Mirror's Edge

Platformers have fallen out of fashion in the last five years. Once the dominant genre, they have fallen behind FPSs and sandbox titles in the popularity stakes. The days of brilliant Sonic games - even licensed games that were actually good - are long gone. Only Mario seems to hold on, aided occasionally by Ratchet and Clank. The arrival of Mirror’s Edge seeks to reinvigorate and redefine the fading genre, mainly by employing a first-person perspective. This viewpoint has rarely been used in platformers before and gives the game a freshness that makes it easy to ignore its numerous flaws.

What immediately strikes you about this game is its clean, modernist graphical style. With a combination of bright blues and reds among a stark white backdrop, you could easily mistake it as IKEA’s vision of the future instead of just a video game. This art style is perfectly in keeping with its setting: a totalitarian future in which people avoid the streets. To combat the unjust power of the government, an underground network of “runners” has been set up to deliver secret information, with your character, Faith, a key player. Her world is throw into despair, though, when she finds her sister over the dead body of the Pope. The subsequent plot sees her trying to clear her sister's name.

Let's be clear: the story is pretty standard fare. It does serve, however, as a decent backdrop for Mirror's Edge major draw: its unique gameplay. Those familiar with the new sport of Parkour will immediately grasp the idea behind Mirror’s Edge, as you will need to rely upon combining jumps, rolls and even wall running to escape the enemies and to progress through each level. Although the main path through the story is very linear, progress can usually be approached in two ways. The pacifist method, of running away from enemies as they try to gun you down, is how it's meant to be played, but you can also go gun-ho by stealing the enemies’ weapons and letting fire. While this is a welcome option to have, the gunplay is loose and unfulfilling compared to say Halo or Gears of War.

Free running is basically the best way to play, as Mirror's Edge excels when reduced to its basics. Running away from enemies - while jumping onto slim ledges at great heights - provides unique thrills and the viewpoint grants a kind of immersion that can be lacking in, for instance, the Prince of Persia series. It also benefits from a greater reliance on set pieces. The best moments come when you are forced into a corner and have to think on your feet: one scenario saw me with a helicopter close in pursuit, with nowhere to go but to scale across a crane, which acted as a bridge between two buildings, and jump to safety on the other side. If you’ve seen the opening of Casino Royale, you can imagine how awe-inspiring this set-piece is.

In spite of its break away from traditional forms, Mirror's Edge is also quite an easy game to pick up and play. While it may take a while to grasp the controls (pressing a shoulder button to jump feels odd at first), the game employs a series of visual hints to guide the player. Objects coloured red have to jumped off or interacted with, so the player is unlikely to get bogged down, not knowing where to go. One associated drawback, though, is that it can feel on-rails at times, with little to no exploration and no pause for breath. It's all about the retro feel, which makes it more exhilarating, but this may frustrate the modern player accustomed to more freedom.

After all the new ideas on offer, it's a shame then that Mirror’s Edge is almost criminally short. Completing the story mode will probably take under a week, and for a game so reliant upon its single-player, this makes you feel short changed. There is a time trial to add to the game’s lifespan, with a leaderboard of the best times, but this option is only likely to interest avid gamers. This lack of value, along with its frustrating combat, means that Mirror’s Edge ultimately fails to deliver on its limitless promise. While it's not for the faint hearted nor those looking for great depth, if you enjoy games that get the blood pumping, you won’t go wrong by taking a running jump straight into Mirror’s Edge.