Quick Review: Mirror's Edge

Run Faith Run!

Brace for landing.

Developed by DICE, published by Electronic Arts (should I be worried?) and released to Steam on January 13th, 2009, Mirror’s Edge is a first-person action/parkour game set on the rooftops of a cyberpunk dystopia. The brightest one I’ve ever seen! Faith belongs to a group of people known as the Runners, who spread information and fight the powers in place. Faith is tossed into a dangerous situation when her sister Kate, a “Blue” (read: A cop, Runners don’t usually like those), is framed for the murder of mayoral hopeful Robert Pope. Hoping to prove her sister’s innocence, Faith runs off with a paper found on the scene, not counting that this also paints her as a suspect. And the Blues have no intention of keeping her alive for questioning...

Late into the game, you start getting chased by unstoppable
parkour experts just like you.

This game feels like a culmination of several gaming experiences I’ve had in the past year. Gameplay is very parkour-heavy, featuring an agile, quick and resourceful protagonist, who can out-speed most threats before her. Controls reflect this, giving her a very wide array of moves that make the experience feel awesome. Jumping, drop-rolling, coiling up, crouching, sliding, climbing, wall-running/jumping, ziplining, and so much more. Any décor elements you can use to progress (jumping pads, planks, doors, pipes, gutters, etc.) turn red when you come close. It’s up to you to figure out your way around.

Yeah, better run in the opposite direction.

Better not get hit for a few seconds... easier said than done.

As for the Blues... You can beat up an enemy, steal their firearm, and do some shooter action if you want – but you’ll have to ditch the gun to resume parkouring. And enemies come in groups, so running is the better solution. Combat is avoidable, but you may have to defend yourself and kill. You don’t have a life bar; instead, colors drain out of the screen the weaker Faith gets. She heals by spending some time without getting hurt.

Now I'm armed! ...But I can't jump for crap.

Oh, and we ride a train at some point. That sequence ends
just close to a Final Destination death, I swear.

What sets this one apart from other parkour-heavy games? The first-person view. Seeing every movement, jump, cool action as if you were there, a sensation that no other game in this sub-genre has given me. (That, and vertigo.) It also means that when you lose, you feel it. The sound design will remind you of your mistake. Every time I caused Faith to fall from a rooftop... I’ll hear those crunches in my nightmares. Coupled to the amazing look of the city, the story and how it’s presented, the game feels very cinematic in execution. (Cutscenes between chapters switch to a 2D animation style.)

The idea is great and lends itself to a unique experience. The freedom of movement is excellent and the parkour is satisfying, the music is great, and the city is gorgeous. Okay, you mostly see rooftops, but every now and then we get variety, so that's cool. I'll say that I greatly enjoyed my experience, even going back to finish the game before posting this article.

Although, the first-person view has its flaws; among others, it often makes it difficult to judge jumps properly. How many times I died because I was just short of the other ledge... Another flaw is that the game is very trial-and-error; try until you succeed. At least it’s lenient with many checkpoints. The game is somewhat short, beatable in three hours, but it'll take much longer due to repeated attempts at finishing each mission (it took me seven), since it's so tough. This also makes the game, at the same time, very linear; you can’t really “explore” the rooftops, there’s usually a clear path from point A to point B and you don’t have much else in the way of options. The only noteworthy forks in the road are the side-quest of finding three suitcases hidden in every “level”. Parkour is so much stronger than the shooting segments, yet there's more of the latter near the end.

But yeah, all in all, I'd say it's worth your money. Mirror's Edge is available on Steam for 19.99$ USD. A (debated) sequel, Catalyst, was also released in 2016.