Mirror's Edge

Author: Andy Fair
Published: 12th November 2008
Comments (44) Stumble

Combat and Free-running

Combat in Mirror's Edge is handled vastly differently to most of the current crop of games. The aim is not to run Faith straight into combat, all guns blazing – mainly because Faith doesn't have a gun. The aim is to avoid conflict wherever possible and run away as fast as you can.

If you really can't avoid combat, your best bet is to take your opponents on one at a time – try to take on more than one enemy and you will die. If there multiple enemies around, the best course of action you have is to try and pick one off in hand-to-hand combat, then pick up their gun to try and shoot the rest.

Faith isn't just limited to plain kicks and punches either – get close enough to your enemy and their weapon will turn red just before they use it. Press the right button at the right moment, and Faith will disarm and disable the poor fellow at the same time.

If you find this all happens too quickly, there is a bullet-time mode which is replenished when Faith runs at full speed. Even in slow motion, though, the flash of red can be too quick and getting a disarm right seems to be a bit of a hit and miss affair.

Mirror's Edge Mirror's Edge - Combat

Even when you manage to capture a gun though, don't expect to be able to run around like a female Bruce Willis. Apart from the fact that Faith can only take a few shots before dying, the guns you capture don't come with infinite ammo - expect a dozen shots at most from any stolen weapon. It's more like the Condemned series in that respect.

There’s no automatic aiming either, so most of the shots you fire will miss anyway (we are talking consoles here not a twitch happy keyboard and mouse), especially when machine guns have recoil that end up with you shooting at the ceiling. When you add all of this together, it's obvious that Mirror's Edge is balanced towards running away or unarmed single combat at a push. You're just not cut out for anything more, but as a petit east Asian girl rather than the usual "super soldier" built from bricks and testosterone, it's hardly surprising.

Still, the AI of the enemies sometimes leaves you wondering. Run into a corridor and you'll get shot to pieces. Duck around the corner and the enemy will stop shooting, but nobody will come to investigate. It's sometimes possible to stand right in front of a group of enemies without them noticing, but walk up behind one and they'll somehow know that you're there. Baffling.

Mirror's Edge Mirror's Edge - Combat

The one obvious thing you’ll notice about Mirror's Edge is that there’s no HUD either, nor any other kind of screen clutter. The only vaguely HUD-related item on the screen is a small targeting dot in the middle of the screen which glows blue when you're able to go into bullet time mode.

Apart from targeting assistance, this dot is also there to help those who may suffer from motion sickness – the game is remorselessly first-person, even when Faith is performing her acrobatics, and the dot gives those people something to focus on. Be warned if you're scared of heights too – there are some real vertigo inducing scenes, especially as you jump between cranes perched on the top of skyscrapers.

Since there's no screen estate lost with information about useless concepts like quantifiable health or knowing exactly how much ammo you've left, the sense of immersion is intensified, especially when you're running around at full pelt. In what is a rarity in first-person games, if you look down, you'll also notice that you have a body. No camera floating at about head height, no disembodied gun-toting hands – a fully functioning body. As you run, your feet move; as you jump, they'll tuck up underneath you; as you land, they'll stretch out to absorb the shock.

Combine that with the fantastic sound effects in the game – the way Faith pants as she runs, groans as she takes damage and so on – and it really helps to increase the dizzying sense of immersion that is the primary strength of Mirror’s Edge.

Shopping



Dragonage