In an industry overwhelmed by macho power fantasies, Mirror's Edge represents a breath of fresh air in the medium. Mirror's Edge core conceit is the opposite of that of most games, rather than head straight into combat, you spend much of the game avoiding it. Its a far different mind set than that of most games, and requires an interesting skill set that far too few games allow you to utilize. Mirror's Edge is essentially a first person platformer, while many first person games have included platforming elements, few, seem to do so successfully. Mirror's Edge is a great example of how focusing on a single mechanic can result in an incredibly focused and polished experience.By the end of the game, you have learned this skill set, and have had time to polish these skills.
Mirror's Edge art direction is some of the strongest in the medium, the clean, high contrast world that you are placed in is brilliantly executed, and rather eerie at times. This all works towards creating a very interesting Science-fiction world that I was still interested in learning about after completing then main campaign. Mirror's Edge's main protagonist Faith is the rare example off a strong highly motivated female protagonist, although her dialogue comes of as a little bland and emotionless at times faith is a great character to hold up the narrative arch.
The games difficulty ramps up towards the end, and the game becomes more of a trial by death puzzler than a smooth action game. This can be quite frustrating when the most enjoyable aspect of the game is running smoothly from obstacle to obstacle at high speeds. The check-pointing is good however and I never felt like turning off the game and walking away.
Mirror's Edge's cutscenes are interesting, they are handled in a Half Life sort of style, from the first person view, yet they lock your movement. When the writing hits and the animation isn't overtly robotic these scenes work really well, however there are several instances when the writing fails and the animation enters a bizarre uncanny valley realm. They are also Anime style cutscenes which bookend each mission. These scenes act as exposition for the upcoming mission and work well, yet feel sort of out of place in the game, mostly due to the perspective and art style shift. Mirror's Edge strongest narrative mechanic is simply the environment, the world is full of little bits of fiction, from advertisements to news reels that help to expand the over all narrative.
Mirror's Edge is a great game and something genuinely unique. It is a great example of trying something new and interesting in the medium, it saddens me to think that we may never see a sequel.
No comments:
Post a Comment