Mirror's Edge

[A Black Falcon]

No, I don't have it, but I just watched someone (here at school) play through the second half of the game (chapters 5-9). Awesome, awesome game, just like I thought... very short, but awesome, and there is stuff to do after you finish -- timetrials, hard mode, etc. Amazing graphics and art design, awesome moves, fun looking around for where to go next... it'd take a while to get used to the controls for sure, but it looks great. It's definitely something I want to own...

Oh, really, really good music and sound effects too.

[TrollSr]

AWESOME

[DMiller]

It does sound awesome.

[lazyfatbum]

fail.

[Dark Jaguar]

succeed!

[A Black Falcon]

Yes, definitely succeed. It's a very good game. It's got such a great sense of style... so bright, with such strong, bold colors...

It doesn't use lots of colors -- each area is pretty much two colors, white and either red, blue, yellow, orange, or green (and mostly yellow and orange, with red highlights for the 'runner-vision') -- but it's a very striking, very nice looking look. It's so different from your average brown-and-mud FPS...

The gun fighting is indeed not that great, but shooting isn't the point of the game. Running, jumping, and occasional martial arts moves to knock people out is, and it does those things very, very well.

[lazyfatbum]

The reviews say otherwise.

Especially the combat and the Perfection Puzzles where there's only one possible way to do something and you die 50 times in the process of learning what that possibility is.

[TrollSr]

^

[A Black Falcon]

The reviews say otherwise.

Especially the combat and the Perfection Puzzles where there's only one possible way to do something and you die 50 times in the process of learning what that possibility is.

If you mean that there's often only one way to get through an area, that is true... but it's not true in every area. And what's wrong with dying a few times while you figure out the path? Particularly late in the game when they stop giving you Runner-vision hints most of the time, you have to think of some pretty clever things to get past the puzzles... and the results, once you figure it out, are pretty cool.

[Great Rumbler]

You guys should know by now not to believe everything that reviewers say. Yeah, they get it right sometimes, but there have been some misses with Mirror's Edge.

Okay, yes, it can be frustrating at times whenyou have to do a certain part of a level about a dozen times to get something right, but this is the kind of game that you can forgive for that downside because you want to get to that next section and just becaue they game is so much gosh darn fun.

It's not my GOTY and I'd hesitate to give it higher than 8.5, but it's a great experience.

[A Black Falcon]

Based on watching half of the game, I can say that really the only serious negative I'd mention is that it's quite short. Other than that, it looks amazing... good graphics, great level designs, lots of clever jumping puzzles, buildings that usually feel like real buildings and not just game levels... what more do you need? Not much, that's what. :)

The story seems kind of pointless, but oh well. Maybe it makes more sense if you play the whole thing through?

[lazyfatbum]

The story is king in the game. It's a fleshed out cliche with depth. From the quasi inverted blade runner/cyberpunk'd esque future sport to the main character being named 'Faith' :P but it sells itself short. It's a blast to play dont get me wrong, but its not omfg i'll blow dogs to play this. Its a rental but its a must play too.

In game story structuring is the future forizz, hopefully they'll get it soon so we can do away with cut scenes completely. Using a battle scene as a loading 'cap' for the next area is genius. Helluvalot better than watching a door open or a fly-cam intro.

[DMiller]

Using a battle scene as a loading 'cap' for the next area is genius. Helluvalot better than watching a door open or a fly-cam intro.

That's pretty clever. I don't know if I've seen that done before. I'm sure I've played games that have done it, but I probably didn't notice. Some of the doors in the Prime games really bugged me when they took forever to open because the next area had to fully load.

[A Black Falcon]

The story is king in the game. It's a fleshed out cliche with depth. From the quasi inverted blade runner/cyberpunk'd esque future sport to the main character being named 'Faith' :P but it sells itself short.

The ending really screamed "We are making a sequel, please buy it too!"... :)

Very Hollywood-style ending, I'd say, it seemed to me... though very incomplete and unfinished, with more of the story obviously left for that sequel they'll hopefully make. The story was told decently, I agree... but somebody who wanted a conclusive ending at the end, you won't get it. Some plotlines are concluded, but not a lot of them...

As for loading, I noticed those 'fight' ones. I think there were more traditional ones too, though, though definitely few... though I would think there would be fewer on the PC version than the X360 version I was watching.

[Great Rumbler]

I wish they'd gone first-person 3D for all the cutscenes, rather than those awkward 2D cartoon cutscenes.

[A Black Falcon]

I thought they worked okay, but I did hear some complaints from others... why are they bad, really?

[lazyfatbum]

Cutscenes are for rpgs. a cutscene in an action adventure game is like getting out of your car to switch gears.

[Great Rumbler]

I thought they worked okay, but I did hear some complaints from others... why are they bad, really?

They came across as something that a college student banged out in Flash after a few late nights.

In contrast to the extremely well-done in-game cutscenes which were few and few between.