Mirror’s Edge is a brilliantly designed experiment of a game. A first person platformer with an iconic style and highly focused gameplay.
Released in 2008, the game was developed by a team at Dice. The game was rather different from the studio’s standard fare. Instead of gunplay, wide open spaces for vehicles and multiplayer battlefields, the game was a hyper linear single player game starring a female protagonist (Faith) with a strong non-violent streak.
It is in effect, a parkour based first person platformer. Set in a dystopian city and built around going as fast as possible for as long as possible through the levels.
Movement feels like it has weight and momentum. Rolling to maintain your speed as you fall, swinging from railings and crushing boxes beneath you to avoid damaging falls. Even the ability to quickly swing faith around for tight turns has a sway and stutter that feels like you’re fighting the inertia.
These small feelings add up and extend far beyond the movement.
Faith doesn’t hold guns well. It’s a small point in the wider game, and has very little effect on actually shooting them. But it works as a character trait. Faith hold stolen guns slightly off kilter from the screen, and can’t really aim. It feels awkward and strange.
Comparatively, parkour based melee combat plays to Faith’s strengths. Enemies stagger back as you transfer your momentum to them via your feet. She always swings the camera view a little further than the initial strike, which gives the player a way out of the engagement and onwards to the next move. The camera swings outwards from the punch and pans over the environment to give the player more information.
It must be said that part of what makes Mirror’s Edge so intriguing is the striking visual style. The majority of the game world is painted in a stark white with spot colours for the things that matter. Then objectives are highlighted in a glowing gold, while the path through the barren white is flagged with stark red. It is immediately distinctive and readable. Beyond that, everywhere in the game maintains these austere blocks of colour. Dank yellows and cold blues peek through the white, but the red always sticks out. A world of parkour environments immediately translated into a visual system that means anyone can see the perfect path through the level. Everything comes back to the flow.
It’s the flow as the core of the game.
Moving is about finding your fastest route and understanding exactly what choice you’re making. Combat becomes a game of dodging, finding the momentum to strike in the arena.
And on top of all that, the theme tune is properly excellent.
The Sequel/Reboot – Mirrors Edge: Catalyst has points it’s own favour, there’s something wonderfully experimental and concise about playing the original.