Mirror's Edge was a game that impressed me with it's concept and I thought great now someone is finally trying to bring Breakdown to the next level. While I learned I was off the mark a bit I was still interested. Now that the game is finally here I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed.
First off I have to get this off my chest. Whoever decided that Mirror's Edge should have those Horribly animated cut scenes should be fired. No questions just gone. These cut scenes are the most horrible things I have seen in a game in a long time. They look cheap they aren't animated very well at all and they are just downright ugly. In fact they look so bad it's not a stretch to think that people may skip them and if they do this they will not get whats going on in the story. Not that that's a bad thing as the story is entirely forgettable. You play Faith who is a runner and your sister gets framed for a crime she didn't commit. Sounds like the plot of your average thriller no? Well therein lies the problem. The plot is so easy to read that you will see everything coming from a million miles away. There is one point in the game that I think was supposed to be a shocking twist however I already saw it coming about a hour before it happened so it was no shock to me. The whole game plays out like this so it's not really worth following the plot. The game is also tragically short about 5-6 hours depending on the difficultly.
When it comes to game play it's a bit of a mixed bag. When you are running the game is at it's best as running feels like it should and you feel like you can go anywhere and do anything. Until that is you find out that there is really only one path that works 90% of the time and it often comes down to trial and error. Will this path work? No? Ok how about this one? Yup. Ok that's the path you were supposed to take. Sure there are a few points in the game in which they will downright show you that there is more then one way to get to where you need to go but they are few and far between. If you can get used to this then the game is a joy to play. Until the last third of the game. You see throughout the whole game you are taught to always run from a fight and for good reason Faith isn't some superhero who can take down countless baddies with ease. She is just a runner and that's it. But then the game decides to throw tons of enemies at you and MAKE you have to beat them to continue. This is a chore because the combat isn't very good and is often times extremely frustrating.
What it comes down to is that most players will enjoy the first half of the game or so but when it comes time to be forced to take on the countless amounts of baddies the game throws at you players will either give up or get extremely angry. Either way it's a bad thing. Once you beat the game you don't have much to do either. Sure you can do the time trials and try to perfect your runs and there is the bags to collect throughout the story mode. However these offer little value to the overall package and clocking in at only 5 or so hours it just doesn't seem like a good value.
Mirror's Edge is definitely worth a rent if only to see how fun the running can be. But it's very hard to justify a purchase of a game this short and at the end of the day flawed. I would very much like to see a sequel to the game as DICE can easily fix the problems the game has.
It seems that in Season 4, DICE has snuck in a Battlefield 2042 Mirror's Edge Easter egg in the new Flashpoint map.
Ubisoft Massive lead gameplay designer Fredrik Thylander, previously of DICE where he worked on Battlefield and Mirror's Edge, has spoken out about achievements and trophies, arguing that they "have been bad for gaming."
The achievements in Mirror's Edge opened my eyes to a whole other way of approaching the game. Since some of the toughest and most rewarding ones are basically whole levels turned into time trials with very strict time requirements, they force you to become much better at the game - in a way that difficulty levels just don't - and made me appreciate the mechanics that much more (especially the momentum-based running and platforming).
They actually made the game better for those like me who really enjoyed the game but wanted more of it, basically adding a new level of difficulty that took a long time to master/overcome. It added some extra longevity to a very short game.
He says "it eats resources that could have made the game better". I'm curious what he thinks the time he spent designing the achievements for the game would've been better spent on, because I expect bang for buck-wise achievements are a pretty efficient way of adding value to a game for the people who end up loving it.
I kinda see his point but I also see your point.
I've been trying to remember what games over the years have had their own trophies inside the game before trophies and such were a thing and all I can think of is the star ocean series
I think his point, though not elucidated upon because of Twitter limitations, is not that they can be bad but that they are used improperly to extend gameplay rather than reward actions.
Harvest Moon: Magical Melody on the GCN did.
In fact it actually built the game around it.
I am very OCD about playing games that I can platinum, in that sense I probably avoided playing games that I knew I would be unable to 100% complete.
I do think there are other people like me and also feel there should be an option for you to individually deactivate getting trophies on specific games, just so you play them and they do not go to your account.
I don't know. I used to think Achievements / Trophies were ruining games at first but then I saw the positive, if you totally love a game then they would offer you replay value by going after the last achievements to 100% the game. It made you explore every last bit of the game to achieve this and sometimes pushed you into areas or scenarios you probably might have missed.
It was a blast to get them on Oblivion / Skyrim, Fallout, Witcher, God of War, Elden Ring etc
Don't get me wrong, I do think there's achievements which are annoying, the ones where you need to find all collectibles which end up being missable AND are like trying to find a needle in a haystack are a kick to the balls, you know the majority of us are just going to use a guide to find them so what's the point.
Kind of a shame Nintendo haven't gotten a full system in place, they are so behind.
Nintendo seem to either be ahead of their time by years
or behind by 10 years
no in between
I enjoy having something to go for and feeling accomplished when doing something hard. I just hate it when achievements are based on things you can't really control. Like when something is for MP and the MP is just dead.
I used to be a hardcore achievement hunter back in the day, but I couldn't care less nowadays. I just want to play games the way I actually want to play them, and don't care to waste my time just to get a little pop-up.
I envy you sir. I just gotta have every single achievement whenever I play a game. On my Steam profile I have an 83% completion rate out of 35 games, and my OCD is telling me to keep upping that percentage higher.
Yeah. Back then, though I'm not sure what my actual completion rate was, I was mainly an Xbox player. I had close to 80k gamer score during the 360 days.
It just doesn't excite me anymore. I have less than 20% completion on my Steam account, though I have a pretty asinine amount of games there at the same time.
But I don't really bother with any of this anymore. If there's an interesting achievement I might aim for it just because I find it fun, but usually I just get that pop-up, say "cool" and continue with the game.
Never been a fan of achievements. I just want to play the game however it may present itself to me, there's an overflow of achievements to seek in real life lol
Great for those that enjoy them though, much respect to the platinum hunters, it ain't easy lol
The 2000s was a great decade for a lot of brilliant video games. Here are the ten best games of the 2000s that you may not have played.
You know usually when someone says "you may have missed" it's games that were lesser known, hidden gems, underrated games. These are all super high profile games that sold extremely well.
You know the 2000s is 20 years ago too? Maybe, just maybe this wasn’t an article targeted to 30+ gamers? Still says at the very beginning of the title “THE BEST GAMES you may have missed”. Regardless of how well they sold there’s tons of gamers who haven’t touched these older well known games lol.
It's games you "may have missed", insinuating you were around and gaming in the 2000's and were there to miss them. If it was aimed at everyone else then they missed literally everything, not just the top games.
The original commenter is right, this is a badly written article at best pointless at worst.
Besides only being able to miss it if you were around during that time..if your point stands then this is a horrible list. Tons of better games people may have missed
Oh yeah thanks for reminding me I totally forgot they were doing it. Also what the hell happened to Kingpin: Reloaded? On Steam coming soon and nohting from the dev.
Yeah, I was just going to say. It's interesting seeing them back behind the series. Max Payne 3 was amazing, but then Rockstar just sat on the IP.
Well, they sit on virtually anything that isn't GTA and Red Dead now.
What is this list? These are all hugely popular games. I was expecting games like Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, Advent Rising, Arx Fatalis, etc.
the title didn’t say lesser known titles from the 2000s. This is 20 years ago now lol. Big assumption this list was made for older gamers.
I've only played 3 on that list. Part of me feels bad about how little I used all the consoles I've owned as a kid. One bright side is, there's over 30 years of games to experience for the first time.
I completly agree with what you have said. The cutscenes are totally awkward and just don't seem to fit the game at all. I absolutely love to run free on top of buildings pulling off insane jumps and manuevers. As soon as a gun is introduced to the formula though, the game falls flat on its face. Trying to take out these guys with guns is EXTREMELY frustrating, and unfortinetly i didn't give up, but did get quite angry. Mirror's edge is rumoured to be a trilogy, and i will make sure to rent the second one to see if they focus more on running than fighting.
Yes I have heard about the series being intended as a Trilogy as well and to be honest I hope it's true. Mirror's Edge as flawed as it is holds great potential to be a incredible game they just need to refine a bit of the game play and balance it out a bit better. Getting rid of the cut scenes should be the first thing they do. I have yet to run into someone who liked them so I doubt they will use them again in the 2nd game. EA already said that Sequels to both Dead Space and Mirror's Edge are in the works so I guess we won't have to wait long to see how the 2nd game will be. Here's hoping DICE can get those problems ironed out.
I agree as well. While some parts of the game are awesome, the combat feels tacked on, and brings the thrill down a few notches. For the sequel I hope they introduce an alternative to fighting/disarming, and a more open world with more routes (and less trial and error).
Good review, although a bit harsh on the fun factor for my liking.