When you're leaping around it's awesome, when you're not....
Pros
- Good sense of movement.
- Melee combat though generally not the option you'll choose is fun and well animated.
- In a world where every other game is grey and brown, the bright colors in this title make for a welcome change.
Cons
- Gun play isn't quite as fun, though when push comes to shove it's generally the combat option you'll take because it's quicker.
- Coming across sections where the next course of action isn't immediately obvious breaks the flow of all the neat acrobatic stuff you get to do.
- It's short.
- Didn't find the characters, the world, it's dilemma's to be especially interesting. Same goes for those animated cut scenes.
Not a whole lot to say here.
You play as Faith. You're a Runner, which basically seem to be underground errand boy/girls who deliver goods, Intel, whatever by leaping from building to building.
Theres more to it then that, but I honestly didn't find the plot or any of the characters to be likeable, so I'm not going to dwell on it. We'll say I don't approve and leave it at that.
The game plays better.
At least it is while you're running around, for the most part.
Jumping from building to building, leaping over and sliding beneath obstacles, figuring out the fastest routes. Note that I'm not saying the game is open world, just that on occasion there is more then one way to progress - not that it really makes a difference in the end.
So all the acrobatic stuff flows quite well but eventually you'll hit a dead end at which point you'll usually have to look around - typically up and down - to find which way it is you need to go.
These dead ends break up the flow of all the fast paced movement quite severely.
Enemies can also break up the flow somewhat.
Sometimes you can just run right by them, but later in the game confrontation is quite difficult to avoid and unless you're going for the not-firing-any-guns achievement there really is no reason not to disarm them and shoot up the joint a little.
It's a lot faster then trying to melee them and it'll save you a lot of frustration, they can take you out quite quick.
Melee combat is fun. You have a couple of different attacks you can do, as well as disarming your opponent and jacking their guns. The gun play isn't quite as fun.
Guns are effective, but they aren't really fun to use. Theres no kick to them.
Enemies won't splatter blood even a little.
If it weren't the easiest way to progress through some places I'd have avoided the guns altogether.
In fact if I could I'd probably avoid the combat altogether.
This game is at it's best when it's focused on the platforming, but it keeps shoving guys with guns in front of you - especially later in the game.
The game looks good enough.
It's more colorful then the average FPS is these days, which is something.
I like me some grim dark stuff, but something a little brighter now and then wouldn't hurt.
Only problem I have is with the red.
Red in the game generally points out which way you should be going. Fine.
But in at least one or two sections of the game the entire room shows up red and you're left scratching your head and poking around everywhere like an idiot.
Sounds are okay. Voice acting doesn't really stand out in anyway, but it's not annoying.
Musics fine, what little there is. It's non-intrusive.
The biggest complaint I have against the game is that it's way, way, way too short.
Shortest game I've played in a while and I've played Fable 2. Even that went for 12 hours and even after I had finished it I still felt like playing it. I managed to finish Mirrors Edge in 5 hours and that's despite getting stuck in spots and having to look around in the same area for where I'm meant to go for 20 minutes before making progress. I dare say if I didn't find myself getting confused in spots I would've shaved another hour off that.
After you're done with the story theres time trials, speed runs and whatnot to do.
But I'm not finding that stuff compelling enough to really rope me back in.
In my book as soon as the stories over it's over and in this game it's over fast.
It's not a bad game.
Leaping around the roof tops and being all acrobatic evokes a feeling similar to that of when I'm playing a Spiderman game and I'm just swinging around New York, jumping around buildings and whatnot. It's relaxing. The games acrobatic portions are relaxing. The combat is average at it's best and mind numbingly dull at it's worst and it's all wrapped up in a story that I didn't care about, played out by characters I didn't care about in a world that I just did not care about.
Give it a rental. It's worth at least a look because of the good sense of movement it manages to portray, it does a good job of putting the first person in FPS.
