Mirror's Edge is a game that attempts to bring something new to the platformer genre by way of a first-person perspective and exhilarating parkour action. While it certainly has its moments, the fact that Mirror's Edge tries to shoehorn in common gameplay elements of other first-person games instead of focusing on its own unique strengths, detracts from an otherwise enjoyable experience.
Mirror's Edge takes place in a distopian city in which everything is tightly controlled by the government. You play as Faith, an on-foot courier, or runner, who covertly delivers messages for her anti-government clients. Faith quickly becomes involved in a political conspiracy that begins with her sister being framed for murder. Although the story is narrow in scope, and does little to get you invested in it, it's presented well enough to move you through the game. It's very much like any decent summer action movie. It's a good experience, but nothing very remarkable. I did, however, like the the art style of the cell-shaded cutscenes, and there are some moments in the in-game cutscenes that are quite jarring to view through a first person view.
The art style is striking to say the least. The game makes use of over-saturated colors to produce a world that is very vibrant and clean looking. It should be a welcome change for those who are tired of the drabness of most other first-person games. The soundtrack does a very good job of matching the tone of the game with an industrial-ambient score.
The controls are fairly simple and easy to get used to. The shoulder buttons are used to jump, slide or drop down, and punch or shoot. Faith can also disarm enemies and take their weapons with the Y button. If you are not sure which direction you should be going, you can hit the B button to point yourself in the right direction.
The gameplay experience in Mirror's Edge is a mixed bag. You can't beat the sense of speed and the exhilaration you feel in the parts of the game where you are using quick, stylish platforming in order to escape from enemies. Sprinting on a rooftop, sliding under a rail, running along a wall, and barely making a jump to the next rooftop all while narrowly dodging enemies is a breathtaking experience that few games can deliver. When the gameplay flows like this, Mirror's Edge is a wonderful experience. However, when that fluidity is broken up by occasionally obtuse platforming puzzles and frustrating combat sequences, the game loses all of that positive momentum and becomes an infuriating game of trial and error.
For the most part, the game does a good job of pointing you in the right direction with Faith's runner vision, a feature that makes key objects turn red when you approach them, but some of the platforming puzzles are a bit too subtle. You will end up getting stuck quite a bit, but it's not a huge problem unless you get stuck while you're being chased by enemies. This leads me into the other major misstep of the game: combat.
Combat is nothing but an unenjoyable hindrance and there are some sections of the game where combat is unavoidable. You can try to barrel through these parts without fighting, but you will most likely end up being shot down before you can escape. Combat wouldn't be so bad if you weren't so ill equipped to deal with it. Faith is extremely weak. This means that a few bullets or punches from an enemy will quickly put you down. Furthermore, the enemies are such good shots that it's very difficult to get close enough to an enemy and attack him without being filled full of lead. On top of that, the gunplay is extremely clumsy. You're best bet is to disarm enemies then drop the weapon rather than attempt to use guns. The guns have very limited ammo and you become a sitting duck due to the fact that you can't run with a weapon. During the combat sections be prepared to have to retry quite a bit.
Another irritation I discovered during one of the frustrating combat sections is the checkpoint placement. The checkpoints can be very unforgiving in this game. In fact, most of the frustration I experienced came from having to do a huge section over and over again in order to get back to the area where I was having trouble. The sniper section toward the end of the game comes to mind.
Mirror's Edge is at its best during the fast paced evasion sequences, and this is most exemplified by the Race mode. You can make speed runs through the story mode, or you can play through special time trial levels that you unlock in the Story mode. The time trial levels focus on fast paced platforming without all of the combat. Playing this makes you realize just how fun the fast moving areas of the game are. If the Story mode was removed of the sequences that slow it down, the game would have been much better for it.
Mirror's Edge is definitely a game that should be applauded for trying something different and injecting new life into the platforming genre, however, nagging issues inhibited my enjoyment of the game. As many OMGs as I blurted out while playing Mirror's Edge, I blurted out more WTFs.
Final Verdict:
A rental for those that have the patience to deal with frustration, but if you get easily frustrated by games where you get stuck or restart a lot, I'd pass on this one.