Regretfully, Mirror's Edge is a rather forgettable game. There's a solid foundation there, but it's spoiled by lackluster storytelling, shoddy gameplay, excessive linearity, and sub-par combat.
When I got hold of the demo for Mirror's Edge, just like everyone else, I was very hyped about the game. And just like everyone else, I loved the demo. To pieces. Tight controls, a good story and a fresh setting all made it a golden idol that sat on my XMB until release day, whereupon I promptly deleted it to make space for the full game.
I swiftly regretted that action. Where the demo was fantastic, the finished product is well below average. Oh sure, it still controls well, and still looks pretty, but none of the promise that the demo held in abundance seems to have made it into the final game.
Let me explain. During the course of the games PR cycle, and even into the demo, the setting was laid. A dystopian future, where rights have been culled in favour of safety. With communication heavily monitored, those who wish to communicate secretly must hire special couriers called Runners, whose ranks contain Faith, the protagonist.
A powerful setting, no? It sends a strong message, what with all the much-debated ‘threats to freedom’ in the world today. How sad then, that none of that is in the final game. You deliver a bag – briefly – in the first level, but from there the game swiftly descends into a rather bland whodunit with a plot as hard to follow as a novel with all the punctuation removed.
This abrupt change in tack happens with an almost audible clunk, too. There's no set-up either, merely an ‘oh hey, some dude got murdered’ over your earpiece. From there it's a pretty swift train to Mediocrity Village as the plot struggles to move you from one half-baked scenario to the next. The levels all follow the same general layout – got to your target, then run from the cops that show up.
The gameplay isn't much better, though it's not all bad. Mirror's Edge is a refreshingly new concept in gaming, being essentially a first-person platformer. The controls are, blessedly, tight and intuitive enough to be useful throughout the whole game, but they don't do much when Faith simply won't do what she's told.
Often were the times when the engine simply couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. The simplest commands like ‘run up these crates,’ or ‘grab hold of that ledge’ wouldn't register. Instead, Faith would simply hop up and down, as if trying to grab something just out of reach, whilst I attempted to jimmy her into the ‘magic spot’ where the game would suddenly recognise what it was I was after. This would be something I could live with, except that it absolutely shatters the games flow.
After all, the flow is what it's all about. The idea is to keep moving, because, as the tagline says ‘there's no looking back.’ To assist in this you've got Runner Vision, which paints your next target in bright red, which stands out nicely against the stark white levels. Or it would, if half the levels weren't orange, incredibly dark, or a combination of the two.
Additionally, Runner's Vision is not perfect. You're told this right off the bat though, because it only points out the most obvious path, not necessarily the fastest one. You're told to keep an eye out for faster routes, but these are normally just a step shorter, or a jump less. Instead of encouraging exploration or lateral thinking, this instead constricts the experience and makes it a whole lot more linear.
Not that I'm saying that linearity is a bad thing. Indeed for some games it's perfect. It's just that the mechanics of Mirror's Edge feel as though they'd be more at home in an open-world, or at the very least free-roaming game, rather than being squandered here. However, I'm willing to forgive it somewhat for repairing the flow of the game.
Unfortunately, the combat takes that little fix and undoes it. No, wait, that's a rather large understatement. It grinds the flow into a fine powder and scatters it to the wind. It is truly appalling, and did most of the damage to my opinion Mirror's Edge.
To the games credit you're only ever implicitly required to fight one battle. But many are the times where you'll be placed in a room full of cops, armed to the teeth and ready for you. Behind them will be a door, that you have to get to, and through. You don't have to fight the cops, but if you don't, Faith's body will swiftly become the new home for many, many bullets.
This only becomes more pronounced as the game goes on, and by the end Mirror's Edge seems to forget that it's not Halo. You'll have to plow through entire squads of cops just to get to where you need to go next, and you will die. This is non-debatable. You will die a lot. Most of the time, you will die shortly after reloading. It is incredibly frustrating, and for me was the final nail in the coffin.
I honestly cannot recommend Mirror's Edge to anyone. Not a single group jumps to mind that wouldn't be better off playing the demo. Mirror's Edge sealed its own fate, and will probably be remembered more for its advancements to first-person gameplay. It's just a shame to see so much potential go to waste.