On The Edge

After spending the last month or so just anticipating the release of Mirror's Edge, the wait is finally over.

At last!

I've gotten about five chapters into the story so far and it does indeed live up to what it was hyped to be. Things can be slow, with Faith (the main character) just moving across rooftops, then suddenly everything gets crazy a split second later.

And surely you could stand and fight off the cops as they swarm you. Or, as it was in my case, you could try and just die after taking several gunshots or a direct hit or two.

So as the hints might convey and as the story likes to point out, you are a Runner. And when anything more then a cop appears, you'd best be doing exactly that. And fast!

The graphics are beautiful, the city is alive and well *down below* and the environments have you jumping, flipping, sliding and scaling everything from railings, to rooftops and even electric fences. What's more, the game doesn't slow down when the action picks up and the sense of speed and freedom is just sick! I can just imagine what Mirror's Edge would look like on a HD TV.

One more thing about graphics that I felt a need to mention: The cut scenes.

The way the game play looks is one thing, but the style changes whenever a cut scene happens. How can I describe it? It is animated, looks much more cartoon-ish I suppose. Yet even while it does indeed look different, it still manages to blend into the overall style of the game and to me, it does not look out of place one bit.

The controls are easy to pick up and the opening tutorial does a good job at giving you the basic skills needed to survive in this crazy government-controlled world. However, speaking on my own behalf, remembering what buttons to string together can be a bitch to recall when you're running for your life and have numerous police firing at you (and everything around you). I have died many deaths in my failed attempts at escape...

Which brings me to something I can finally bitch and complain about. One thing that has gotten me swearing (not a lot, mind you... I swear!) has been the easy and constant deaths. Now this is nothing to fault the game at all, just merely something that is my fault for misjudging the distance between one rooftop to another. A nice touch to counter this is you'll usually pop back up near the point of your misguided jump (and subsequent death, complete with a crunch in some instances).

Overall, at this point in time I can firmly and confidently say that Mirror's Edge was worth the wait and more so the money. That, to me, speaks volumes for it because with the number of games that are either nearing release or have recently been, you'd better be something more then just 'okay.'

'Nuff said, I think it is about time to get back to dodging cops and leaping to my death! Whoops...

In other news, it looks as though I may get more game time in the near future. With the economy the way that it is, businesses (obviously) have experienced major decline in sales. Which has lead me to learn tonight that my hours at my second job had been cut *again* and that is bad for me. I mean I was down to 18 hours a week as it was and for my boss to call me and say "hey! I had to cut back everyone's hours" is just painful.

Ah hell, I guess that means it is time to put more hours back into my other job. Japanese gift sets, here I come! Blah!