Mirror’s Edge: Re-evaluated
I recently started the most recent Prince of Persia game and very shortly into it I realised how much I wanted to go back and give Mirror’s Edge another try. I had given up around the 60% mark, sick of the trial and error approach to platforming. Here’s the review written after I had grown weary of the game and Fallout 3 was fast becoming an all-consuming addiction.
Coming back to Mirror’s Edge, it gelled a bit better than the first half of the game. There are still thing not quite right about the game, with waaaaay too much trial and error and combat that’s more frustrating than catering for a Vegan at a Barbecue. But I seemed to enjoy it a lot more, perhaps without the distraction of Fallout 3. The story wasn’t anything much but I did enjoy the cutscenes ending the game. Of course, Portal’s end credits song called “Still Alive” is better than Mirror’s Edge’s end credits song called “Still Alive.”
Would this game be better if it was a third person game? I don’t know, its pretty good as it is and a third person perspective would be a different kettle of fish altogether. Combat in third person would probably be better but then the game would then just be Uncharted. DICE are still to be commended for trying something so radically different from Battlefield and I hope the sequel (we can but hope) takes a lot of the criticism seriously.
Make no mistake, this is a hard game. Since I was so much wanting to see the end of the game, I bumped the difficulty down to easy for the last two chapters. As far as I can see, it made absolutely no difference in terms of making the combat less painful or the jumping (especially the penultimate leap) more predictable.
I’m glad I made the effort to go back and finish the game, despite its difficult last few levels. Even though the levels all seem to be variations on the same thing, it never felt boring apart from those occasions where you are trying a difficult jump. Usually it comes down to you doing it wrong.
I’ve amended our original review to reflect the change in thinking. Its rare that I quit a game because of frustrating gameplay and come to finish it later and actually like it.
March 9th, 2009 at 1:38 am
Sounds a bit like a first person perspective version of Spider-man 2.
The swinging around was on the whole great fun, but the combat, of fuck the combat, was awful. You had to be like Doc Ock to get some of the moves and in the missions the forced jumping bits made me want to tear my hair out.
In the end I gave up, ignored everybody and just tooled around the city being a dick and ignoring plaintive cries for help from cute children and moronic New Yorkers.
Much more satisfying, if they could have included a cameo in which you had to kill everybody responsible for the third movie it would be the perfect game.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:00 am
I remember the Spiderman game you mentioned though I can’t see I was thrilled by it.
ME has one thing that so many other recent games of a similar ilk lack, gameplay that doesn’t need combat every five minutes. You can’t completely avoid combat- which isn’t always the best part of the game- but its a very small part of the game.