Mirrors Edge (Xbox 360) Review

Mirrors Edge is possibly one of the most creative and inspirational games so far this year, it has been created by Swedish developer Dice (who are most known for the Battlefield series) and published by EA. The general concept of free running/parkour has never been properly attempted by a game before, so obviously everyone was quite curious about whether or not the game would actually be worth playing due to it could of turned out to be a enormous cock up, but thankfully it wasn’t and surprisingly turned out pretty damn good.

Find the full review below;

The whole of Mirrors Edge is based around a character called ‘Faith’, who is an Asian (ish?) female who is a free runner, and she is unique in her own rights as she is the only woman I’ve seen in a game for a long time which doesn’t have enormous breasts. The aim of a the runner is to get the intel from there client to a specific location or person, and because the government currently controls all lines of communication you can imagine that there is a fair few people trying to stop them. The games story line reminded me of the legendary film V for Vendetta, some people may find that an insult, but if you do, just fuck off now. I loved that film, and I love this game.

However, the game’s story is poorly told through crappy, 2-D animations for cut scenes which constantly kill the mood and atmosphere of the game. If they just kept it with the normal in game graphics during the cut scenes, it would have been fantastic and you would definitely be able to get into the story a lot more, and understand what Faith is going through.

The best and simplest way to describe Mirrors Edge’s looks is by calling it marmite, you will either love it or hate it, and there really isn’t any in between. I personally love the way Mirrors Edge looks and feels; running over the rooftops of the game and jumping across near impossible gaps just to escape the enemy is such a fantastic feeling. Atmosphere can be a cruel mistress to video games though, and with games such as Mirrors Edge where they are extremely unique and rely upon them; it can make or break them. And thankfully Mirrors Edge doesn’t fuck it up, it truly gives you the sense of vertigo and there is also the chance of giving you motion sickness, which is always good (I guess?)

The games colors are all based around a solid color palette (primary and secondary colors.) Which fits the game nicely because of the story line, the style makes you believe the story a lot more due to the whole ‘government oppression’ thing, Such as the government only allowing things to look a certain way so no one attempts to be ‘unique and/or out of line’. It’s surprising how well Dice actually managed to pull off this art style, and credit is due to there artists.

Of course, the game isn’t perfect, there always is going to be issues. The main issue being anti-aliasing, they really need some. When your standing on top of a building, staring down several hundred feet at the occasional traffic moving below, you can’t help but notice how the outlines of the buildings aren’t actually smooth or straight. Also the character models could do with a bit of work, but other then that the game doesn’t look that bad.

Possibly the best thing about Mirrors Edge, is that the concept behind the game has never been attempted properly before. We’ve all seen parkour videos at some point in our life so far, and its one of those ideas where if a certain developer (in this case, Dice) can pull it off, and properly do the animations etc. it can be a fantastic game and could be integrated into other games in the future (whether or not its good, is a different matter though.)

The control scheme for Mirrors Edge is fairly basic, yet it’s a grade ‘A’ bitch to perfect; timing your jumps perfectly so you can keep building your momentum to shave those precious seconds off your times. Through out the whole of the game you pretty much only use 2-3 buttons, left trigger is for all of your jumping forms of movement, left bumper being all of your crouching/slighting movements and the right trigger being your combat.

Mirror’s Edge possibly has the best soundtrack to a game, ever. I’m claiming it now; it’s easily one of the best this year. No matter what situation you are presented with, you will always have a great soundtrack to back it, which will fit. The games main theme song is called ‘Still Alive’ (no, not similar to the Portal song, still alive) and it’s such a peaceful and relaxing song.

Dice, Quick bit of advice for you on (hopefully) the next Mirrors Edge, better voice acting! Whoever was doing the voice acting was so un-dramatic in every situation, someone would ‘attempt’ to scream “Where are you?” and they always just sound a bit pissed off.

The game features a crap load of things to keep you entertained and (maybe) coming back for more, ranging from going through the story using the more ‘advanced’ hidden paths within the game or the extremely addictive time trial mode where you are given a set course. And if you are anything like me and are slightly a perfectionist you will want to shave those seconds of your time to get your time that much better.

However after claiming that there are features to keep you coming back, at the same the time it could just end up pissing you off to the extreme and making you burn the disk in an open fire. Yes, the time trial modes are addictive but if you constantly keep fucking up a certain scenario, you could just end up giving up (which is what I almost did several times.)

The game doesn’t exactly have a multiplayer game mode, although it does take advantage of the online mechanics which are available by having a built in leader board for the time trial and speed runs. The best thing about this is you can actually download the ‘ghosts’ of other peoples speed runs and from this you can learn all of their tricks and shave those precious seconds of your time. Also, this means that all of your free-running friends can actually see how bad you are at the game.

Mirrors Edge is all round a fantastic game, however there are a crap load of things in the game which need to be improved upon, the major problem being the combat system. The game truly has the potential to be a near perfect score game in every category, all it needs is some more work. One can hope that Dice and EA are preparing a sequel for the best free running game to date, and I can tell already that Dice will out do themselves again like they have with the Battlefield games.

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