Demo Jimpressions: Mirror's Edge

1:11 PM on 11.01.2008   |   Jim Sterling

70 comments

I have not spoken much about DICE's Mirror's Edge, mainly because I have been quietly skeptical about the whole thing. It's not that I assumed it would suck, it's just that everybody had gotten so instantly excited after a mere thirty seconds of concept footage, and I didn't want to fall for the hype.

I decided instead to withhold all opinion until I finally got to take Faith for a spin around the rooftops myself, so it's quite fortunate that publisher Electronic Arts decided to release a demo on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live. How nice.

We've all had plenty of time to soak in the blue sky and feel the wind beneath our feet, so what do we all make of it? For at least one set of Jimpressions, feel free to hit the jump. 

When you fire up the demo, you're treated to a very pretty cartoon cinematic in which Faith explains what has happened to her city -- once "dirty and dangerous" but alive. Now it's been taken over by an Orwellian organization who cleaned things up and quickly made criminals of the dissenters. If they get rid of the chavs, they're alright by me, but Faith -- a runner who delivers messages for the society's more rebellious members -- has other ideas. The spoilsport.

When the game starts properly, you won't be able to escape how bright it is. God, this game is bright. If you've been playing nothing but Dead Space or Silent Hill beforehand, be careful that you don't scar your retinas.

But seriously, it's bright.

Things kick off with a handy tutorial, in which you follow a colleague around the rooftops. Here you get to feel what it's like to be a sky hopping Runner, and I have to confess that it feels pretty good when you're doing it right. My one major fear with Mirror's Edge was that you'd never get the sense of flow that the more precise trailers achieved, but for the most part, if you decide to just go for it, the athletics feel incredible.

The controls aren't the most intuitive in the world, however, so a little practice is needed before you can truly feel like a gymnastic marvel. L1/LB performs a variety of actions, mostly relating to jumping, while L2/LT crouches, R1/RB turns and R2/RT performs more combative moves. It feels somewhat unorthodox to jump with the top shoulder button, but after one or two humiliating falls, you'll soon straighten up and fly right. 

Faith is blessed with "Runner Vision," which allows her to see all objects that can be interacted with as red, clearly marking out what you need to use in order to progress through the level swiftly. For the most part, this works well and allows you to keep the flow of the game without using any form of HUD to tell you where to go. At times, however, the red objects aren't readily visible, and with no other way of knowing where to move, you can sometimes run the risk of going the wrong way, if only for a moment.

You're given a handful of opportunities in the demo to try out the combat, or rather, the evasion of combat. Mirror's Edge doesn't want you to get into fights, and prefers you to run, quickly knock an enemy out, or disarm them. The disarm technique is as easy as pressing a button, and it makes the combat feel strikingly uninvolved and easy. You literally walk up to someone, wait for them to swing at you, and then tap a button to take their gun and knock them out. Not exactly interactive stuff. There are other methods, such as sliding kicks, or even some simple gunplay, but the disarm is by far the easiest thing to do.

That said, the majority of the demo is fast-paced and exhilarating. It's essentially Prince of Persia played from a first-person perspective, and it really should fail in practice. However, DICE has managed to at least make it work for the demo, with the athletic abilities such as wall running and wall jumping being completely functional with no apparent issues.

The only time the game slowed down for me was the section just before the air vent, where Faith has to hang from a ledge and jump up to the pipes. It was not very intuitive at all, especially as your destination looks slightly too far away to get to. A little awkward, but only a minor issue.

The level presented certainly works. Running away from a group of soldiers is particularly thrilling, and the feeling of escape is, in some ways, even more exciting than the combat present in most games. Being hunted, as opposed to the hunter, is a rarely tapped form of play, and one that Mirror's Edge exploits to great effect.

I liked the demo enough to play it twice in quick succession, and will probably give it another go. The flowing feel of the gameplay is addictive and I really liked what I saw. If the full game keeps up this level of quality, I think we're in for a very good game indeed.

Verdict: JIMPRESSED!