Mirror’s Edge

[November 19th, 2008]

November is the video game industry’s version of summer blockbuster season: It’s when the safe money gets sunk into tired sequels and big-budget, low-inspiration special effects showcases. But among this year’s bruisers are some innovative, endearing gems (the PS3’s adorable Little Big Planet leading the charge) that actually bring something new to your home console.

Mirror’s Edge earns the “innovative” tag. It’s a first-person platformer deeply indebted to shooters and racing games (you run really fast, see things from your character’s own eyes and occasionally murder a bunch of cops). It’s reasonably tame—the cops don’t bleed much when you shoot them—and looks like the classic Sega Dreamcast rollerblading/tagging game Jet Grind Radio and those obnoxious animated Esurance commercials.

The player assumes the role of Faith, a tattooed “runner” (a roof-jumping, outlaw Pony Express) with surprisingly nice fingernails whose sprawling, urban future-world has been overtaken by evil corporations and such. Her life on society’s fringe is jarred when her sister is framed for murder—the whole mess shooting for Children of Men but winding up at…Chain Reaction, let’s say.

The point here is that you are running. A lot. The core of the gameplay in Mirror’s Edge lies in running toward or away from the Big Brother types that framed the sister. But not just running: jumping, flipping, rolling, etc. Nothing new there—the game finds strong spiritual ancestors in Bungie Studios’ 2001 martial arts shooter Oni and, more famously, the Tomb Raider series. But those games are from the third person perspective, our heroines’ sharp polygon breasts on proud display. Putting the player in the head of a woman performing dizzying acrobatics is a much bolder move.

Mirror’s Edge isn’t the first game to attempt this feat, but it’s the first game that’s ever succeeded. Though clearly not intended for those who struggle with motion sickness, it’s terribly addicting (and surprisingly intuitive) for the rest of us to bounce off walls, scale fences and leap across rooftops at breakneck speed—even with the cheesy techno soundtrack pumping a la Run Lola Run. So when the exceedingly anti-climactic final chapter closed (it took me about 14 hours, but I also took great pleasure in repeatedly falling to my death), I was ready to go back and play it in time trial mode. I never play time trial mode.