Mirror's Edge (2008)

Bright but dystopian future where modern forms of transportation are heavily monitored. Here enter the ‘runners’ who must ferry data and documents on behalf of their employers. I love this premise. Everything is gorgeous. The controls could be so much better. They were literally killing me every few seconds it felt like. It might simply be a case where I’m the problem and need to put in the time to better learn the systems.

Given how quickly I picked up the traversal mechanics in Titanfall 2 and how much better those felt, I have a suspicion it’s not just me. I understand ME is supposed to be much more grounded parkour compared to a TF2 game. While that may be true After three or so missions and a prologue the controls just never clicked. I’m going to keep at it though...

for a couple of months, my brother had PSN for free in 2012 or 2013. I started playing Mirror's Edge, Okami HD, & MAYBE Shadow of the Colossus or Ico? Never got close to completing those games (bad habit) but found a physical copy of the SOTC/ICO Collection. I'm unsure if I bought Okami or if I still have access to Mirror's Edge (on PS3). Funny enough, I have a note on here that was supposed to be a reminder to check if I have a copy of those last two games here on Grouvee from three years ago. Oops. Well. Maybe keeping all this info in one place will help me, so here's another reminder to me to check + finish these games (Can I still even buy these games? Hopefully at a discount on PS3 too?).

I'm also uploading a screenshot of my trophies so I hope this status is long enough that it will truncate or at least grouvee members aren't online so they don't have to suffer my post. pictures/youtube embeds usually show up very large on grouvee and since I have a screenshot feature that lets me capture really long screenshots, I posted ones longer than this one privately.

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Started playing this for the first time last night. I picked it up after my wife said she’d enjoyed it, prompted by the Mirror’s Edge Catalyst theme I’d once used on my PS4 account.

While the characters look pretty 2008, and the 2D cut-scenes are rather poor, everything else looks wonderful even by today’s standards. Perhaps it’s something about the colour scheme and lighting effects… And in terms of gameplay, I’m mostly enjoying it. I used to avoid FPP action games (which is one of the reasons I missed Mirror’s Edge until now), assuming that I’d find them too disorientating to have much fun—and I didn’t expect that platforming would work from a first-person perspective—but I’ve been pleasantly surprised so far.

The controls take a little getting used to, though, and I’m not quite comfortable with combat yet. Also, the placement of checkpoints can be a little annoying/inconsistent sometimes: for example, I had to replay the whole descent into the storm drain in the ‘Jacknife’ chapter umpteen times, when there really should’ve been at least one checkpoint midway through that section—while other checkpoints felt almost too generously close.

i'm astounded?? that the devs apparently thought the mission where you infiltrate the security company would remotely work gameplay-wise. you're somehow supposed to outrun the entire cast of cirque du soleil while climbing obstacles way slower than they can twirl around the place. at one point a dude shows up directly in front of you and it's nearly impossible, in my experience, to dodge him properly and keep running, and the best part: you can't even disarm him, he just punches the shit out of you instead. so, ok, i figure you need to punch back and knock him out, BUT REMEMBER! you have like 10 other people already on your trail, and they're very fast. much faster than you. because fuck you, i guess.

i'm probably going to keep banging my head against this one (casually) just to see if i can make it, but i caved and read the story on wikipedia just in case i give up lol. i figured it wouldn't be anything special, and i was right. the celeste reveal was glaringly visible all the way from jupiter for anyone who knows narrative tropes, and the rest is nothing i haven't seen done a hundred times before.

anyway, more in my review to come.

getting really frustated with controls at this point. they still feel nice and responsive 90% of the time, but stuff like wallriding seems to be pretty much a cointoss as to whether it'll stick or not. i just climbed the same section 20 times over and finally gave up for the day.

sometimes i wish there was just a "skip puzzle/battle/etc." button in games, both for accessibility reasons and for stuff like this. i know what to do and how to do it, the game simply won't let me. so give me the option to skip chapter entirely or something similar and save me some grief.