mirror’s edge

The Exposition Tyrant

  • Reading time:2 mins read

That tutorial in Mirror’s Edge… good grief. After a month with the game, I figured out something that is absolutely basic, yet I never clicked on before.

It’s the leg-tuck maneuver, which I knew was there, but I was led to think its use was limited to getting over really close call leaps, for instance if you’re jumping over barbed wire. It turns out it’s useful for everything. It lets you jump onto platforms more easily: lift up your legs to get more clearance. Places where I kept getting randomly snagged when clamboring around, now I can get past without slowing down.

The tutorial, again, made no effort to explain why this move is important or how it works. It just went, PRESS THIS NOW. NO! DO IT AGAIN! (But first watch this cutscene.) NO, DO IT AGAIN! (But first watch this cutscene.) It was like playing Call of Duty 4.

Ideally you’d be following that girl without any real break in the flow, and you’d have Valve-like “Press LT to tuck your legs” prompts passively pop up in the corner. Then you’d get subtly graded. If you did it wrong, it would say “You’re doing it wrong,” and the girl would explain the theory. “Lift your legs, girl! You gonna get tripped up!” Then she’d keep going. If you felt you needed more practice, you could just replay the tutorial. They could give the option at the end.

If you executed it very well, you’d get some kind of affirmation. Maybe just a “hell yeah!” from the girl. If you did all right, it would be something less exuberent. Or just nothing.

And heck, maybe they could string safety nets between the buildings, for the tutorial? Again, just to keep the flow?

Free fall freefall

  • Reading time:4 mins read

Going by the demo, which may be a dangerous thing to go by, Mirror’s Edge is pretty good. Not perfect; the tutorial segment leads you by the nose, without telling you how to do what it wants you to do, or what you did wrong when you don’t, then screams at you and forces you to start all over. As if the game weren’t hard enough.

Beyond that, I can see the difficulty they had in winnowing down the controls and clarifying what the player is able to do. The business with marking everything important in red is hackneyed, but clever in a desperate sort of way. It is intuitive, especially in how the color mirrors Faith’s gloves, and I suppose that’s all that matters in the short term. You can feel the band aids bulging, though. And it does make it just a touch more gamey. Still, I know how hard it is to illustrate these things, and how late the solutions tend to come.

I’m also impressed how they manage to continue the recent trend of strong woman protagonists without radiating that creepy Josh Lesnick aura or feeling like they’re pandering. Faith is a pretty good, no-nonsense lead, not unlike Alyx in Half-Life 2 or a Chell with a smidge of personality. Actually, now that I’m on the subject — I seem to say this about any comptently-designed Western game, and I’m not sure how I feel about that — it feels pretty Valveish. So does Bad Company, the other DICE game I’ve been playing, so maybe it’s just them. Those Swedes do tend to know what they’re doing.

…

And, yeah. Okay. I’m sold on this. The slight Gibson storyline is okay. Not sure they need the enemies; more videogame nonsense, and I don’t see what they have to do with the game’s themes. I wonder if those were at EA’s suggestion. Combined with the stunts, they give it a bit of a Jet Set Radio vibe. Except with free vertigo.

I had been noticing how, in other first-person games — like Bad Company, for instance — whenever I fall off a high ledge, my stomach quickly rises to my throat, the way it does when you watch a projection of a roller coaster. Except in this case, I feel like I’m legitimately about to die. So… I’ve been having an experience here.

EDIT:

Amandeep: the thing with the enemies in mirror’s edge –
i think up until pretty recently the game wasn’t going to have a gun or anything.
now i think there…is one, right?
and you do have to shoot shit.
i’m pretty much dead convinced that that came as some kind of order from on high at ea.
Me: Yeah, you have to shoot things.
It doesn’t fit at all.
Being able to punch guys and run away from them… okay, that… sort of makes sense, I guess.
Though it’s stll a bit awkward.
I mean, I don’t see the point of enemies. Your enemy (and friend) is the environment.
Amandeep: yeah, as recently as a couple months ago they were saying: no enemies, it’s going to be basically like portal.
Me: But if you’re going to have random bad guys after you, then a passive solution feels most natural.
Yes!
It feels like Portal.
Well. Jet Set Portal.
The Legend of Jet Set Portal.
Amandeep: the red stuff is fairly new too, i think.
before they were going on about how there’d be no hud elements whatsoever except a tiny little reticule pointing up in the center of the screen to keep you from getting dizzy.
Me: Oh. Well.
I guess I’m pretty observant, then.
These are the only things about it that I don’t like.
The red stuff… okay. It feels a bit Ubisoft, you know?
It’s not offensive. It’s just… a bit… duh.