I was looking through my games collection the other day, seeing which one would strike my fancy, when my hand drew back from the copy of Mirror’s Edge sitting next to my cabinet. It wasn’t a dramatic gesture—it was more of a slight, backward motion, as if my fingers balked at the idea of touching the case. I own plenty of games that I don’t give the time of day most of the time (sorry, Dead Space, I’m just not that into you). But DICE’s latest brings out that faint sense of revulsion that comes from leaving something organic in the back of the car for a few months.



I’m hesitant to label my feelings as “dislike” and be done with it. When I was playing Mirror’s Edge, I felt two alternating emotions, both of which I felt intensely. The first was the sensation of pure momentum heightened by the game’s ability to make me feel clever. Every mission had a section or two that I flew through without interruption. Each mission also had several sections that demanded either an obtuse sequence of movements discernable after brutal trial-and-error; exact timing that I am not sure I could ever replicate again; or a gauntlet of soldiers who, unlike most first-person games, can shoot accurately. The schizophrenic result was enough to make me reach for the lithium.

Maybe I’m just feeling some sort of Stockholm syndrome to cover the painful psychic scars. I sunk $60 and ten hours into the dream of EA releasing a good, new IP, and in return, I received a hand-job followed by a kick in the balls. That had better been a good handy.

Another part of me wants to believe that I’ve become a better person after forcing myself to finish Mirror’s Edge. Too many narrative-based games like Mass Effect and Fable II have made me soft. Those games want me to finish them, want me to soak in their honeyed plots and praise them for their storytelling prowess. Mirror’s Edge doesn’t care if I’m invested in the plot or not. It never reveals exactly what turned the country into the glaring, inorganic monstrosity as it appears in the game; we must content ourselves with Faith’s sparse background information, which says that the government wanted to control everything, and although some people fought it for awhile, eventually they quit and accepted the tyrannical yoke. Overall, I would have preferred something akin to the Metal Gear VR Missions game—no real story motivates the player, only a desire to complete the scenarios.

Come to think of it, Mirror’s Edge almost seems like it doesn’t care if I’m enjoying the game at all. The squint-inducing color palette, the sickening crunch at the end of a fall, the frustrating accuracy of soldiers, the capricious “Runner Vision”—all of the elements conspire to evoke antipathy and rage. So I suffered through a vanilla story and questionable level design, and instead of returning the game after the first hour, I persevered. I gritted my teeth, took my lumps, and threw Faith off buildings until I got it right. This must be how those arcade junkies feel after topping the high score in Frogger. Or perhaps it’s more akin to an old-time Puritan’s self-flagellation, paying for my sins by indulging in a little masochism. Either way, I’m afraid I’m stuck with Mirror’s Edge until I die. It’s not so bad—it lets me wear the gimp mask.