Review: Mirror's Edge

Mirror’s Edge is a first person platform game for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It was developed by DICE and Electronic Arts.

Faith jumping over a huge pit. Note the lack of health bar and other indicators.

In a totalitarian city, Faith is an employee of an underground courier company that employs fast athletic runners to transport sensitive information undetected by the authorities. One day Faith discovers that her sister has been framed for the murder of a mayoral candidate who could have potentially reduce the hold the police have on the city. It is up to Faith to discover who framed her sister and find the real murderer.

Mirror’s Edge focuses on Faith running across rooftops while evading the police. The game is notable for being first person, so the player can actually see what it is like to run across the top of a cityscape like a Parkour expert.

The controls are simple, though it can take some getting used to. The most important button is the jump button, which acts as a general obstacle interaction button. Pressing it causes Faith to jump, run along walls, climb on top of things, and climb over things. There is also a “slide under things” button that doubles as “roll when falling from a great height” button when pressed at the right time, and a combat button.

In each level there is a linear that Faith has to run littered with obstacles like fences, attics, and lots of space between buildings. Faith can run around the obstacles, but because the police move so fast it is up to the player to jump over and duck under obstacles to shave off precious seconds. The player is helped by traversable obstacles glowing bright red when Faith looks at them.

The other part of the game is trying to get out of rooms/areas that Faith has become trapped in. In these parts there is a complicated way of escaping that the player has to discover using Faith’s Parkour skills. There are no police in these areas, so the player has plenty of time to figure out the exit.

There are times when the game will force the player to fight a couple of police. These are never fun. Faith has a basic punch attack, and a low and high kick. Faith also has a disarm attack that never works. The rest of the time the player has to mash the attack button until the guard drops, or shoot other guards with their weapons. This may be fun in other games, but here it just ruins the flow. The game should be focused on running nonstop, which is always exciting, instead of slowing down for this. And there is no strategy either, just punching until the person goes down. It does not even make sense, Faith is tiny and these guys are huge and armored.

The artistic design for the game is striking. Everything in the city is bleached white, unlike the grey buildings of real life. Objects, like doors, signs, and the sky, are bright solid colors which contrast with the white. It makes the whole place looks sterile, but beautiful in its cleanliness. And it makes the rare colors that do appear look gorgeous.

The level design on the other can get boring after a while. Almost everything looks the same. It is not bad on the rooftops and upper floors when it looks so damn beautiful and Faith is moving too fast for the player to notice that much. But inside the rooms and hallways Faith gets trapped in, which are usually something boring like a warehouse, building under construction, or a basement of some kind, it gets dull seeing the same stucco walls and pipes no matter what way they are set up or what primary color they are covered in.

This is part of a larger problem though, that the non-“running from cops” parts of the game are incredibly boring. And they take up the majority of the game play. They are always in these boring areas, and always consist of jumping at the same wall or pipe until the Faith successfully grabs it, and the carefully moves onto the next out of the way obstacle. This can take a really long time to do. Like the combat sections, these might be fun in another game, but there is something a lot more exciting that the game could be doing.

The storyline is clichéd dribble, with lots of backstabs, secret plots, flat characters, and a plot twist that can be seen a mile away. It would have been a lot more interesting to see Faith actually doing her job as an information courier than get wrapped up in a secret conspiracy plot.

Mirror’s Edge is a game that has a cool idea that is utterly squandered and replaced with boring combat and climbing puzzles. It is a real shame, because the first few levels show such promise.