I’m Still Alive. I Can’t Apologise – Mirror’s Edge

The Stats

Title: Mirror’s Edge

Genre: FPS/Platformer

Format: XBox 360, Playstation 3 and PC

Release: Worldwide: November 2008

Summary

In a city that is seemingly clean cut and simple, there lie some hidden and dark secrets. There are things that the authorities want to keep from the public, and there are some things the people want kept from the authorities. In this city, Runners take it upon themselves to transport messages and items to locations around the city. They keep away from the cops and they do it from the rooftops.

One Runner, by the name of Faith, grew up in rough times. Her childhood was punctured by the death of her mother in a protest that turned into a riot. She hated her father for his inability to face reality, and left him and her younger sister (Kate) behind for a life of thievery and living on the streets. Fate had other plans when it decided to let a Runner called Mercury catch her stealing from his aparrtment. Mercury trained Faith to be a Runner and is now one of the best on his team

One day Faith decides to pay a visit to a friend of her father, Robert Pope, who is a mayor candidate, but things turn sour when he is found dead in his office, and her sister Kate is held in custody for his murder.

Presentation

What you see here are in game screenshots. Delicious, right? Everything is so clean and crisp. Man, even the use of only primary colours, secondary colours and white is spot on. Some people don’t like it, but I think it gives the game a “new age” feel, just like the game’s official song “Still Alive”. I also like this direction because it’s not pretentious and is very different from the usual “so dark you need to adjust your TV” stuff the self proclaimed hardcore crowd go for.

I have the Xbox 360 version, and, admittedly, the PS3 version seems slightly superior in terms of graphic capability. Of course, that shouldn’t matter anyway because it looks gorgeous enough on the 360. However, this is a slight downfall for the game. It’s so huge, the creators could only fit 8 hours of playtime in, combined with really long load times (which the new install feature on the 360 doesn’t even affect). However, Dice did well to not have any glitches. It’s a “clean” game; both artistically and technically.

Sound

Not much to say here. The voice acting is very good. It’s slightly cheesy at times, but I like some cheese with my action movies/games. The sound effects are spot on, and feel so much more real due to the level of immersion.

As for music, it’s great. Every piece fits in perfectly, and all the music is good to listen to. Also, the theme song that’s been kicking around recently, Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky, is one of my new favourite songs. I don’t know what it is, but something about that song is so beautiful yet melancholic.

Gameplay

The movement is pretty standard. However, some moves are context sensitive. For example, pressing LB does “upward movement”, which can be jumping, wall running, vaulting, gaining momentum or height, etc. Pressing LT initiates “downward movement”, such as crouching, sliding and rolling. Dice have done very well to get all these many contexts to fit into one button press. It’s good stuff.

The other important aspect is Runner Vision. Basically, this tells you where to go, or offers clues. What it does is highlight objects and routes in red that may aid you in escaping quicker or getting past an obstacle. However, it’s not present in Hard difficulty for obvious reasons.

There are a couple of other important features. First is reaction time. First, you need to build up reaction time by building up momentum from running. Now, as you might have guessed, reaction time slows down the game and gives you more time to react to an enemy. This is most useful in disarming (which I will come to shortly) since the disarming needs near perfect timing. It can be used in other ways, but I found it most useful for disarming.

To disarm, you need to initiate the disarm action the instant you see the enemy’s weapon flash red (unless you’re playing on Hard difficulty). Pressing Y activates the disarm. Each disarm technique varies from level to level. Some involve Faith doing a kick to the face that comes back does a choke hold that slams the enemy into the floor. Another includes the good old sweep and heel to the chest/stomach.

Verdict

Things are looking up for those that prefer frustratingly difficult games. Mirror’s Edge is freaking hard. I don’t have a clue how many times I died playing it on just normal mode on the first playthrough. There’s a particular section which was close to giving me a mental breakdown. Basically, you run into a room, and a guy on a suspended catwalk shoots at you the instant you emerge. At this point you need to leap up to the catwalk and take him down with a disarm. It would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that the guys in the room are really accurate, and there’s two or three shooting you at the same time. That’s “Ninja Gaiden hard” right there.

I have been looking forward to this game the instant I saw the first teaser released. I knew this game was going to be something special. If you’ve followed this blog, or seen the trailers, I’m sure that there’s a high chance you’ll agree with that statement. Mirror’s Edge is probably tied with Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES (which will I’ll have a review up for soon) for my Game Of The Year.

An Illness Blockade Meets Decorating

I’ve come down with a bad cold lately, and I’ve been decorating my new house, so the next post will be delayed a week or two. However, to make up for it, as well as dual reviewing Mirror’s Edge with Hybridial, I’m also going to review Persona 3 FES. You know you want to hear about it. After all, Shin Megami Tensei is the true great RPG series.

On that note, it’s random AMV time!

Anime is Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A’s, and the song is Blood On Fire by Attack All Around. Yes it’s J-Pop, and yes it’s Nanoha, but damn these fit well together. It’s a bit low quality, but unfortunately the HD version was made private.

A Kind of Magic – Part 1

When people think of a common representation of anime and manga, they’ll probably think of giant robots (mecha) and martial arts (ninjas/samurai). However, there is another genre that has an almost equally popular following in the anime and manga fandom. That genre is magical girl. I say it is almost equally popular because as a genre, mahou shoujo (which is the Japanese term for magical girl) doesn’t get the popularity it deserves. In a largely male culture, action packed anime will always be in the spotlight. This doesn’t mean I think any less of them, but it’s a little disappointing that not enough mahou shoujo shows get recognition.

Cutie Honey and her alter-ego, Honey Kisaragi

So what are magical girls? Well, magical girls are simply girls with magic powers. These girls are usually between 9 and 15 years old, which helps establish a sense of innocence. After all, these types of girls are peace loving and kind-hearted, no matter what troubles they face. Even before they were bestowed with powers, they always had a great sense of justice. It’s this sense of justice that allows them to fight evil and save the Earth. Actually, parallels can be drawn between magical girls and superheroes due to their need for keeping their identity secret, having super human powers and having to transform. Now, the transformation sequence for magical girls is quite special. With superheroes, they simply change into a costume in a flash. With magical girls however, there’s a transformation sequence (which I will delve into later).

A Brief History

The American sitcom, Bewitched was quite popular among young women in Japan during the 1960s. During the 60s, animation was starting to take off in Japan with such series as Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu) and Gigantor (Tetsujin 28-gō). However, despite really popular, the flourishing anime market was aimed at young boys. So as not to neglect young girls, the creator of the Gigantor manga decided to follow in the footsteps of Bewitched by creating an animated series based around a witch, Sally the Witch. It should be noted that a witch in Japan isn’t necessarily evil. This is something that is common in the west but in Japan, a witch is simply a woman who uses magic for the benefit of others (much like in Bewitched).

The cast of Sailor Moon

In 1972, a certain magical cyborg made her TV debut. Cutie Honey is considered to be the first transforming magical girl anime, and is used as a template for almost every single mahou shoujo show since. Cutie Honey is also the first female protagonist of a shounen manga, so she’s quite the trend setter! Unfortunately, the original TV series is quite hard to obtain, so I have yet to see it. In 1992, Sailor Moon aired and popularised the mahou shoujo genre.

In part 2 of my look at the magical girl concept, I’ll go into what is typical of a magical girl, and also give a bit of insight into particular shows.