In spirit of the recent rumors, we take A Look Back At 2008’s Mirror’s Edge.

Mirror’s Edge is a First Person Action-Adventure (and subtle FPS), developed by DICE and published by EA. It is the second video game to implement the parkour/free-running lifestyle, the first being the 2003 Prince of Persia reboot. The game failed to reach its targeted sales number, despite it’s critical acclaim, however, in later years Mirror’s Edge would go on to become a cult classic.

Look out below!

Mirror’s Edge stars female protagonist Faith, a young woman who is a runner. A parkour/free-runner that is similar to a delivery person, but what they take from point a to b are packages that have Government interests. Faith is chased down through multiple paths by armed gunmen as they attempt to kill her and her crew.

Faith during down time.

THE GOOD: Mirror’s Edge is a beautifully crafted game, the buildings and sights are well made thanks to the Unreal engine. For some odd reason DICE decided on going for 2D animated cut scenes instead of using in-game for most of the story based scenes, this isn’t bad they came out pretty great in the end. The in-game graphics are nothing to over look either. the music was also composed beautifully.

An example of Mirror’s Edge’s beautiful scenery.

The gameplay was fun, running from point a to point b, almost never got old. The game is very fast paced, and when you were being chased by enemies you would have to think quickly due to always having to be on the move, which made things a very fun challenge. Using color to guide the player was a fun idea. This game doesn’t seem like something a casual would enjoy in the long run, but using the guide style that DICE chose is a nice way of attempting them to get into it.

Color is key in this game, no really it is.

Hand to hand combat felt pretty solid, there were opportunities where you could disarm your opponent by either taking the weapon yourself, or take the weapon and throw it away. You could do this manually  or use the sixaxis controller (PS3 only). There’s also bullet time used in this game, it’s mostly to make disarms easier, but could also be used for tough landings during a free-run moment of the game.

One of the many disarms in Mirror’s Edge.

THE BAD: There were times when the free-running didn’t work, this was especially difficult when you had to make a pretty high jump. The color guide wasn’t always clear, in fact during chase scenes it got extremely confusing to figure out where was the next point, which again  was fun, but total hell while trying to avoid an ambush, and all you could do was run.

Scenes like this became difficult when relying on the color scheme.

The free-running didn’t always work either, when you knew you made a landing, you’d end up dying regardless. When you were in a group surrounding and enemies began to close in on you, it became almost impossible to escape the situation without dying. This became a frequent happening in the later parts of the game.

Scenes like this became frequent unfortunately.

THE UGLY: Weaponry was heavily flawed, but when you remember the fact that this isn’t an FPS you get over this rather quickly.

This game used guns?

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Mirror’s Edge is a fun, unique, and original game with some nice innovations, but isn’t short of flaws. Free-running was fun, but didn’t always work, the music and graphics are beautiful. Group battles became frustrating, and the shooting mechanics were off, but this game wasn’t meant to be a shooter.

Mirror’s Edge is a great game, despite its flaws, it’s still quite deserving of a sequel, and something you should definitely consider picking up now that it’s in the bargain bin. Otaku Dome gives Mirror’s Edge an A Look Back At score of 90 out of 100.