Mirror's Edge

23.05.08

DICE...? Don’t they have it...? Yes, they do. But this time it is not about Battlefield and what looks like a first person shooter is described by the developers as a "first-person parkour-inspired action-adventure". It is about movement here, not fighting. Weapons are merely tools and do not play a decisive role. A game that promises innovation and a new gaming experience. A game where the developers had to face new problems and to rethink.

"Mirror's Edge" is quite a risk, from the developers’ point of view. For people with "motion sickness" probably evil itself. With a shaky camera and novelty angles, the gamer mouses through a fictitious metropolis. While the rich and paying citizens of the conspicuously clean city are busy with their daily work, the poorer contemporaries, banned to the border of the city make do with the bare essentials. The player takes up the role of the rebellious "Faith", a "runner". “Runners” are in a sense Internet, (red) telephone, television and mail in one. They provide the "outcasts" with information and risk life and limb to exchange important secret messages. Well then, break a leg!

For the control of the game only three buttons are needed. One for risky jumps and climbing sprees, one to duck and slide. The last button activates a slow-motion function (bullet time), where you can perform jumps and other action in a more targeted and precise manner. You sprint across roofs, heave yourself over ledges, jump onto centimetre-wide steel tubes and balance across skilfully, in the case of the PS3 version by using the SIXAXIS. What matters here is to keep a constant speed, so you land on the roof of the next skyscraper and not on the asphalt a few hundred metres further down. You know the way by red markings, and there are often several possible variations when it comes to choice of route.

As already mentioned, there are some weapons in the game, but they are of minor importance. Whether it is Benelli M3 Super 90, FN SCAR, Beretta 92, none of them will always be carried in your baggage. Weapons are principally taken off of enemies. With stylish kicks and tricks you wrest a shotgun from a law enforcement officer, wipe him off the roof with it and throw the weapon after him. It only hinders your acrobatic interludes and confines your movement. Weapons are merely used to get rid of obstacles in the way. Anyone who does not believe it gets a juicy kick!

We have not seen much of "Mirror's Edge", but whatever we have seen is brilliant. High-resolution textures, squeaky clean windows which reflect the sunlight and neatly cleaned roofs and facades as far as the eye can see. It is interesting that DICE have used the "Unreal Engine 3" instead of the in-house "Frostbite Engine". Apart from that the lighting technology "Beäst" of Illuminate Labs and the "PhysX" physics engine of NVIDIA are applied.