Mirror's Edge

Sometimes I get that funny feeling when I am in a danger of falling from a high location -- in a game. Mirror's Edge is all about traversing from a rooftop to another but the funny feeling gets old really fast. Probably because you will fall constantly, and it does not cost you much; you just begin again from the last checkpoint.

There is not a lot good I can say about Mirror's Edge, other than its unique concept -- I have never heard about any other game where parkour is the core element. However, I think DICE missed the target slightly by making ME use first-person perspective. In third-person you would be able to see all the cool moves and get a much better idea where you can actually get.

There is supposed to be multiple ways of getting to places but in reality there is not much actual freedom. The various -- but surprisingly intuitive -- controls are taught at the start, and you learn quickly how to use the various map elements. However, I wish the section for disarming opponents had been more thorough; I never learned to disarm properly.

Not that I tried doing it too much. You get an achievement if you beat the game without killing anyone and thus I spent most of the game just running and using unarmed attacks to beat down the "blues". Although, I must say it really starts to get on your nerves being constantly under a bullet rain. Just near the end there was this parking hall, which I could not get past without picking up a weapon. Two assault rifle and two machine gun guys were just too much when the goal was to get into an elevator (which needed to be summoned first).

Mirror's Edge is a short game (depends on how much spend being stuck somewhere, of course) and ends rather abruptly, clearly promising a sequel. (One seems to be on its way.) Then again, the game is all about its mechanic and there is only so much repetition one can take. The story is predictable and paper-thin, and the cutscenes are pretty cheap-looking cartoons.

ME looks pretty, almost real when sunlight colors the buildings, but usually the distinct simple visual style ruined it for me. White dominates your view and everything else is in a strong primary color. It makes the world look lifeless, although that might be what the developers where aiming at. The game runs on the Unreal Engine 3 and the PC version of the game has NVIDIA's PhysX included, which means you need to actually have a pretty good GPU if you mean to have it enabled and not have your FPS dropping once glass starts breaking.

The soundtrack as a whole is nothing special but I like the end credits song, Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky. It feels slightly too good for Mirror's Edge, though. I hope they make the sequel 3rd-person. That would fix many of the miscalculated jumps that lead to me falling to my death. And while they are at it, they could get rid of the cartoons and the boring colors as well.