Sep 22 2008
Mirror’s Edge just keeps looking better and better
I know I’ve talked about it before, but Mirror’s Edge looks really awesome. Every time I think about running rooftop to rooftop effortlessly. Wallrunning and leaping and climbing and hanging all in first-person. The transistion from a 3rd-person perspective as most of us are used to for platformery titles, to first-person looks so remarkably smooth I can’t wait for the November 11th release date.
I don’t know how many have actually played Breakdown on the original Xbox, but a lot of people missed out on the amazing innovation started there. Breakdown was the first title to really introduce the concept of melee combat in an FPS as well as many more platforming elements. I loved Breakdown, despite a few wonky control issues that were evident. Mirror’s Edge just looks like everything Breakdown could have been, and so much more.
The fluent transitions between jumping from the edge of a building, to balancing on a thin pipeline, and then kicking the gun out of a policeman’s hands, everything plays so smoothly. The really intriguing concept to combat being your characters movement ability. Sure you could pick up a gun and use it, but why do that when you can run and jump at your opponent delivering brutal lashing kicks that can disarm as well as debilitate?
The only problem being that Mirror’s Edge is going up against some heavy hitters with that Nov. 11th release date. Namely, Gears of War 2, Call Of Duty: World At War, Fallout 3 at the end of October, and even Grand Theft Auto IV’s first downloadable content. All will be attempting to get your hard earned cash, and to me that means unfortunately the new title is going to lose out to the sequels.
But hopefully there are enough faithful in Mirror’s Edge’s new style of gameplay to push the game beyond the limitations of ending up in a bargain bin. Like Breakdown. Or else they’re going to stop making crazy first-person titles like this. And that would be very bad.
