Mirror's Edge

Mirror's Edge was one of the first of hopefully many more games to be based on the French art of parkour for its primary gameplay as well as inspiring much of the game's aesthetics and design decisions. Parkour is the discipline of artfully and swiftly moving through one's environment as efficiently as possible, often in an urban setting. Parkour has grown more and more popular in recent years due to the rise of Youtube and film treatments such as the French film District 13, which clearly illustrates the high-energy excitement sought to be emulated by DICE.

This is a very interesting idea to me, parkour is perfectly suited for a game environment, the major elements of a game are already firmly in place. The problems you must solve are all similar, evade danger by getting from one point to another as quickly as possible, but the ways in which they can be achieved are nearly limitless, showing the playful quality Schell talks about. As you can see in the video, there are many objects to interact with in this closed formal system. Each rail, pipe and ledge would have a function within this system, and depending on how useful they are, a specific endogenous value in addition.

There are other exciting, even groundbreaking elements that a parkour game would have that the vast majority of its competition would not. A great sense of speed and empowerment using only the human body. No race cars here. Exhilarating conflict and danger without a direct connection to violence on the part of the player. With this genre, DICE would be tapping into the most fundamental core of our nature as, not even humans, but as animals. You've heard of “fight or flight”? While almost all games focus on the “fight” side of that dichotomy, there's no reason the “flight” side couldn't be just as visceral and engaging.

I have just described what was to be the essential experience of Mirror's Edge. Unfortunately, I think in the process of innovating so heavily DICE fell short of this goal in a couple significant ways. However, before I talk about the bad, I would like to get the good out of the way first.

First of all, if we look at Mirror's Edge through the elemental tetrad, it's clear that this game was designed with the aesthetics and technology elements foremost in mind. Not only does the game have an incredibly unique, amazing-looking visual style, but it uses this style to complement the gameplay immensely. Throughout levels there is a predominant “color theme” present, an unrealistic but-not-unwelcome smattering of orange or blue or yellow depending on the level's mood. In addition this color will often change when the level's path changes dramatically. For example when you burst through a door into an office hallway you might be greeted by a burst of bright green, emphasizing how your environment has changed and adding a visual rush to your experience. Because of the high-speed nature of this game, the lens of surprise is utilized quite well, often with moments like this but just as often with the arrival of environmental set-pieces or enemies.

The technology of Mirror's Edge is also quite impressive, the whole game gleaming from top to bottom. The player-character is shown from a first person point-of-view, but rather than utilize the older “hovering camera” method of first-person, DICE created an entire body to go along with your crosshairs, giving Faith arms, legs, and most especially, feet. Because of this the player is able to accurately judge where on the platform her or she currently is, making timing jumps properly quite painless, something not as doable in tradition first-person games.

This video demonstrates the PhysX technology included with Mirror's Edge, but also shows off a good variety of the types of levels present in the game.

Ok, now on to what I think really holds Mirror's Edge back from being the genre-pioneering gem DICE deserved to make. While the characters and plotline are mediocre, it would be a forgivable offense if the gameplay were better.

While the controls and gameplay are often acceptable, there are certainly times when incredibly frustrating moments happen, as in any game. Some of the “function elements” in our system, as mentioned earlier, don't at all support the idea of moving quickly and efficiently. Pipes, of which there are many, always force you to slowly clamber up the with nothing but a view of 'pipe.' One move, the knee-slide, is incredibly fun to execute, making you feel both cool and agile when using it. However, it slows down your character immensely. Why eliminate this fun variety of traversing the level? Solely for the sake of realism? Unfortunately I would say that most aspects of realism abandoned at this point have been for less important reasons than 'fun.'

While many small mechanical issues could be resolved, the biggest problem with Mirror's Edge is that it tries to be too many different TYPES of parkour games at once, becoming a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none. The levels are not open world, although they may at first appear to be, so a free-form, wild running approach such as that in Assassin's Creed will not work, as there are many areas that cannot be accessed and many ledges that spell certain doom. That's fine, then. Surely with Mirror's Edge, we would want a fast-paced, goal-oriented game? Give us a clear, linear path, some enemies to chase us, and a prize at the end and we'll have fun running as fast as we can towards it, enjoying the adrenaline rush a long the way. This is mostly what Mirror's Edge tries to do, but still includes some of the visual freedom of the open-world levels, and neglects to give the player a clear path towards his or her goal. Runner Vision tries to highlight points along the way, but often this can be confusing or even misleading. DICE wants players to use their creativity and curiosity to find the fastest route, but they highlight a path for them. Similarly, while there is usually only one 'main' route to choose from, the knowledge of what rooftop you're on and which one you are going to is often not provided. There is a VAST difference between one's first and second playthroughs of a level, because navigating a level for the first time is often an experiment with trial and error. Needless to say, this is not very fast. One such run is illustrated here (with metal for emphasis).

I would suggest a more flowing, linear style to the gameplay, not unlike the drastically-simple Canabalt, So as to offer the player a more essential experience, and perhaps include the thoughtful, almost puzzle-like route finding in a slower, separate game mode.

With all of its problems I would recommend Mirror's Edge to anyone who is interested in games enough to understand the massive potential it has. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that perhaps more than any other game, Mirror's Edge deserves a sequel. There are so many great ideas here, and so many of them excellently executed, that it would be a shame not to give DICE that second chance to refine their vision.