Mirror’s Edge at times almost seems like a more fast-paced Portal
Having finished Fallout 3 last week, I decided to move onto Mirror’s Edge for my next single player game to focus on. I heard that the game was short, so I sort of wanted to knock it out of my backlog while it was still pretty new. In truth, yes the game’s storyline is quite short. There’s only 10 levels, and I was able to go through the Easy and Hard difficulties over this past weekend with each playthrough only taking about four hours. But if I want the 1000 points, I’m probably going to be playing it for another 15 hours or so due to the Time Trials and such. To be honest, there’s just not enough there for it to be a $60 title – $40 would have been a lot nicer considering it shares similarities to Portal and Portal was only one component of The Orange Box.
I enjoyed the game though. It’s a little bit bland to me since there’s not much gunplay or killing in this game. Maybe I’m too used to the adrenaline rush that comes from shooters, but Mirror’s Edge does have a certain appeal to it. A lot of the game seems to be you being pursued as you run, jump, and climb through areas as fast as you can. There is certainly a rush there, but it’s not a “dominating” adrenaline rush you get from shooters, but one of being prey – you’re running for your life!
Why does this game remind me of Portal? Well, it has a certain puzzle element to it, but instead of the comedic tones that give Portal much of its charm, Mirror’s Edge trades that in for a more “you’re on the run” style craziness. The game must have gotten some inspiration from the movie Run Lola Run. About half the time you are on the run like Lola, while the other half has you figuring out ways to get to another point at your own pace. It’s like Portal in that there are “obstacle” puzzles where you need to get from point A to point B by making use of the environment. One example is that you may find yourself in a room, and need to figure out how to climb up it in order to get to the vent to get out of the room before your pursuers get to you.
The swinging and grabbing on ledges antics also remind me of the Tomb Raider games on the original Playstation that I used to play, but in Mirror’s Edge everything is more frenetic so I wasn’t falling asleep like I did in Tomb Raider. Also, on the easier modes, environmental objects that can be used to progress are often indicated in red. However, there are other ways to progress besides the objects highlighted in red so they’re really just hints for new players. Often times they are not the fastest way to progress through a level but perhaps the easiest.
Now that I’ve gotten all of the Achievements in all of the story modes, one would think that I was practically done with the game right? Apparently, even after going through the game twice, I still haven’t spent half the time needed to get the full 1000 in the game. The remaining Achievements are related to the Time Trials and Speedrun modes, two modes that require a lot of practice and skill. In fact, it’s like a totally different game now since in the Story mode I took my time to do whatever I wanted, but these new modes mean the latter part of the game is now a racing game.
Speedrun and Time Trial are a bit different. Speedrun is actually just each level in the story mode but with a minimum time needed to qualify. I’m pretty shocked that to qualify for the Chapter 1 Speedrun time, I need to beat it in under 6 minutes. The only way to do so is to try things out for yourself, study YouTube videos, etc. so that you can make it under the target time. It feels basically like a car race now where you’re trying to do Qualifying Laps to determine your starting placement. One thing I’m not too happy about is that you have to go through the entire level. Almost all of them are too long for “racing” so if you mess up, there’s no checkpoint or anything to start over on; you have to start the Speedrun from the beginning of the level if you don’t make the qualifying 9 minute time or whatnot. At least in Portal, the longest any level would take was perhaps 2-3 minutes so you wouldn’t have to spend too much time if you messed up and had to restart.
Time Trials are a little different from Speedruns in that they’re smaller snippets of segments from a particular level. So while a Speedrun is the total time to complete the entire level, a Time Trial may only be the stairwell segment from that level as opposed to the whole thing. What’s also nice is that you can download Ghost data of the Time Trials from the Leaderboards and race them or learn from them. You can load their ghost data when you run the Time Trial, so you can see how these top players get through the section. The only problem though is that after the first few seconds, the ghost you’re trying to learn from is already long gone so you can’t see what they do later if you can’t stay caught up. The mode leaves some footprints so you get a minor idea of what the ghost target did, but based on what I’ve seen, I got a lot of work to do. Watching these pros simply jump off a certain wall and flipping off another one that I never would have thought of means I’m going to be learning and figuring things out for a while. Even stuff I see them do, I can’t do myself! Apparently I’m still a noob at this game even though I already beat it twice.
Last night, I spent 3 hours trying to make the 1 minute 15 second clear time for one of the 23 time trials. My wife was working next to me and I’m sure she didn’t appreciate me yelling in frustration every minute or so whenever I made a mistake and had to redo the time trial over those three hours. Each time trial is out of 3 stars with 3 stars being the shortest amount of time to beat it. Of course, I was shooting for the 3 stars. Can you believe it? 3 hours of trying the same 1 minute course over and over until I was able to make it under the clear time. Practically any mistake you make means you didn’t make the cut for the top 3 star rating. If I missed a walljump, didn’t do a roll landing, jumped too soon, hit the fence at the wrong angle, etc. – it was a restart. I finally got it and while it was nice to have gotten it, I can’t help but feel like I wasted 3 hours last night attempting to get it. I could have been playing a more enjoyable game at the time, but instead I was practically banging my head against the wall. I guess it’s like a love/hate relationship with this type of challenge. I don’t feel too fulfilled spending several hours trying to beat a 1 minute course, but if that’s what it takes to master the game, I’ll keep at it.
To be honest, this type of gameplay isn’t the most enjoyable for me since there’s more frustration there than enjoyment and it’s really dragged out in this game. In shooters, you may find yourself at a hard spot but if you pass it, you get the checkpoint and you can progress. For Mirror’s Edge the time trials and such have no checkpoint. You’re basically a figure skater giving an Olympic performance and you have to get through the thing perfectly to beat it. No checkpoints – just flawless execution for several minutes. After say the 10th attempt, I was already aware of what I had to do, but the next hundred or so attempts was trying to not mess up the entire string of acrobatics I had to make.
I guess that’s fine, as some people thrive on competition like this. That’s what Leaderboards are for right? It gave me a little sense of pride that I was able to beat the lowest times of the guys on my friends list that played the game. I guess at this rate though I’ll aim to clear one or two time trials each night, so I’ll be playing this game for a while. I don’t know if “playing” is the right word anymore though. After last night’s 3 hour session of frustrated yells I needed to switch over to something more cuddly and cute by the end of the night to alleviate my blood pressure!
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