Mirror's Edge Catalyst (2016)

Well, I wanted to really like this game and I am trying to give it the benefit of the doubt but, boy is this game just wrongheaded from the get go. So many problems in every moment of gameplay, but I think they all are born from the cursed seed of the open world.

I don't know if I'm going to keep playing. It's such a shame.

I tried to play this a few year ago but my PC at the time couldn't handle it, so I'm trying again now. I loved the first game and know that this one is not well regarded, but still.

Now, I don't know if my memory is distorted by nostalgia but, doesn't the the first game look graphically better than the first one? I remember the city looking incredible, full of bright, contrasting colours and strong lighting. This one looks... dull? Gray? I don't know what it is.

I think it might have to do with the baked-in lighting of the original that allowed the designers to have high-quality lights and shadows. Catalyst has dynamic shadows which don't look nearly as good, I think.

Here's the rub.

This isn't a bad game, as I said. In fact, it's not a bad game at all. It's perfectly fine. Daresay, it's the definition of adequate. But therein lies one issue that spoils it, and that is the fact that EA, in their grandest of wisdoms, decided to make it open world. On the whole, you'd think this wouldn't be a problem, until you realize that this franchise works BECAUSE of its linearity. Now you've removed the rush, the exhilaration and replaced it with time trials and 500 (not even kidding) collectibles. What once was based on the concept of fast paced movement has now become nothing more than another bland, boring set of "well, guess I gotta do this" checkpoints to mark off.

And somehow, despite this, the world feels even emptier than the first. The first game, with all its straight forwardness and linearity, somehow felt more real and more full and like a real city and setting...than this. This is so empty that it feels like a Holodeck simulation. Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better. Yes, you've expanded the size, but you forgot to put anything in it. You can have a cornucopia of ideas, but unless you make those ideas work, it's still just a cornucopia of ideas, nothing more.

It's a weird dichotomy. This is a game with a serious identity crisis. On the one hand, it's exactly the same as its predecessor. It's got the same stark but pleasing visuals, the same basic but enjoyable storyline, and the same smooth gameplay. And yet, it's nothing like its predecessor because it's crammed to the gills with completely unnecessary aspects that often bog down open world titles. This isn't Assassins' Creed, EA, it's Mirror's Edge. It's a niche title with a very specific gametype, and here you are once again turning into a mess.

And it could've worked, that's the kicker. There was a way to make this work. Dying Light did it. Dying Light is all parkour, but also open world. They somehow found a way to make the two co-mingle in a way that doesn't feel forced. But EA didn't do that. This game feels like the equivalent of a sequel released 10 years after the fact that's got nothing to do with its prior incarnation outside of IP recognition. Brand name alone. That's what drove it.

It's playable. It's perfectly playable. Hell, it's even kinda enjoyable, but only, and ONLY, if you ignore all the completely unnecessary open world elements and instead stick primarily to the plot. Even then, the setpieces aren't nearly as memorable or as fun to traverse, but it's still essentially the same as the first. I'd like to think EA would see this as an example of why open world doesn't work for every title (it actually doesn't work most of the time in general but that's a whole other discussion nobody is ready to have yet), but I know they'll instead pin their failings on the consumer, and not the industry. Why would they ever blame themselves.

EA has gone from being a really ahead of their time developer to playing catchup, existing primarily off milking long since dead IP's based purely on recognition and brand name alone. The fact that they chopped out entire segments of crucial plot points from Mass Effect 3 and then released them as DLC after the fact, kinda proves how awful they've become. In fact, so much of EA titles now are just "here's the base, and we'll release all the content later in the year for 15 dollars a pop, because fuck you."

EA. It's in the game. You just have to pay more to access it.