Hello Faithy.

I’ve been waiting for a first person platformer sense the N64 era after having put countless hours into Mario 64 and Golden Eye, wishing I could combine the two. Mirror’s Edge seemed to be the game that would make that dream come true. I was drawn to ME after the first time I saw it, not only was it a first person platformer but it was beautiful. There was just something about this game that made me want it and after playing the demo on PSN I had made up my mind, Mirror’s Edge would be a first day purchase.

As always I’m going to go ahead and get the graphics out of the way. As I said up there Mirror’s Edge is a beautiful game. The graphics are crisp, the colors are simply outstanding, and the character models look pretty good. But dear God why did they do the cutscenes in that animated fashion? Sure it looks stylish but I can only imagine how awesome it would have looked had they used the games graphics. Oh well. Anyway there isn’t a lot I can say without gushing over how pretty a game this is so I’m just going to stop, I think you get the picture anyway.

The sound in Mirror’s Edge is pretty good. Voice acting is fine, although some of the lines were full of cheese (It’s DICE though, after Bad Company I wasn’t surprised by this). One moment in the game where the music really stood out was near the end of one of the chapters. You’re running across a building about to jump when Still Alive starts to play. I don’t know why but this moment really stood out to me and it was one of the best in ME. Over all sound is good, although Faith does grunt a lot but I guess if I was jumping from building to building I’d be grunting too.

Now on to what really matters; gameplay. Oh Mirror’s Edge, how you disappointed me. This is the most frustrating game I’ve ever played in my life. Not even Mega Man 9 made me want to smash my controller as bad as ME did. I can remember having fun playing the game but the overall emotion that stayed with me from beginning to end was frustration. That’s not to say it’s a bad game, I was just disappointed with some of the gameplay mechanics. Let me give an example. During the final mission you run from building to building, at the end of this you have to jump from one building to another and land on it, if you don’t land Faith WILL NOT grab on to the ledge, she will simply fall to her death. Now home come throughout the game she can grab onto other small areas but she can’t grab onto this one? Doesn’t make any sense to me.

Combat is horrible. I didn’t use weapons (until one mission made me) because they slow you down. So fighting the bad guys was a real pain in the ass. I had to change the difficulty from normal to easy because I kept getting killed. I mean I can understand getting shot three times and dying is realistic but the point of the game is to keep MOVING. Why are you throwing enemies at me that I can’t run past? Why is it the only way I can get through this area is if I kill all the bad guys? Why DICE why? My final comment on gameplay is the following: If DICE had taken out a lot of the combat and added more platforming I would have been happy. I can deal with the frustration of missing jumps and dying but getting killed OVER and OVER because I didn’t kill the bad guys just pissed me off.

Okay, now onto the story. It was alright, nothing special and it seemed to me that DICE ended it so they could make a squeal. It was better then Bad Company’s story so DICE is improving in that category. Honestly if they keep it up they’ll be able to make an epic story soon enough.

Final verdict for Mirror’s Edge is a 3/5. It’s a good enough game to play but if you don’t have the cash to buy then rent it. It’s frustrating at points but if you stick with it you’ll figure out a way to beat that part of the game. After you do beat it you’ll feel like you accomplished something. As always these are just my opinions and I gladly accept the fact that you may not agree with them.