Mirror's Edge™

For an old action game I felt quite entertained.

...and it's a hell lot of fun. I love this game and the series it started. Mostly you run around, full speed, sprinting acorss rooftops and climbing from ledge to ledge. What sounds rather monotonous, is actually a blast. Always trying to keep the momentum up, looking for the fastest way forward. Every now and then, you get to shoot some guns, but it's very bare bone. The setting and story is interesting but not that memorable. I also love the color palette chosen. The runners vision is a neat detail to guide the player. The minimal UI and first person perspective makes things very immersive.

GOOD: Jaw-droppingly gorgeous coloring | Fun parkour | Is not too long | Has focus. You are a squishy runner first and foremost, who has limited self-defense capabilities if/when necessary | Weapons have actual mass in this game | New, interesting game world ~~~ BAD: Checkpoint save system forces repetition onto you when you die in a level | Story is somewhat washed out. There's barely any background information on the game world | Runner bag collectibles force you to waste time on exploring every nook and cranny of the levels if you want 100% completion, which goes completely against the spirit of the 'flow' of the game | Console-itis with the accompanying occasional FPS drops

Very good game, unique, there's nothing else like it out there. I loved the parkour gameplay, the art, the music and the main character's design. The graphics are great. The story isn't that good but that's not important in this type of game. Most criticisms are directed to the short length of the game and the combat mechanics. I didn't find it too short actually, because I think a gameplay focused on parkour can't really give more than 10 hours (I finished the game in around 13 hours) without getting repetitive. The combat is... clumsy but I think it's really hard to get the balance right with the first game of this type (focused on parkour in first person perspective), a type of game in which you want combat to actually be like the last resort and something you should avoid most of the time.

This game like few others houses an absolutely beatiful city, and also actually let's you go to town on it with your running shoes. It's fun to parkour around the city and it's mostly easy to find where to go thank's to clever design. It's however a cult-classic for a reason, it's short length and rough but distinctly stylized animated cut-scenes that remind me of old cartoons like Kim Possible. If you can dig that, cool, if not, try the sequel instead. Because this game feels kinda like a tech-demo of a game that was never fully realised.