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[Gravious]

So I've been playing Mirrors Edge, I'm enjoying it immensely and its reminding me a lot of the recent Prince of Persia (player vs environment) It also reminds me a lot of some of the more interesting 2D games from the 8bit - 16bit era, games like Flashback, the original Prince of Persia, Another World (or Out of This World in the US) where the mechanics of the game are solid and parts are quite difficult and require some skill.

I miss games like that

Sometimes i like a game with fewer enemies to fight..  Thoughts?

(and talking of Flashback, iji was another awesome example)

[Dugan]

Although I haven't played Mirrors Edge yet, I am intrigued by the dlc levels (much more so than the real-worldy screens) I have seen images of:

[Gravious]

Although I haven't played Mirrors Edge yet, I am intrigued by the dlc levels (much more so than the real-worldy screens) I have seen images of:

Now that does look interesting!

[Dugan]

Yeah I wish the ps3 wipeout had gone more down this art style route, instead of overdetailing the track surface with busy normal maps and suchlike.

[Bennett]

I've been playing it too, and I think it was underrated by reviewers. It is frustrating at times, and you do have to learn by trial and error, but I liked Megaman 9, so. The game is well worth it for the art direction and the unique adrenaline rush. The music is really well matched to the action, too. The combat system might be bad, but I wouldn't know because I never engage in combat.

I'm playing on a PC though, I think it would be worse with a gamepad. (Conversely, Assassin's Creed was a waste of time with keyboard and mouse)

[Gravious]

I've been playing it too, and I think it was underrated by reviewers. It is frustrating at times, and you do have to learn by trial and error, but I liked Megaman 9, so. The game is well worth it for the art direction and the unique adrenaline rush. The music is really well matched to the action, too. The combat system might be bad, but I wouldn't know because I never engage in combat.

I'm playing on a PC though, I think it would be worse with a gamepad. (Conversely, Assassin's Creed was a waste of time with keyboard and mouse)

Yeah, i'm on the PC one too, but i plyed the 360 version and hated the pad controls..  Its SO much better on keyboard+mouse

[Jad]

A lot of people have been slightly disappointed in mirror's edge and I can see why.

It's not because it's bad, it's the opposite.

Some elements are just TOO GOOD.

For example, the running elements are just way too good, while the combat is more based on a half-tricky timing system that's not even very fun.

Even then they throw you in situations where you're guaranteed to win if you go ahead and fight directly skillfully, while running away can be a complete gamble, hoping that the enemies just won't hit you.

The city in itself is so well presented, with the atmospheric sounds and surroundings, you're left wanting more after just a few minutes with the game. You're running in and out of office buildings while you just wanna get DOWN THERE, meet some people and explore and feel that nice city, and maybe in that while also get to know and feel the way the government protects/suppresses the population, but nah, you're stuck in a platformer with the visuals that present to you THE VISION OF ANOTHER WORLD.

I like mario, cause what you see on screen is the game. What you don't see on screen is possibly a secret, which is also a part of the game, or there's nothing there, which is ok.

There are very few hidden walls and no doors you can't pass through, so the 'hey, I wanna see if I can do that and go there - Oh yay I COULD!' ratio is far greater than the 'hey, I wanna try this and go there and oh fuggit hidden wall/endless fall/locked door'.

Not so with mirror's edge. Regarding the movement system, the mario ratio kicks in. You get an idea, 'hey, I could try making a wallclimb-turn-jump-cling-pullup instead of using that ladder' and it almost always works. Regarding everything else, the world is a straight-route-platformer that looks like a city, a world.

This is not a problem in itself, that the world is a scene, a setting, and (it's a video game; a platformer even) contains only straight routes, nah.

It's a problem because 1: you're not always sure where to go, and 2: if the game's gonna force you on a straight path it oughta motivate you to go there yourself, so you feel IN the groove while playing the game. This, story.

I don't have a lot to say about the story. Telling it via cutscenes - bad idea. I get WHY the idea came up, and in concepts it might've looked nice, but the over all art direction and polish is so unbelievably high, the cutscenes with their non-animatey animation (srsly, no reason to animate stuff if you aren't willing to ANIMATE stuff, is there? Things just float and pop around and there are a lot of vector shapes with badly drawn-on details. Urgh. It kind of works, though, but not in context.)

Anyhow, story. I dunno.

The city just looked too nice I guess. I kinda thought they'd manage to get some human emotions and character in that place, but nah, apparently not. Everyone seems to be CHARACTER, not A character. They WERE their behaviours, which took them to a new level of douchbaggery. Faith is rebellious so SHE DOESN'T WATCH THE NEWS RARARAR AND FIGHTAN GOVERNMENT AND DOESNT AFRAID OF ANYTHING. Police chief is BADASS AND WIELD GUNZ LIEK A BAD MOTHAFUCKA AND SHIT.

No seriously I dunno, I was half-asleep while my friend played the later stages (I played a bit too, of course, the first few levels) and I still got the story and I wasn't particularily impressed.

Oh, and faith's eye tattoo is lame, mang. Actually faith is kinda lame overall and that's a bit sad because that's a waste of nice character design.



WITH THAT SAID:

Holy fuck this game has production values OVER THE ROOF and shit I have never ever seen bloom looking this good, and atmospherical sounds are so dang atmospherical I can breathe the world and look-wise as an artistical accomplishment this game succeeds on so many levels. Wherever there in this game that you can just enjoy the scenery and contrast between different areas and the super-fascistic pastel/neon coloring of the whole world, those places are the nicest places you can play a game ever.

Srsly, this is one of the most good-looking games I have ever played. I just wish it was filled with a little more .. heart? They could've just stripped the game of so much fluff and tried to only get the player to enjoy the running, the fleeing, the chasing and the .. story.

Or just strip it all until only beautiful colors and platforming remains, like in the DLC levels, that stuff is awesome! Can't go wrong with that (:

Oh also regarding difficulty I am not at all having problems with there being difficulty, and I think as you get better at this game it reveals its true purpose; to run free-flowingly and enjoy just that O: Also the game is totally worth its money.

[Bennett]

I really never felt like I was hemmed into a linear path. I mean, I knew I was on a linear path, but it always felt like I was going where I wanted to go (i.e. away from the bad guys). I guess they were herding me towards the correct path but I felt like I was running freely away from them.

This is the real benefit to playing the game while avoiding combat completely. If they made a bad design mistake, it was in letting you fight at all...

[Jad]

Ahuh. My friend who played it had done the first run on normal with no-combat, and this one was with combat on hard for kicks. O:

As to the nonlinearity, yeah, I know, it's just that the presentation made me want some non-run-just-chillout parts also so I could appreciate it all but whatever, that's not a real criticism.

BUT. I feel that the motivation for running from bad guys was a little ruined due to bad-guy-police-characters being flat clones (REALLY SRSLY WHY IS ALL POLICE GUYS W/O HELMETS THE SAME GUY!? I AM SO OFFENDED) and faith being a douchebag.

Heh.

[the_dannobot]

yeah I don't understand why this game got such bad reviews, its totally awesome.
my only complaint is it should have been called "Locomotion" instead of "Mirror's Edge" and featured the john coltrain song of the same name. it would've been better

[Synnah]

I'm also unsure why it was received so poorly. Sure, it had hype coming out of its arse, but it's unfair to mark it down because of that. Not having played for more than a couple of hours, I can't comment so well, but it seems to suffer from the same problem as Heavenly Sword, where the game is shorter than the length of time it takes to master the controls, which is the only way you can get the most enjoyment out of it. My main gripes were that telegraphing in enclosed spaces didn't always seem to be perfect, so I occasionally got a bit lost, and the constant dying and restarting broke the flow a little.

The way I see it, however, it's a game to be played multiple times, and as such is is good thing that it's short. The Time Trial modes force you to find the quickest way through the levels, and that, more than the story, is the main focus of the game. Which is why the DLC levels look perfect.

With regards to the aesthetic, I was actually quite disappointed when I first saw the amount of bloom in the demo; I much preferred the sharper lines from the earlier screenshots.

[Shambrook]

I didn't dig it. I thought I would, I was massivley excited for it. I loved the platforming in games like Prince of Persia (New and old) and thought this would continue the awesome.

But playing it it just got really boring and repetitive. The dying and restarting didn't really bother me that much, they made some really retarded game decisions. (In the bit we're you're escaping through the sewer, I climbed up a wrong ladder and got stuck behind a 3 foot tall box... I can run across rooftops, climb walls but can't overcome a 3 foot box what the fuck?)

The only real challenge I found in the game was either figuring out were to go or whenever I had to make a long jump onto a pipe on the wall wich is just ridiculously finnicky.

The art design was gorgeous but why the hell did they have to ruin it with poorly animated flash tweening cutscenes? I was expecting the cutscenes to be presented like Half Life 2 since the first person thing was such a big deal.

Basicly I just found the game increddibly average wich was massivley dissapointing cause I had such high hopes for it.

I think the game could be made great if they had much better level design in it.

[Gravious]

The game definitely suffered from the flash cutscenes...  It really is a shame they didn't go for more 1st person storytelling, its possible because there's that scene with her sister early in the game, that worked really well and the quality of the models is certainly up to it.