Now I know this game has been out for near on a year now but I decided I have to actually write about something other than the Street Fighter 4 Tournament. SO I decided to turn to what was actually my very favourite game from last year….
I do not know what draws me to Mirror’s Edge that repelled critics but I just can’t help but feel so very very attached to this game, so we’ll look at what most critics said and how I dispute them with my review of this game.
First of all I think there was just too much expectation for this game since it was the first real example of the first person adventure game. Part of the problem here being that I think a lot of people who have been reviewing games for a long time have lost a sense of what they love in games and instead adhere to set number of guidelines that they believe the industry defines great games by. Don’t get me wrong, this most certainly assures that games who really are quite excellent get what the attention they deserve but I think it takes out the personal part of reviewing games. It’s not a set of principles, but rather it should be the individual reviewer’s opinion of the game and what they think so people can get a broad idea of the game by reading several reviews. This helps people get an understanding how a game will work for them by looking to reviewers who they have discovered share close interest to their’s. WHile there are still reviewers who rate a game on their own personal opinion and taste (see the hilarious Yahtzee at The Escapist Magazine) I find that very few do it often enough that the reviews of games are almost identical nowadays. It is in that spirit that I rate Mirror’s Edge on my personal opinion and love for the game.
We’ll begin with the gameplay which, like the rest of this game, was often bashed by critics. There was a lot of complaints about gameplay that never kept a smooth progression of running for as long as they would like. To this I say if you want that to happen Faith (the main character) wouldn’t be free running, she’d just be running, the whole spirit of the game comes from at times running through a deceptively beautiful city and at others having to jump and maneuver up and around buildings to get where you wanted to go. You can’t be free running on the roof tops and insides of buildings and expect to always be running and jumping, it simply doesn’t work that way. It simply proves most people have the same amount of knowledge about parkour as a tea leaf has of the East India Company (hooray for the Hitchhikers Guide reference). It simply doesn’t work that way and sacrificing the honesty of the game for the purpose of what people call smooth gameplay would just make the game feel fake in my opinion. People often cry afoul of the glitches in the collision detection of the game, to which I say while there are some glitches, they are few and far in between. I feel a lot of the glitches are easily bypassed if you play it the way the game wants you to. If you stand inert in front of something and then try to jump onto something and it doesn’t work then you have to understand that you don’t have the inertia to jump that far or high, take a running start and it works perfectly fine.
The story and cinematics were also bashed by many. To this I say, do you really need the great graphics and facial expressions and cut scenes to enjoy a story. It’s almost as if most people are so caught up in the never before seen power that these current generation consoles have brought to bear that they forgot what let them enjoy the games of the previous generation. Have people so easily forgotten how to enjoy game s that don’t have great graphics? The story itself isn’t that deep but it’s engrossing and endearing. Quite simply its about two sisters on different sides of the law and the struggle of one to free her sister from being put in jail for something she didn’t do. You play as Faith, a runner, who delivers messages to people who are on the opposite side of the current government of the City in which they live. Faith’s sister is a police officer or a “Blue” as they are called in the game who is framed for the murder of Mr. Pope, who is running for mayor and many hope will bring real change to a corrupt city. You follow Faith in her journey through corruption and deceit in the effort to clear her sister’s name. The story is short, but very rarely have I actually sensed the emotions of the characters in the game. Every character feels real and has a distinct and individual personality. It’s hard to quite convey my feelings about the story other than the fact that you feel the need to finish the game if only to find the answer, because you actually care about the result.
The greatest part of the game is simply the feeling of playing it. It’s a completely unique feeling running over the roof tops of a gorgeously rendered cityscape, you can feel the “flow” that Faith talks about in the opening of the game. It really feels like a city, it has all the ambient noise of cars and people and machinery that you would expect and you reallyf eel as if you are running through a city. The view you are afforded on the top of these buildings is just so magnificent, it’s too often that you get caught up looking for details in environments rendered in shades of brown and grey that you forget how much bright color can bring to the situation. The city is rendered in exquisitely bright shades of white, blue, red, and yellow. It’s so vibrant and alive and it feels almost magical as you run through it with Faith on her emotionally charged quest to save her sister.
Mirror’s Edge does not feel entirely polished, and to some I can see that as being a turn off, but when you look deeper into the game and it’s theme of a deceptively clean city which is in fact riddled with corruption upon closer look, the lack of polish feels all but appropriate. The game is gritty even while it looks bright and hopeful. Deceptively challenging while fairly streamlined, Mirror’s Edge is a game few took the time to properly understand and one which I feel like some people will find hopelessly timeless while others will move back to Madden and Halo and move on with their lives. Either way I can’t suggest enough that you pick up this game for a try and I sincerely hope you love it as much as I did. It is for these reasons I give Mirror’s Edge a 5 out of 5.
- Ichi
P.S I really did enjoy this game that much, please comment with your thoughts on the game, I’d love to hear them.
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