Mirror’s Edge Review – Worthwhile Patience Tester

First Person Platforming

Mirror’s Edge reminds me more of an old school platformer ala Mega Man than it brings to mind any other games that use the first person viewpoint.  Rather than picking up guns to take out your next target you’re steered towards running away from conflicts whenever it is possible.  I found myself memorizing jumps in an effort to easily traverse the environment without taking too much damage.

While I chose to take the pacifist route that had me disarming and running off when faced with danger, the game did offer me the option of picking up the guns dropped by enemies and using them.  But to emphasize its focus on movement the game slows your character down once you’ve picked up a weapon and utlizing said weapon takes some finesse.  If that was the case in any other game this would be a major negative point but since Mirror’s Edge is not a FPS game I consider that slight misstep negligible.

Deep Breaths and Stay Calm

I died, a lot, yet I continued to come back because the risk was worth the reward of finally completing a particularly difficult area or finally figuring out how to get to my goal.  For the most part many of the environmental puzzles made sense simply by looking at the environment.  This stayed true up to the last 2 chapters of the game, which had me feeling more frustrated than accomplished because of many of the “cheap deaths” that could happen.  Couple this with the fact that it was also around this same time that many of the enemies became stronger and a lot more aggressive and you have a recipe for an instant headache.

Mirror’s Edge is an experience that I would suggest to any modern gamer.  While it may frustate many to the point of giving up, sitcking with it is a reward that’s worth having.  It’s utlization of the third person view is some of the best I’ve seen to date, which only baffles me as to why they chose to do many of the cutscenes in a brightly colored anime style that only worked to pull you out of the experience that was so perfectly crafted throughout the game.   If you have patience  and enjoying platforming I’d suggest picking up Mirror’s Edge, otherwise at least give it a try so you can see how viseral of an experience it can provide.

Tagged as: First-person shooter, Games, Miror's Edge, Platform game, Review, Video game