I feel like I should warn everyone before I begin this preview that it is not my intention to build the sort of pre-release hype for Mirror's Edge that eventually led to the downfall and critical backlash after the release of Assassin's Creed.
Certainly the two titles -- two games that rely heavily on the kinetic joy found in simple movement -- have their similarities, but it's my hope that Mirror's Edge, more than the earlier title, will avoid tripping over its own overinflated hype and will actually manage to deliver on its promise.
Of course I wouldn't be saying that if I wasn't completely enamored with what I've seen of the game so far, so why don't I tell you all why this game, more than any other that I saw at GDC, has me crossing every free digit I have in the hopes that EA actually manages to live up to their own hype?
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Mirror's Edge
- is the story of Faith, a runner in a near-future alternate reality that resembles a combination of present-day San Francisco, Aeon Flux and The Matrix.
Runners are basically messengers.
In this world people have developed an Orwellian paranoia toward electronic communication (even Google!) and any information important enough to be sent from person to person is now sent via runners, like our female protagonist.
Of course, the paranoia gripping the populace isn't entirely unfounded as Faith finds herself under attack by mysterious government forces throughout the story, presumably for the information she carries.
Thankfully Faith isn't your typical high-school dropout UPS employee. She's equipped with a wealth of acrobatic maneuvers likely to trigger fond memories of the chase scenes in The Matrix in both players and anyone watching the ballet of kinetic movements unfold.
"If Faith is being chased by the government why doesn't she just shoot them?" I hear the 13-year-old FPS junkies in the back asking.
Obviously that would be the convenient answer if this game were designed by a Bleszinski or a Jaffe, but refreshingly the game's developers have taken a staunch "no guns" stance to the in-game action.
The government agents of course carry projectile weaponry, but Faith must rely first on her ability to dodge, pirouette and dive out of the way of her pursuers, and if that fails, she turns to an amalgamated form of martial arts that relies heavily on the same acrobatics she uses to navigate the rooftop environments she finds herself running through.
Alarmingly, all this is accomplished with a traditional first-person view of the world.
If that sounds like it might be a bit disorienting, particularly while flipping over fences or kicking sub machineguns out of the hands of Rayban-wearing suits, you're not entirely wrong.
The entire game is designed to give gamers a "feeling of motion" in both the available actions and the constantly swaying screen, so while motion sickness is an initial concern, your eyes quickly adjust and eventually the experimental view proves engrossing and adds to the tension in the game's fight-or-flight scenarios.
As I said above, the game seemingly echoes key facets of The Matrix, and what would The Matrix be without its omnipresent "Bullet Time" effect?
In Mirror's Edge, Faith uses a similar ability called "Runner Sense" to both highlight the best routes through the city and, of course, to slow time when convenient.
To demonstrate Runner Sense, the developer approached the ledge of a building while being tightly followed by the malevolent agents.
Looking down, the onlookers were struck with a sense of vertigo as we realized the jump we were about to virtually make was almost 30 feet across, and below there was almost 100 feet of nothing but sharp steel and hard cement.
Taking a few steps back, the developer controlling the demonstration activated Runner Sense, dashed toward the edge and leapt, landing a few feet short of the other side of the gap.
Incredibly, instead of falling to her death, Faith snagged a hold of a drainpipe hanging from the opposite building and begain scrabbling up the side of the cement wall.
Short of landing on a perfectly cracked slab on the other side and hearing Keanu mutter "Whooaa" the moment couldn't have been more perfectly lifted from the mind of the Wachowski siblings.
Normally this is the point where I'd be pointing out the various flaws present in the game, but honestly I'm completely in love with what I was shown.
My only concern now is that this game might falter under restrictive deadlines, early hype or publisher pressure.
I'll be keeping my fingers crossed until the title is finally released -- hopefully during 2009 -- and if EA can live up to what they showed us at GDC, Mirror's Edge could easily contend for game of the year.
