StompingFreak
26-08-2008, 07:37 AM
3 Comments"I don't always make this one," says the developer, easing the analogue stick forward to walk Faith to the edge of the roof and show us the impossible distance between this tower and the next.
It's vertigo-inducing just peering down at the traffic dozens of storeys below; the idea of passing over it is dizzying. The room takes a collective breath as Faith walks away, turns, runs back and hurls herself off the side of the building, daring the empty air to swallow her up before she can land on the other side. This is Mirror's Edge.
It'd probably be wrong to call Mirror's Edge an FPS, though that's what everyone's going to see in it at first glance. Everything takes place from a first-person perspective, sure, and free-running protagonist Faith sees more than her share of fights, but at its heart Mirror's Edge works like a platformer.
Levels are urban obstacle courses, and your goal is to navigate them as smoothly as possible.
Not that Faith is to be confused with the French show-offs we've got running about today. To her, running is a job.
In the nameless city where Mirror's Edge is set, everything and everyone is watched at all times, and hiring a Runner to navigate the city's rooftops is your best bet to deliver something quickly, privately and in style.
Naturally, this all goes pear-shaped for Faith a couple of levels into the game when her sister's taken in by the police for a crime she didn't commit, and from there it's up to you and your Parkour skills to help her out.
It's weird, but what's really exciting about this game isn't the premise, or that it's coming from the Battlefield guys, or that we know precious little about it (gamer optimism is up there with gravity in terms of the universe's unsolved mysteries).
What looks amazing about Mirror's Edge is the weight and feel Faith moves with. Anyone who has an eyebrow currently reaching desperately for the ceiling should go play Gears of War. Weight is important; it draws you into the game world and makes skilled play beautifully satisfying. And Mirror's Edge has it in spades.
Whether Faith's climbing a fence, leaping a gap, running along a wall or kicking a gun out of someone's hands, she does it with enough force to make you wince. Even running along produces a nice huffing and puffing. But despite the camera wobble and control delay, DICE has somehow made all this so it doesn't seem unhelpful.
Even when Faith goes into a roll there's no player nausea, with the camera mainly seeing nothing but a blurred floor before your vision snaps back into place.
As for controls, it's all nice and simple. For your athletics you have an up button and a down button, and... that's it. Press up when you're running, and you jump. Press up when you're about to hit a ledge, and you'll pull yourself on instead of dangling down by your fingers. Press down when you're running and you slide. Press down just when you hit the ground after a jump, you'll go into a roll.
This is all simple, intuitive stuff, although don't expect to pair it with any of the guns lying around for bullet-fu action. Without her hands free, Faith's as acrobatic as... well, just about every other FPS protagonist ever.
Fortunately she's good with her hands, and your melee attacks do vary depending on how you're moving when you initiate them. One example we saw was Faith bouncing off from a wall run to catch a policeman in the face with a flying kick.
Thinking about what all this would be like in multiplayer tends to end in the need for a cup of tea and a little lie-down. The guys at DICE are being tight-lipped about the online side of Mirror's Edge, but from their cagey answers you can assume they've got something special in mind.
If this game plays as good as it looks, and there's a Cops and Runners multiplayer mode, well, we're not going to say it'd be the best thing ever. But it'd be very, very close.
http://medialib.oxm.co.uk/screens/screenshot_5924.jpg
Source (http://www.oxm.co.uk/article.php?id=5844)
It's vertigo-inducing just peering down at the traffic dozens of storeys below; the idea of passing over it is dizzying. The room takes a collective breath as Faith walks away, turns, runs back and hurls herself off the side of the building, daring the empty air to swallow her up before she can land on the other side. This is Mirror's Edge.
It'd probably be wrong to call Mirror's Edge an FPS, though that's what everyone's going to see in it at first glance. Everything takes place from a first-person perspective, sure, and free-running protagonist Faith sees more than her share of fights, but at its heart Mirror's Edge works like a platformer.
Levels are urban obstacle courses, and your goal is to navigate them as smoothly as possible.
Not that Faith is to be confused with the French show-offs we've got running about today. To her, running is a job.
In the nameless city where Mirror's Edge is set, everything and everyone is watched at all times, and hiring a Runner to navigate the city's rooftops is your best bet to deliver something quickly, privately and in style.
Naturally, this all goes pear-shaped for Faith a couple of levels into the game when her sister's taken in by the police for a crime she didn't commit, and from there it's up to you and your Parkour skills to help her out.
It's weird, but what's really exciting about this game isn't the premise, or that it's coming from the Battlefield guys, or that we know precious little about it (gamer optimism is up there with gravity in terms of the universe's unsolved mysteries).
What looks amazing about Mirror's Edge is the weight and feel Faith moves with. Anyone who has an eyebrow currently reaching desperately for the ceiling should go play Gears of War. Weight is important; it draws you into the game world and makes skilled play beautifully satisfying. And Mirror's Edge has it in spades.
Whether Faith's climbing a fence, leaping a gap, running along a wall or kicking a gun out of someone's hands, she does it with enough force to make you wince. Even running along produces a nice huffing and puffing. But despite the camera wobble and control delay, DICE has somehow made all this so it doesn't seem unhelpful.
Even when Faith goes into a roll there's no player nausea, with the camera mainly seeing nothing but a blurred floor before your vision snaps back into place.
As for controls, it's all nice and simple. For your athletics you have an up button and a down button, and... that's it. Press up when you're running, and you jump. Press up when you're about to hit a ledge, and you'll pull yourself on instead of dangling down by your fingers. Press down when you're running and you slide. Press down just when you hit the ground after a jump, you'll go into a roll.
This is all simple, intuitive stuff, although don't expect to pair it with any of the guns lying around for bullet-fu action. Without her hands free, Faith's as acrobatic as... well, just about every other FPS protagonist ever.
Fortunately she's good with her hands, and your melee attacks do vary depending on how you're moving when you initiate them. One example we saw was Faith bouncing off from a wall run to catch a policeman in the face with a flying kick.
Thinking about what all this would be like in multiplayer tends to end in the need for a cup of tea and a little lie-down. The guys at DICE are being tight-lipped about the online side of Mirror's Edge, but from their cagey answers you can assume they've got something special in mind.
If this game plays as good as it looks, and there's a Cops and Runners multiplayer mode, well, we're not going to say it'd be the best thing ever. But it'd be very, very close.
http://medialib.oxm.co.uk/screens/screenshot_5924.jpg
Source (http://www.oxm.co.uk/article.php?id=5844)