Mirror’s Edge is an innovative parkour-inspired platforming game brought to you by EA and developed by DICE. The game delivers a unique first person experience that manages to simulate the thrill of the chase, with a few platforming puzzles thrown in for good measures.

Story

Mirror’s Edge is about a character named Faith, who fights the powers that be, in a conformist society. Faith is a runner, whose responsibility is to deliver important messages that could help bring down the people that are contributing to the corruption of the city. The game shows a stark contrast between the super clean city of Mirror’s Edge and the corrupt underbelly of the government.

The gameplay mechanics are similar to that of Prince of Persia, but in first person view. The story revolves around an incident where Faith’s sister is framed for a crime that she did not commit. Faith must choose whether to risk everything she has worked for, in order to help her sister. She soon finds out that there is a much bigger plot behind everything besides the framing of her sister.

The single player campaign is fairly short, averaging most gamers around six hours. However, for those that might not be very good with puzzles, it might take a bit longer.

The immediate story arch about Faith and her sister is your standard fair. There is very little about the story that leaves you wanting more. However, there is definitely a larger and more interesting conspiracy going on, which the game reveals very little about. The main driver for Mirror’s Edge is definitely the gameplay rather than the story.

Controls

The controls in Mirror’s Edge are unique and innovative. There are two main direction related actions, up and down. The up is mapped to the top shoulder button while down is mapped to the lower shoulder button.

The up action controls various movements such as jumping and pulling one’s self up. The down action controls ducking, sliding and dropping off a ledge. The controls work fairly well for what the developers wanted to achieve with the game.

Faith can also attack and disarm enemies, stealing their weapons in the process. The weapon controls are intentionally designed to reduce the reliance on conventional weapons like guns. The guns are useless against enemies from far away with Faith’s accuracy decreasing dramatically.

Many of the platforming puzzles will require that Faith run along walls and make amazing leaps to get to platforms that seem impossible to reach.

Visuals

The graphics and the overall visuals are beautiful, and the simple use of primary colors meshes well with the feel of the story. Since Mirror’s Edge is running on the Unreal Engine 3, it’s no surprise the game looks great.

Aside from a few issues with texture details, the game does look stunning. The only complaint I had with the visuals was the decision to use pre-animated cut scenes instead of utilizing the in-game engine.

Design

Unlike most first person games, Mirror’s Edge relies on speed and platforming to deliver a sense of thrill and excitement. Often, you will have to choose between: flight or fight. However, the game was designed with flight more in mind then confronting the enemies. Weapons are also designed for single use only. After all the bullets run out the clip in the gun, Faith automatically discards the weapons.

Some gamers may get frustrated by the amount of trial and error required to pass certain parts of the levels. There are parts of the level that will require you to play over and over again to figure out the perfect timing and path. Despite the initial frustration, if you keep at it the sense of accomplishment is more than rewarding enough.

Besides the story mode there is also a time trial mode with online leader boards. Players will be able to run through levels as fast as possible and pit their numbers up against other players from around the world. There is even a ghost option where you can see how fast your previous run was.

It would have been cooler if Dice, the developers, included an online component where you could race against four other players for the fastest time.

Unfortunately, besides the time trials, Mirror’s Edge offers very little in the way of replayability. There are hidden packages throughout the game, but only the hardcore gamers will most likely go back to collect them all.

However, considering the scope of the story I have a strong suspicion that Dice might be releasing an expansion pack extending the story.

Wrap-up

Even though Mirror’s Edge has an average run of the mill story, the gameplay mechanics is not only refreshing but very innovative. I would have actually liked it more if there were more challenging platforming puzzles in the game.  The game definitely deserves high marks for originality and innovation by crafting a brand new genre never seen before.

Mirror’s Edge is a unique first person platformer that everyone should at least experience.

Score

4/5

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