Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Mirror's Edge: First Impressions

Just started playing Mirror's Edge a couple days ago; I'm about a third of the way through. Some initial thoughts:

  1. You die a lot, which can be incredibly frustrating. However, it's the kind of frustration that is due to a steep learning curve, rather than seemingly insurmountable difficulties or a game system rigged against the player. Once you accomplish a particularly difficult maneuver, the frustration quickly turns into a warm glow of accomplishment--until you screw up the next move and die again.
  2. Figuring out when to jump when you can't see your feet is really hard. If you jump too early, you don't go far enough, and you plummet off a skyscraper to your death. Jump too late and, well, you don't jump, you just perform the aforementioned plummet.
  3. Most of the stunts you perform would look much cooler if you could actually see yourself performing them. Mirror's Edge is kind of like watching Olympic figure skating through a camera duct-taped to Michelle Kwan's forehead.
  4. I'm trying to play the game without ever shooting anyone. This is really freaking hard, because everyone ELSE has guns, and they're not even remotely shy about using them.

In sum, it's fun, but it's going to take me a while, and it's probably not a good game for you if you get frustrated easily.