When I first saw Mirrors Edge back in 2008 I thought it looked really cool. I thought the visual style was very interesting, but the parkour style gameplay really stood out to me, and it was a departure from most games I’ve seen with a first-person perspective. I finally had the chance to play it last month, and I think this was the first time I actually screamed obscenities at a television.
Have you ever wanted to like something, but despite trying to enjoy it, or finding some good in it, you couldn’t bring yourself to not hate it? Well if you ever have, then you know how I felt when I played Mirrors Edge. I wanted to like it so bad I actually made an effort to get it for Ps3, so I could download the exclusive DLC. Believe it or not, I actually liked a few things about the game. For example I thought the Anime-esque cutscenes were pretty cool, and the fact that you could look down and see Faith’s legs. Alas, no amount of free DLC, interesting animation, or an Asian chick’s legs, could redeem this game for me.
One immediate problem I had with the game was its flawed control scheme. Most of the actions are performed with the L1/L2, R1/R2 buttons, leaving the face buttons for interactions and hints. It seemed to be a valiant attempt at realism, but I don’t ever remember using the right trigger to jump in a platformer. I often found myself still pressing “X” to jump even in later levels.
Along the same line of thinking, disarming enemies and all-around combat is sluggish and ineffective. Meaning, when you slide to kick an enemy in the balls and then disarm him, you may stop just shy of the guys’ shoes and receive a friendly shotgun to the face. Meanwhile, his buddies are either right behind him waiting for their turn or pumping you full of buckshot. Needless to say, I found myself on the receiving end of many annoying deaths – from both my enemies - and the environment Faith was created to traverse.
Here I am, running at full speed across the skyline. Seamlessly stringing together jumps, slides, wall-runs, and vaults. I slide under an Air Conditioning system, and in the distance there’s a clearing. I see a little red vault pad situated right before roof of the building ends. I build up my momentum, and jump over the chasm between the two buildings, grasping for a red pipe at the end of my jump … and then … nothing. Faith then plummets to her death, with several feet of pipe in front of her ready to save her life.
What you just read was a situation I re-enacted many times, at least fifty for sure. Where the character would jump and I would tell the game to grab a pipe, then *sounds of air whooshing* and crunch. I probably saw the game-over screen more than any real gameplay or story elements. I was getting to the point where I was yelling “GRAB THE DANG PIPE, IT’S FREAKING RED! YOU CAN’T MISS THE DARN THING!” or other obscenity riddled exclamations at least every five minutes. Usually followed by something about her having stiff knees, err … something like that. (Rage doesn’t do very well on the old memory banks)
The fact of the matter remains the same, Mirrors Edge found every way to infuriate me. No matter how I rewired my brain, how many “breathers” I took, or any other measure I took in order to keep my precious Dualshock 3 intact, DICE found some way to induce a Godzilla-style rampage within myself. I would applaud them, but there probably going to do very well this holiday season, so they’ll be getting enough of that.
I never finished the game, only because it was turning me into something I didn’t want to become. I do have a slight pseudo-professional obligation to beat the games I play; I was even going to do a Retro<Active on it, but I wasn’t going to continue degrading myself. Just because in theory it’s fun to play, doesn’t mean I [have] to play it. Especially when there are so many other enjoyable things I can do. So I in the simplest of terms, “Screw This Game!”