so that you can crawl through ventilation shafts.
If you run at a wall and press L1 you will do a wall run. During the tutorial you are taught to combine this with R1 and another L1. The R1 button turns Faith 180 degrees from where she is facing which only has any use when performing this move. This move allows you to reach higher places by running up the wall, turning around and then leaping off the wall to the ledge. R2 is used to kick open doors, smash glass and attack in combat. The “X” button is used in context sensitive situations such as pressing buttons or turning a valve.
The game makes you associate the colour red with interactivity or direction which is a good colour choice considering the game is mostly white with a lot of bloom effects. The game also gives you an aid in direction in case you get lost by pressing Circle which will turn Faith in the direction of where she is supposed to go. Although this feature is sometimes useful, it isn’t always. In one area you will be facing your ultimate destination and when you move to another area you may be facing where you need to go right now which is what you always want. When in confined buildings this button usually has you looking at a wall which isn’t helpful either. This move shouldn’t be used near ledges while moving as it will change the direction you are facing which will likely make you walk off the edge of the building.
On many occasions the game pushes you forward by having policemen chase you which helps get the adrenaline flowing when you are trying to escape from them, but on a few occasions they seemed to punish you for hesitating when you are unsure of your next move. I say this because sometimes the room is completely empty with no guards and if you stand and wait they break in and gun you down rather than other occasions when they will only trigger if you move to a specific area.
Although the game trains you to avoid confrontation, you sometimes end up being forced to take out guards before you can progress which you figure out by trial and error. Combat in this game is either easy or frustrating as there seems to be an element of luck to it. One time I ran past armed guards near point blank range and they all missed me and on other occasions they took me out from long range. Punching and kicking guards is fairly ineffective and takes five or so punches to take a guard down, but it is your safest option when a guard is alone. Against two guards there isn’t enough time to do this and so your best bet is to disarm one of the guards by pressing triangle when it flashes red. Faith has the Matrix style ability to slow down time by pressing square which is ideal to help with disarming. However, a guard’s weapon only briefly flashes red and if you don’t press triangle at the right time you are pretty much dead, which is frustrating if you are fighting the last guard, as you will be forced to take them out again.
When you disarm a guard you can then use their weapon. Even though the guards seem to have an endless supply of ammo, your stolen weapon runs out after a short burst. Even if you have defeated other guards who drop their weapons, you can’t walk over the weapon or pick it up at all. This may have been a design decision so that the game doesn’t feel like an fps or something. You are forced to drop the weapon after it is empty as you won’t be able to fight back.
The game can be fussy about how close you have to be to a pipe to cling onto it and there were a few occasions where it took many tries of leaping from a building towards a red pipe before Faith finally clung to it. This would be fine, but the game can sometimes be cruel with the distance between the checkpoints. The worst thing about the checkpoint placements is when you are forced into combat and you manage to defeat all the guards and then miss a jump. This means that you will have to fight all the guards again which can be frustrating depending on your luck.
The story’s strong political and personal themes seem interesting initially but once the game goes on you will find that story isn’t a strong point in the game’s favour.
The game is fairly short and typically takes around 5-6 hours for the story mode for a first playthough, although if you know what you are doing you can speed run through it in an hour and fourteen minutes. I found Mirror’s Edge to be enjoyable when it flows. The rush of being in pursuit while vaulting over and sliding under obstacles and leaping through the air and wall running accross buildings is the driving point of this game, but the frustrating occasions did grind down the experience. All I can say is that its Parkour style gameplay is something different and I respect EA for giving a chance on it. Hopefully EA will take another leap of faith with a sequel that has smoother gameplay and a more involving story.
7/10
I'm the opposite. I found the gameplay great at first, but as the game progressed, I got bored. The story is plain awful (not engaging at all), as are the environments (are the runners and the guards the only people in the world who exist?) Would be a great game if these were fixed in a sequel
Thanks Dean :)
Yeah the game seems to have a small cult following and I only know one other person that has played it. I found it for next to nothing at GAME so there wasn't any risk in trying it. I'm glad I did and I'm sure they'll make a sequel eventually.
Yeah the game seems to have a small cult following and I only know one other person that has played it. I found it for next to nothing at GAME so there wasn't any risk in trying it. I'm glad I did and I'm sure they'll make a sequel eventually.
Nice review,
This is one of my favourite PS3 games just because it's so fast and forces you to stay awake. Even the slightest hesitation, or bad reflex and your out! Especially in later levels. There's also quite a bit of tactics involved where you have a room full of armed guards on raised walkways and you need to figure out how your going to take them all out unarmed.
I've got to say though, given how good this game is, barely anyone seems to know about it. I think I just picked it up on a whim. Hopefully if they make a sequel they'll market it more.
This is one of my favourite PS3 games just because it's so fast and forces you to stay awake. Even the slightest hesitation, or bad reflex and your out! Especially in later levels. There's also quite a bit of tactics involved where you have a room full of armed guards on raised walkways and you need to figure out how your going to take them all out unarmed.
I've got to say though, given how good this game is, barely anyone seems to know about it. I think I just picked it up on a whim. Hopefully if they make a sequel they'll market it more.
Mirror’s Edge is a first person action platformer developed by DICE and published by EA. This game can be played on PC, PS3 & XBOX360 and it has been released recently for the Windows Phone on July 13 2012 with initial exclusivity given to Nokia Lumia phones.
The game takes place in a city which is under control of a totalitarian state. The state controls the media, monitors all forms of communication and upholds unpopular laws such as smoking prohibition. The state holds control through the rigging of elections and the people are coerced to follow the law through the police who are known to open fire on those who are disobedient.
The game starts with a 24 year old woman, Faith Connors, who makes her living as a “Runner”. A Runner is a messenger who delivers physical messages between parties so that the state cannot monitor them. When she was younger, she campaigned against what the state was about to become and her mother died during a peaceful protest which the media called the “November riots”.
The story begins with a new candidate running for Mayor of the city, Robert Pope, who vows to put an end to the heavy state control. After Faith delivers baggage to her fellow runner known as Celeste, she hears that her sister Kate is in trouble. Faith finds Pope dead in his office where Kate works as a police officer and finds that Kate is framed for the murder. Kate requests Faith to discover the true cause behind the murder as she is arrested for murder by the police.
This starts off your adventure which has you running, sliding & vaulting over obstacles, ziplining and leaping across the rooftops. The game also has you being pursued by the police whom you normally try to avoid, but there are cases where combat is compulsory.
During the tutorial you are shown all the moves that you will need to perform throughout the game. You will first notice that if you run without pausing for a few seconds that your running speed increases dramatically with the edges of the screen blurring out for effect. The controls are easy to remember as you are told that L1 is up, which will make you leap forward when running or jump upward to grab hold of ledges. You are told that L2 is down, so that you will slide along the ground after running to get under closing doors and crouch down when stood still so that you can crawl through ventilation shafts.
If you run at a wall and press L1 you will do a wall run. During the tutorial you are taught to combine this with R1 and another L1. The R1 button turns Faith 180 degrees from where she is facing which only has any use when performing this move. This move allows you to reach higher places by running up the wall, turning around and then leaping off the wall to the ledge. R2 is used to kick open doors, smash glass and attack in combat. The “X” button is used in context sensitive situations such as pressing buttons or turning a valve.
The game makes you associate the colour red with interactivity or direction which is a good colour choice considering the game is mostly white with a lot of bloom effects. The game also gives you an aid in direction in case you get lost by pressing Circle which will turn Faith in the direction of where she is supposed to go. Although this feature is sometimes useful, it isn’t always. In one area you will be facing your ultimate destination and when you move to another area you may be facing where you need to go right now which is what you always want. When in confined buildings this button usually has you looking at a wall which isn’t helpful either. This move shouldn’t be used near ledges while moving as it will change the direction you are facing which will likely make you walk off the edge of the building.
On many occasions the game pushes you forward by having policemen chase you which helps get the adrenaline flowing when you are trying to escape from them, but on a few occasions they seemed to punish you for hesitating when you are unsure of your next move. I say this because sometimes the room is completely empty with no guards and if you stand and wait they break in and gun you down rather than other occasions when they will only trigger if you move to a specific area.
Although the game trains you to avoid confrontation, you sometimes end up being forced to take out guards before you can progress which you figure out by trial and error. Combat in this game is either easy or frustrating as there seems to be an element of luck to it. One time I ran past armed guards near point blank range and they all missed me and on other occasions they took me out from long range. Punching and kicking guards is fairly ineffective and takes five or so punches to take a guard down, but it is your safest option when a guard is alone. Against two guards there isn’t enough time to do this and so your best bet is to disarm one of the guards by pressing triangle when it flashes red. Faith has the Matrix style ability to slow down time by pressing square which is ideal to help with disarming. However, a guard’s weapon only briefly flashes red and if you don’t press triangle at the right time you are pretty much dead, which is frustrating if you are fighting the last guard, as you will be forced to take them out again.
When you disarm a guard you can then use their weapon. Even though the guards seem to have an endless supply of ammo, your stolen weapon runs out after a short burst. Even if you have defeated other guards who drop their weapons, you can’t walk over the weapon or pick it up at all. This may have been a design decision so that the game doesn’t feel like an fps or something. You are forced to drop the weapon after it is empty as you won’t be able to fight back.
The game can be fussy about how close you have to be to a pipe to cling onto it and there were a few occasions where it took many tries of leaping from a building towards a red pipe before Faith finally clung to it. This would be fine, but the game can sometimes be cruel with the distance between the checkpoints. The worst thing about the checkpoint placements is when you are forced into combat and you manage to defeat all the guards and then miss a jump. This means that you will have to fight all the guards again which can be frustrating depending on your luck.
The story’s strong political and personal themes seem interesting initially but once the game goes on you will find that story isn’t a strong point in the game’s favour.
The game is fairly short and typically takes around 5-6 hours for the story mode for a first playthough, although if you know what you are doing you can speed run through it in an hour and fourteen minutes. I found Mirror’s Edge to be enjoyable when it flows. The rush of being in pursuit while vaulting over and sliding under obstacles and leaping through the air and wall running accross buildings is the driving point of this game, but the frustrating occasions did grind down the experience. All I can say is that its Parkour style gameplay is something different and I respect EA for giving a chance on it. Hopefully EA will take another leap of faith with a sequel that has smoother gameplay and a more involving story.
7/10
The game takes place in a city which is under control of a totalitarian state. The state controls the media, monitors all forms of communication and upholds unpopular laws such as smoking prohibition. The state holds control through the rigging of elections and the people are coerced to follow the law through the police who are known to open fire on those who are disobedient.
The game starts with a 24 year old woman, Faith Connors, who makes her living as a “Runner”. A Runner is a messenger who delivers physical messages between parties so that the state cannot monitor them. When she was younger, she campaigned against what the state was about to become and her mother died during a peaceful protest which the media called the “November riots”.
The story begins with a new candidate running for Mayor of the city, Robert Pope, who vows to put an end to the heavy state control. After Faith delivers baggage to her fellow runner known as Celeste, she hears that her sister Kate is in trouble. Faith finds Pope dead in his office where Kate works as a police officer and finds that Kate is framed for the murder. Kate requests Faith to discover the true cause behind the murder as she is arrested for murder by the police.
This starts off your adventure which has you running, sliding & vaulting over obstacles, ziplining and leaping across the rooftops. The game also has you being pursued by the police whom you normally try to avoid, but there are cases where combat is compulsory.
During the tutorial you are shown all the moves that you will need to perform throughout the game. You will first notice that if you run without pausing for a few seconds that your running speed increases dramatically with the edges of the screen blurring out for effect. The controls are easy to remember as you are told that L1 is up, which will make you leap forward when running or jump upward to grab hold of ledges. You are told that L2 is down, so that you will slide along the ground after running to get under closing doors and crouch down when stood still so that you can crawl through ventilation shafts.
If you run at a wall and press L1 you will do a wall run. During the tutorial you are taught to combine this with R1 and another L1. The R1 button turns Faith 180 degrees from where she is facing which only has any use when performing this move. This move allows you to reach higher places by running up the wall, turning around and then leaping off the wall to the ledge. R2 is used to kick open doors, smash glass and attack in combat. The “X” button is used in context sensitive situations such as pressing buttons or turning a valve.
The game makes you associate the colour red with interactivity or direction which is a good colour choice considering the game is mostly white with a lot of bloom effects. The game also gives you an aid in direction in case you get lost by pressing Circle which will turn Faith in the direction of where she is supposed to go. Although this feature is sometimes useful, it isn’t always. In one area you will be facing your ultimate destination and when you move to another area you may be facing where you need to go right now which is what you always want. When in confined buildings this button usually has you looking at a wall which isn’t helpful either. This move shouldn’t be used near ledges while moving as it will change the direction you are facing which will likely make you walk off the edge of the building.
On many occasions the game pushes you forward by having policemen chase you which helps get the adrenaline flowing when you are trying to escape from them, but on a few occasions they seemed to punish you for hesitating when you are unsure of your next move. I say this because sometimes the room is completely empty with no guards and if you stand and wait they break in and gun you down rather than other occasions when they will only trigger if you move to a specific area.
Although the game trains you to avoid confrontation, you sometimes end up being forced to take out guards before you can progress which you figure out by trial and error. Combat in this game is either easy or frustrating as there seems to be an element of luck to it. One time I ran past armed guards near point blank range and they all missed me and on other occasions they took me out from long range. Punching and kicking guards is fairly ineffective and takes five or so punches to take a guard down, but it is your safest option when a guard is alone. Against two guards there isn’t enough time to do this and so your best bet is to disarm one of the guards by pressing triangle when it flashes red. Faith has the Matrix style ability to slow down time by pressing square which is ideal to help with disarming. However, a guard’s weapon only briefly flashes red and if you don’t press triangle at the right time you are pretty much dead, which is frustrating if you are fighting the last guard, as you will be forced to take them out again.
When you disarm a guard you can then use their weapon. Even though the guards seem to have an endless supply of ammo, your stolen weapon runs out after a short burst. Even if you have defeated other guards who drop their weapons, you can’t walk over the weapon or pick it up at all. This may have been a design decision so that the game doesn’t feel like an fps or something. You are forced to drop the weapon after it is empty as you won’t be able to fight back.
The game can be fussy about how close you have to be to a pipe to cling onto it and there were a few occasions where it took many tries of leaping from a building towards a red pipe before Faith finally clung to it. This would be fine, but the game can sometimes be cruel with the distance between the checkpoints. The worst thing about the checkpoint placements is when you are forced into combat and you manage to defeat all the guards and then miss a jump. This means that you will have to fight all the guards again which can be frustrating depending on your luck.
The story’s strong political and personal themes seem interesting initially but once the game goes on you will find that story isn’t a strong point in the game’s favour.
The game is fairly short and typically takes around 5-6 hours for the story mode for a first playthough, although if you know what you are doing you can speed run through it in an hour and fourteen minutes. I found Mirror’s Edge to be enjoyable when it flows. The rush of being in pursuit while vaulting over and sliding under obstacles and leaping through the air and wall running accross buildings is the driving point of this game, but the frustrating occasions did grind down the experience. All I can say is that its Parkour style gameplay is something different and I respect EA for giving a chance on it. Hopefully EA will take another leap of faith with a sequel that has smoother gameplay and a more involving story.
7/10