Mirror's Edge gives players the intense, fast-paced, and exciting experience of parkour, but it greatly stumbles on trial and error, and can give the player a frustrating experience as well. But overall, it's a great game that is actually enjoyable, provided you can avoid the frustrations and such.
The game's plot is set in a city where a totalitarian government runs it with an iron fist. The government keeps an eye on its people by keeping track of them through surveillance, watching their every move so that they can reduce the city's crime rate, and keep anyone who's willing to challenge their power, at bay. The heroine of this game is Faith Connors, a runner trained in the art of parkour. Her job as a runner is to deliver messages to other revolutionary groups scattered throughout the city, while staying out of sight of totalitarian authorities and move around as fast and as flawless as possible. Also, an election for mayor is almost underway, and Mayor Callaghan seeks to be reelected to keep his power, as well as government control in the city. A candidate named Robert Pope seeks to bring change to the city, but Faith finds out from her sister Kate that Pope has been murdered. Being accused of Pope's murder, Kate asks Faith to find out more on what happened. Faith then embarks on a mission to find out more on the murder and attempt to clear her sister's name.
Gameplay is simply focused on giving the "ultimate parkour experience" to the player. It is mostly all about speed and momentum, and how the player can put all of these things together to make everything flow. The game is entirely in first-person perspective, although it is not actually a shooter. It also brings camera and the player's movement, such as when the camera moves or bobs that depend on Faith's current actions. Faith can jump, perform wall-runs, vaulting, rolling, etc. Faith can also perform hand-to-hand combat controls, such as disarming an enemy and using their weapons against them. The way the game progresses is by the means of "Runner Vision" to tell where the player needs to go next. Objects that are highlighted in red are where Faith needs to go to get to the next objective to the next. The game definitely gives you the freedom of movement in a way a runner would experience.
What brings Mirror's Edge down though, is the extremity for little trial and error. Mirror's Edge's gameplay is all fun and fast-paced, but it can be too unforgiving in some or many times. When you mess up at least once during gameplay, there's a big chance you miss a ledge, and end up falling to your death. Many times the game can be frustrating because you have to get everything right, and if you even slightly mess up the flow of things, you have to start over at whatever the last checkpoint you were in. In gameplay, you have to get it perfect, or close to it, to even move to the next level. Close hand-to-hand combat can be alright at times, though the gunplay is not even worth trying. When Faith disarms an enemy, she only equips the gun for a brief period of time, and then discards it. Although that particular part of the gameplay is weak, the game's main focus is the parkour experience anyway.
What makes Mirror's Edge fun though, is the speedruns and time trials. Time Attack Mode is where the player can attempt to complete parts of the game as fast as possible. The game also has online features, and can race ghosts to allow the player to beat these ghosts and find the fastest routes possible and attempt to rise to the top of the leaderboards.
The music in Mirror's Edge is just great to listen to, and it is one of the many finer points of the game. The game's soundtrack is composed mainly of different variations of the game's main theme, "Still Alive," and it is just captivating to listen to. Some of the music provides the flow during missions and can sometimes sound intense and even energetic. The game also has outstanding sound effects. When Faith is or walking, you can distinctively
hear her footsteps as you move her forward, and when running and performing acrobatic stunts, you can hear her heavy breathing, or you can hear her grunt in pain sometimes when you cause her to do something wrong, or whenever she's engaging in close combat, or even when she barely makes a ledge and hangs on for dear life trying to get there. It gives you the thrill of how tense and
exciting the experience gets.
Mirror's Edge has an outstanding visual presentation. It is awe-inspiring to look at the entire environment around you. The buildings around the city look realistic when looking at it as a whole. Everything is so clean and organized, and has the similar designs and same colors, giving you the feeling of what a dystopian or totalitarian-run city would look like in a unique perspective. Running around and performing tricks from building to building gives you a fun and intense experience of what parkour and free running are all about. With the game entirely in first-person perspective, the game gives you that experience in ways you would find exciting as well as frustrating.
Every time the player hits "runner vision," everything in the screen blurs, indicating that the player is picking up speed and gaining momentum when attempting to jump a long distance. The player's gameplay movements when jumping, wall running, or even in hand-to-hand combat seem so realistic that the camera bobs whenever Faith runs, jumps or performs any movement that would and can disorient a player sometimes, but that's what someone would experience in real life, and that is what the game is all about.
Mirror's Edge is a great game that introduces us to a new kind of freedom never been experienced before in a first-person perspective. While it lacks in combat, and features little room for trial and error which can be really frustrating, it definitely makes up with its great visual presentation, and an awesome soundtrack. It's highly recommendable to those who are looking for and want to enjoy the total freedom of movement and its fast-paced experience.
