Mirror's Edge

Moby ID: 37650
Xbox 360 Specs
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Mirror's Edge is a first-person action game set in a dystopian society ruled by a totalitarian regime that exercises a high amount of surveillance on citizens. The city has a clean look, with bright cold tone visuals that are mainly white with hints of orange. Players control Faith, a female runner who transfers information by moving over the roofs of the city as all other forms of communication are monitored. She grew up alone in the streets when her mother died during the November Riots and her father deserted her shortly after. She was taught as a little girl by a man called Mercury, who caught her breaking in and was impressed with her skills. Hunted down by government agents, she needs to find a way to free her sister.

Based on the principles of parkour, the focus is on the freedom of movement. Although the game path is largely linear, the controls are largely context-sensitive and Faith needs to string up moves to build up a fluid flow of movement, by running up walls, sliding below fences, or by jumping, vaulting or climbing, using pipes, ramps or using objects as zip-lines. The emphasis on movement is enhanced through the camera, which spins, or bobs up and down according to the speed, and the prominent visibility of her arms, legs and torso. The game is also largely HUDless. When Faith is hurt, the city's colours desaturate. To assist the player in this fast-paced movement, the game applies Runner Vision where environmental pieces are highlighted when they occur to Faith as possible escape routes. In complex situations, Reaction Time, a form of bullet time, can be applied to slow down the pace without losing momentum.

Even though Faith generally needs to run from agents who chase her on foot or from helicopters, she can attack them using melee combat, or disarm agents to grab and wield their weapons. The game takes place both outside, and inside buildings and there are ten chapters in total. The story is furthered through animated films between the missions, not using the game engine. Next to the main story mode, there is a time attack mode with portions of levels and the fastest times are shown as red runners who act as ghosts. While playing, hidden messenger bags can be collected to unlock extras.

Spellings

  • 靚影特務 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Xbox 360 version)

458 People (424 developers, 34 thanks) · View all

Senior Producer
Senior Development Director
Producer
Lead Designer
Art Director
Technical Director
Technical Art Director
Audio Director
Development Directors
2D Artist
Lead Animator
Animators
3D Artists
Character Artist
Concept Artists
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 80% (based on 137 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 145 ratings with 4 reviews)

Beauty of running free on a street while forgetting lamp before You.

The Good
Look Amazing. Inspired by Yamakasi. City has color tones which feels great and even helps in guiding You trough.

Feel Amazing running, jumping, "diving", rolling. being chased, kicking door, wall sliding, "skying".....

Originality Main idea is nice. The rest is taken pretty much verbatim from parkour. I have no problems with that. In fact just existence of this game means that there is something more than brainless shooters and mmorpgs.

I thought I have a gem until the flaws have surfaced......Flow which You create blurs all the mistakes for some time.

The Bad
Story. They shouldn't have included it. It is a pain to watch. Story about bad government, who keeps the city clean(!), and few runners who bring end to it. I don't buy it. It has some potential but the presentation feels like déjà vu of some fps-like z-movie story.

Most of time You don't know where to go next. Although it might seem to be real just kills flow. I replayed it and was lost several times because I just didn't see where to go. If You ever played adventure game then it feels like exactly like that. Certain places are unreachable and they don't look like they are. Certain places are reachable and they look like they're not. And I am not talking about jumping puzzles.

Controls aren't good. I am comparing this with Prince of Persia series, which had very good controls. The way they did jump from wall (sequence of [special key][jump key]) gets too much time to get used to. Why it is not an arrow (or arrow and jump key), which is more obvious. Wall run / climb might have been better done by having separate key instead of relying on angle towards wall. Human have problems with recognizing angles in 3d.

Game is being anal at wrong places. Jumping. Which is one of key elements. Having to time the jumps, like it used to be in tomb raider, so You won't miss the ledge by one inch is painful. It happens only at those long-jumps and Your keyboard is so scared of being punished that she bring even more punishment upon her because of her trembling. And that's not only jumping. Also the way how hero grabs ledges - sometimes it is sometimes it is not automatical.

User interface / menu. Can't be controlled just by keyboard. List of levels without any aid of how they actually look. Yes there are 3d models at one place but it's like telling a difference between grey box and grey box.

The Bottom Line
You'll have great time feeling like one of Yamakasi. Unfortunately start and end of a jump feels like throwing a dice .............. It's shame they polished just how the gem looks and didn't even think about the one who's gonna wear it.

Windows · by hribek (28) · 2009

Get lost on the roof tops of a metropolitan city

The Good
Close your eyes and imagine feeling a breeze run across your face, the sun shimmering and reflecting off the hot concrete roof below you, flexing your right foot and feeling a tight shoe across it, and open your eyes to see a white painted metropolitan city touched with slight colors here and there but only accenting the white. Hear the sounds of the downtown rustling, an occasional siren, perhaps a helicopter flying above you.

The so-called Mirror's Edge, where all the buildings reflect your desires and let you freely fly, running forward using all objects on the roof top to your advantage like a gold medal gymnast. Imagine being able to run as fast as the fastest man in the world and maintain it for as long as you wish to go. This game captures this feeling, yet doesn't lose you with too much fantasy. It doesn't quite hit the Matrix feeling, it cradles these realistic emotions hidden inside you and lets you feel it as if it real. Then it takes it a step further and gives you motivation to run.

The police are after you for a reason you are innocent for, so you are free to run away, to flee, and you are equipped with the ability to make it. So why don't you? Afraid of missing a step and falling to your death? Don't worry, such a blunder is only a scary fall, followed with a relapse of time putting you a few steps prior, allowing you to repeat your steps again, this time, executing it with the grace only you are able to do.

The Bad
As great as experiencing such a surreal game may be you may be prone to headaches with prolonged exposure. There is also the possibility of feeling the urge to go out and try these stunts in real life. I do warn these urges should subside with time and probably should not be acted upon, especially while drunk.

The Bottom Line
Experience it, is all I have to say. If it doesn't capture your imagination and allow you to get lost in its beauty, then that is too bad. I will be there running as fast as I can for you to reach me when you can.

Windows · by Xackery (26) · 2009

With a little more effort, it would have been awesome, but alas...

The Good
I don't usually pay too much attention to game graphics, especially when some perfectly good games are unnecessarily ripped apart due to having even slightly inferior graphics when compared to some latest blockbuster. But I have to praise Mirror's Edge in this respect because it's simply gorgeous. Besides jaw-dropping graphics and fluid animation, the character design is also great and most importantly, the game is full of color, which is a good thing considering how brownish-gray dystopias dominate gaming today.

The color red seems to what we see the most, as it marks the direction you need to go in, but as a great design choice, this can also be turned off, making going forward a constant puzzle, which is always a good thing. The core gameplay of Mirror's Edge feels amazing at first. The fluid movement, the speed and the expertly crafted close-quarters combat are all great things, but the best thing about the game is how you can constantly stay in motion if you're good enough. The fact that you can technically advance in the game without gunning everyone down is also a plus.

I liked the main characters, the protagonist Faith, her sister Kate and of course, the resident "voice with an Internet connection" Merc, and the game has an interesting background story. The ending is also beautiful, thanks to the music. Unfortunately...

The Bad
...it is not taken advantage of, and the main plot just feels thin. Though the cartoon-style cutscenes are well-made, there just aren't enough of them (I never thought I'd say this). We should know more about the characters in order to care about them. Now, many die but nothing really made me emotional, although when Faith and her sister first hug in the game, I at least got close.

Though the main ideas behind this game sound good on paper, towards the end, the game just gets infuriatingly difficult. Faith can't take much damage while Blues keep coming in greater and greater numbers, especially when it would be nicer to have more time to stop and think Though you can steal weapons from enemies (and in my case, this became mandatory) the shooting controls are rather bad and even though the enemies seem to have bottomless magazines, Faith always runs out of ammo in an instant.

Because of these difficult, enemy-filled segments, the game gets repetitive since some scenes (especially the one with Ropeburn) have to be repeated over and over and over and over and... the point is, while death doesn't send you too far back, the repetition still gets on your nerves. Despite this, the game still falls far too short. Mine lasted around five hours, though most will probably breeze through even faster, and as great as the ending was, my primary reaction was "that was it already?!".

The Bottom Line
A first-person action-adventure for those bored of shooters and looking for something original. Though the game starts out strong and had loads of potential, it stills doesn't quite follow through and its main weaknesses are repetitiveness and short length. Still worth a try.

Xbox 360 · by Zokolov (49) · 2012

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

Engine

The game does not use the in-house developed Frostbite engine, as work on the game was started before the engine was completed. Instead, UnrealEngine3 was licensed, along with a new component (co-developed between EA Digital Illusions CE AB and Illuminate Labs) to accentuate the different art style, and allow for the reflection of colours and light.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2009 – #9 Best Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Sciere.

Windows added by Picard.

Additional contributors: Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third.

Game added November 23, 2008. Last modified January 12, 2024.