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Early Reviews Reflect Well On Mirror's Edge
The much-anticipated first person non-shooter Mirror's Edge is being released today for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Reviews for the game, while not without complaints, are generally positive. 1Up praises the controls, saying, "It gets things very right very early, distilling its first-person platformer ambitions into a very manageable control scheme. ... Once you're familiar with Faith's abilities and their limitations — imparted through a much-needed tutorial — it's easy to see potential routes through the world." Ars Technica is more critical, noting that the main story's gameplay only clocks in at about six hours, and that the artistic style doesn't vary much between levels. Nick Channon, a producer for Mirror's Edge, sat down with Gamasutra and discussed the reasoning for some of their design choices. The PC version of Mirror's Edge and some additional downloadable content will be available in January.
Unfortunately although the game is visually stunning and innovative, I found the demo to be pretty disorienting and am not sure if I will buy the game due to the discomfort.
Maybe it gets better as you get used to the game? Who knows.
A first person non-shooter, huh? You know, at first I didn't think something like this would work, but the more I think about it, the more I like this idea. I think it could really work well, and be a refreshing change from the all those tiresome shooters.
So what kind of melee weapons do you get to use? Baseball bats, butcher knives, broken bottles, axes, chainsaws, weed-whackers, two-by-fours with lots of nails pounded into them? The old standby, the trusty rock? Or do you just like, gouge your opponents eyes out with your bare hands and bite their ears off?
I just finished playing through the downloadable demo and I'm happy to see that they've finally implemented what actually happens with your point of view when you run. There's no more "the entire screen bobs" to simulate a walking/running effect. When you run, you're looking at a point in the distance and that never diverges from your center of view. If the camera's orientation is represented by an arbitrarily long pool cue, the tip of the cue is resting on what you're looking at and the end of the cue (the camera) moves up and down and side to side. So objects far away barely move at all while objects right beside your head move as much as your head does.
On another note, it's nice to see EA come out with something original though check back in a few years and see if there's a Mirror's Edge 2010, 2011, and so on.
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What I want to see is someone modding this game so that you can play it as a multiplayer capture the flag. It'd be like the games of capture the flag that you'd play as kids, but at an excessively larger scale.
I'll probably get the game irregardless, but that would definitely increase replayability.
WAHHHHHH! I was whistling the musical theme that's on every trailer and part of the demo as I browsed over to games.slashdot only to see it at the top of the front page!
The music doesn't seem particularly memorable, until you can't get it out of your head.
I kinda of liked the demo, though it did seem like the game could get really annoying when the difficulty ramped up, due to the fact that it suffers from Dragon's Lair syndrome -- i.e., one mistimed button press and your character dies. Sometimes the timing is rather tricky, which means you just fall into the abyss over and over until you get it right. Dunno if that's really my cup of tea.
I do really like the art direction for the game. The oversaturated-white look is pretty nice to look at. Or maybe it just feels that way after 50 straight hours of uninterrupted brown wasteland and concrete rubble in Fallout 3.
Here's something to avoid - eat a quarter bag of cheese popcorn, and then play through the demo...
On the plus side, I was forced to turn off the TV and read a book for the rest of the evening. The ability to watch moving images has thankfully returned to me now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'll take a new game with issues over a very polished rehash any time. The ars technica reviewer wanted more, but I don't think it's a bad idea for the first game with a new mechanic to keep it simple and try to get it right. They can add depth and breadth in the sequels, when they have the basics down and we are used to how it works.
Interesting that despite the repetitiveness they still found it too short, repetitive+short+fun=replayable.
Looks and sounds like an interesting game - too bad I'll never own it. I don't have or want an Xbox or PS3, and the PC version has limited installs. Be sure to hammer the point home on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00198ZHC8/ref=s9sdps_c1_63_at1-rfc_p-frt_g1-3237_g1_si1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0TM31B72FB9PTDNQEV3Z&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463383351&pf_rd_i=507846
For the most part, judging from the demo at least, the solution is to avoid getting into a combat situation at all. They have guns, you don't. Rushing them and taking their legs out with a sliding kick before they get a shot off, then run away before they can react, was the most fun way.
Mirror's Edge is great precisely because you're not playing a violent person for a change.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
There is at least one gun in Mirrors Edge. In the demo you get taught how to disarm the enemy and steal their pistol and also how to shoot. I'm a little disappointed by that tbh, I was hoping for no guns whatsoever but it does seem like the focus is on getting through the game without actually using any weapons.
Nick