Mirror’s Edge (Xbox 360)
Mirror’s Edge, or as I like to call it, Dystopian Future Anime Parkour Challenge ‘08, is a game in which you, in first-person perspective, run around along rooftops and in buildings trying to avoid falling to death or getting swiss cheesed by guys with guns. It was hyped as an innovative, exciting, breakneck experience.
See, this is the problem with game trailers: they lie. If you believe the hype, you’ll be blasting along rooftops and seamlessly knocking out enemies with flying kicks for the whole game. The reality is, the exciting free-running portions of the game make up about 10% of your whole gameplay experience. The other 90% of the time, you’ll either be trying to scrutinize which tiny ledge you’ll need to jump up to next, trying to jump to that ledge over and over and missing, or trying to take out enemies who have guns with just your bare hands.
The gist of it is, this game is really damn frustrating. You’ll be hearing the splat noise that you make when you fall to your death dozens of times each level, as the gameplay is trial and error. Combat should have either been removed or made better, because as it stands you either have to knock an enemy out and take their gun (which falls under the video game ammunition capacity rule: enemies have unlimited ammo, but you’ll run out after ten seconds), or try and run away from them, which works if there’s one enemy, but not typically if there are multiple ones. And then there’s one of my most hated things: being chased by a helicopter with a chaingun. I hated this in Half-Life, and I hate it here. It’s obnoxious because you can’t take five seconds to figure out which way to go before it turns you into a small, formerly-parkour runner-shaped lump of flesh.
One thing I do like about the game is you actually have a physical presence. You cast a shadow and you can see your arms and legs and everything. Too often, you’re represented in FPS games as a floating camera with an invisible bag of weapons. It’s a nice touch, but overall, Mirror’s Edge is ridiculously frustrating and you get a medal if you can finish it without putting a controller through your screen.
2 out of 5
Mirror’s Edge, or as I like to call it, Dystopian Future Anime Parkour Challenge ‘08, is a game in which you, in first-person perspective, run around along rooftops and in buildings trying to avoid falling to death or getting swiss cheesed by guys with guns. It was hyped as an innovative, exciting, breakneck experience.
See, this is the problem with game trailers: they lie. If you believe the hype, you’ll be blasting along rooftops and seamlessly knocking out enemies with flying kicks for the whole game. The reality is, the exciting free-running portions of the game make up about 10% of your whole gameplay experience. The other 90% of the time, you’ll either be trying to scrutinize which tiny ledge you’ll need to jump up to next, trying to jump to that ledge over and over and missing, or trying to take out enemies who have guns with just your bare hands.
The gist of it is, this game is really damn frustrating. You’ll be hearing the splat noise that you make when you fall to your death dozens of times each level, as the gameplay is trial and error. Combat should have either been removed or made better, because as it stands you either have to knock an enemy out and take their gun (which falls under the video game ammunition capacity rule: enemies have unlimited ammo, but you’ll run out after ten seconds), or try and run away from them, which works if there’s one enemy, but not typically if there are multiple ones. And then there’s one of my most hated things: being chased by a helicopter with a chaingun. I hated this in Half-Life, and I hate it here. It’s obnoxious because you can’t take five seconds to figure out which way to go before it turns you into a small, formerly-parkour runner-shaped lump of flesh.
One thing I do like about the game is you actually have a physical presence. You cast a shadow and you can see your arms and legs and everything. Too often, you’re represented in FPS games as a floating camera with an invisible bag of weapons. It’s a nice touch, but overall, Mirror’s Edge is ridiculously frustrating and you get a medal if you can finish it without putting a controller through your screen.
2 out of 5
posted by Cole at
11:55 AM
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