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# Just played both Mirror's Edge games (Review)

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# Just played both Mirror's Edge games (Review)

Natsu
✭2 posts
October 5, 2016 6:17AM
I never actually bothered with Mirror's Edge back in the day, but since the original was free and Catalyst was 50% off on Xbox, I decided to tackle them. First, I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the original. Amazing soundtrack and gameplay. However, I have to say that I think Catalyst just doesn't even come close to capturing the magic of the first game.
Note: I played both games with runner assist off to enhance the puzzle element of the game.
Open world vs. linear - I actually don't think an open world game is a bad idea for a parkour game. I think it's a great idea, but the way it was implemented in MEC was not serviceable to the gameplay. The routes and ways to get around are far too linear and irritating to move around in. The primary reason to have an open world game is to foster emergent gameplay opportunities (I.e., tigers attack an outpost you are raiding in Far Cry). There really aren't emergent scenarios in this game, so that part is lost. And route-planning to get from A to B is more of a right or wrong, possible or impossible setup. There usually aren't multiple ways of moving all over the city, so it feels kind of pointless to have open world at all here. There should have been more of an emphasis on staying on the ground and using rooftops as options; not being stuck up there out of necessity.
Combat - This is hands down my biggest gripe. I absolutely abhor the combat and engagements in MEC but loved the heck out of them in the original. In ME, going up against 2 or more guards without the intent to disarm them was extremely dangerous. Most of the time the best strategy was to hunker down until they screw up and you can disarm one of them and use their gun as leverage. I really love how immersive it felt. It has more of a "Matrix" feel with slow motion, knocking guns out of hands, and using them against them.
Something beautiful is seriously lost in MEC. There is no immersion at all, everything feels so gamey. Your best strategy is to run into mobs of enemies and start strafing and high-roundhouse kicking everyone in sight. Guns on the enemies get absolutely no respect as you just keep kicking them over and over, can take dozens of bullets point blank (you have less health in ME than in MEC with no upgrades), enemies take forever to aim, and you have all kinds of options in terms of how to exploit enemies.
I have to say that when I played Mirror's Edge it sold itself to me as a martial arts fantasy game more than a parkour game. And one thing that was extremely important about this was the need to respect and fear even a single enemy gun. In fact, one of my only complaints with the first game is that guns weren't deadly enough. Even the combat between the melee specialists is better in the first game. I had so much fun kicking Icarus units off buildings and just manually dodging and counter-attacking them vs. the extremely boring and repetitive fights against the Enforcers and Sentinels in MEC.
Overall I really appreciated the immersion of the first game's combat, but hated the direction they took with MEC. In my opinion slow-motion and weapon disarming, along with ultra-deadly bullets that cannot be dodged just by going fast or by implementing poor accuracy on the AI is a must.
Parkour - The actual parkour seems like a step down as well. For one thing, I really despise the futuristic setting in MEC because it ruins your own personal parkour intuition. Everyone has an idea of how parkour techniques are supposed to work in real life, but the futuristic setting routinely creates counter-intuitive scenarios. This usually has to do with glass and how easy it is for Faith to utilize it like it's any other surface.
I also have an issue with how abundant spring-boarding is, as well as how much ridiculous air you can get off of it. The parkour felt a bit more realistic and fun in ME to me. The character feels too loose and free in MEC; the physics just don't feel realistic. I felt actual weight behind Faith and all of her momentum in ME, but I'm controlling a piece of paper in MEC.
Soundtrack - Really stunning soundtrack in the first game, but couldn't find a single track in MEC that I felt the urge to listen to outside the game.
Story - In all honesty I think both games had poor stories that only served as an excuse for the parkour. I have to say that the first game had the worse story because they clearly didn't even try. There was not a single memorable character in ME, and it had all kinds of dumb moments. Example: Enemy getting sniped as he's about to spill information. I HATE when games/movies do this kind of thing. It would just make more sense for the sniper to kill the protagonist first.
Personally, I don't like dystopian storytelling one bit. I'm not sure if I would have even preferred to see them try to go deeper into the plot elements like exactly how Reflection would be used, etc. These types of stories really do nothing but **** me off, so I won't even spend time judging that aspect. I will say though that the characters in MEC are much more likable and memorable than in ME. I really love seeing a bunch of characters with wildly different personalities interacting, and the first half of MEC delivers on that front.
That's the jist of it from someone who doesn't have any nostalgia goggles on. I genuinely found the first game to be of much higher quality, and found MEC to be a huge step down in terms of design direction in almost all ways. I respect your opinion if you think differently, but I just have certain tastes in games and the first one fit that quite well while the second was something I can only see myself playing for achievements. In fact, after I milk most of the remaining achievements from MEC, I'm definitely going to revisit the first game on hard difficulty, since my first run was on medium, and go a little more in depth with it.

## Comments

- Bird_Of_Faith
  161 posts ✭
  October 5, 2016 12:12PM
  It's your opinion, I respect that, but I disagree. MEC was a massive leap forward, ticking most boxes critics wanted to see ticked. Combat was horrible in the first game, mecs combat has by far been improved even though they still haven't just cracked the formula for it... same goes for story, not yet cracked, but improved.
  The city is futuristic, which i think is great, yes, but there is nothing wrong with the design or style, it's meant to be pretty, mirrors edge is meant to be stylised. I also don't see why springboarding is in an issue, sure it might not be possible in real life, but its a game, its not meant to be fully realistic, other wise it wouldn't be fun... and the movement is excellent, she's a runner, she's supposed to be able to zip around fast on the rooftops, its not meant to be completely real.
  This game focused a lot harder on the parkour and combat, its so obvious, because its changed so much for the good. I feel there's nothing wrong with it, its an elegant, fun and challenging game to experience, so was the first, but after playing hundreds of hours the original, then playing hundreds of hours on mec, i prefer mec a lot more then the original, because its fresh, new, gorgeous and extremely fun...
- Natsu
  2 posts ✭
  October 5, 2016 4:32PM
  Well, when a game isn't a complete cartoon I tend to have expectations of realism for it. I have the most fun with games that are extremely realistic and offer simulation-like feelings and immersion. Whenever a game feels "gamey" it is a complete turn-off for me. I also enjoy extremely excruciating difficulty, and I found the first game more difficult than MEC, if only because there's virtually no penalty at all for dying.
  And I truly enjoy the combat of the first game. I don't know what you see in MEC's combat, but it is just about as bad of a system as one could devise in my opinion.
- killchan
  64 posts ✭
  October 5, 2016 5:22PM
  I found the abuse of glass rather annoying: in ME, you know you can run and jump on a surface as long as you can see it, even from a distance; in some areas of MEC, there's glass everywhere and you're most likely going to splat on it.
- Bird_Of_Faith
  161 posts ✭
  October 5, 2016 11:30PM

  > Natsu wrote: »
  > Well, when a game isn't a complete cartoon I tend to have expectations of realism for it. I have the most fun with games that are extremely realistic and offer simulation-like feelings and immersion. Whenever a game feels "gamey" it is a complete turn-off for me. I also enjoy extremely excruciating difficulty, and I found the first game more difficult than MEC, if only because there's virtually no penalty at all for dying.
  > And I truly enjoy the combat of the first game. I don't know what you see in MEC's combat, but it is just about as bad of a system as one could devise in my opinion.

  Sure, its not the best, i know that, but its still an improvement, because there are still opitunities to use the new flow and momentum system, and it works. The game isn't bad, but its not fantastic either of course it has flaws, but to me i think most of these things people keep on pointing out to label as "horrible" aren't actually that horrible, games are always going to have problems, it's inevitable, but to me these things you've pointed out to me are only minor, probably not even minor...

  > killchan wrote: »
  > I found the abuse of glass rather annoying: in ME, you know you can run and jump on a surface as long as you can see it, even from a distance; in some areas of MEC, there's glass everywhere and you're most likely going to splat on it.

  I completely understand where you're coming from, there are definitely times where i fail and stubble because I can't see glass, but I don't think its being over used, i mean, its called the city of glass for a reason... certainly areas such as Anchor have a lot of glass on the rooftops, but to me i like the use of glass, its not frustrating to me at all.
  But also in the original, the levels are linear, so you're going to have better knowledge of what you're going to land on, in an open world, you're supposed to feel wary of where you're going, but i do understand your point, because mec definitely encourages you to keep running and keep your flow and momentum up, but in every open world game you're going to fail at times, and to me failing in a specific area allows me to know that later, when i come across this difficult jump, or springboard, i can try a new way of approaching it, even if it is a challenge.
  I just don't see these things as a massive let down or problem...
- ArchAngeL_777
  39 posts ✭
  October 6, 2016 4:57AM
  I disagree in general. It's hard to directly compare the two since one is linear and the other is open world. I think the first Mirror's Edge is great, but the story is short and there's not much of a reason to do anything but replay the story. With an open world, MEC provides a lot more to do. It took me a long time to do all the side missions and explore all of Glass, much longer than the story in either game. The parkour to me is great too. There are definitely a variety of ways to go about getting from A to B, and much of the fun is replaying missions to find ways to improve your route.
  You can play MEC in a sort of linear fashion. Just go from story mission to story mission without doing any side missions. I found that the best way to play MEC.
  The combat in the first Mirror's Edge is easily the worst part of the game imo. There's really not much to it, and the disarm is nothing more than timing a telegraphed swing from enemies. The lethality of the bullets meant that at times your best option is to just disarm someone and turn the game into a shooter. There just wasn't anything I found fun about it, more frustrating at best. I at least had fun with MEC's fighting system, even though the AI's weren't good enough to force you into different tactics. The fact I had options alone was an upgrade to me.
  The lethality is a big difference between the two games. It works for the linear nature of the first game, but an open world game would be a disaster with that kind of lethality. Enemies would take you down from range too easily since they often have a line of sight on you.
  I agree the soundtrack is better in the first game though. I also agree that the story in either game is nothing to write home about. Some critics were trying to paint up the first game has having some kind of outstanding story MEC did not live up to. IMO both games had a story that was just adequate enough to keep the parkour going.
- Siltrider
  1 posts ✭
  October 6, 2016 2:36PM edited October 2016
  I disagree.
  The game is about parkour. Parkour in MEC is better obviously, it's more fast-paced, more risky and more intuitive like it should be. For example, spring-boarding exists in ME aswell, but in MEC you can use any small objects as springboard, while in ME springboarding is used only in particular scenes and it looks very script-y. You can also perform some tricks you're not able to do in ME. I.e. MEC feels much more "sandboxy". In my opinion every ME fan should play MEC without using any assist or "runner's vision" to get "where should I run?" feeling. It's inexpressible feeling of freedom, quick decision and some risk.
  _____________________________________
  Design is different. ME is less futuristic, but it's still great. Complaining about too "glassy" city in MEC is ridiculous, because the whole game is about doing parkour in City of Glass.
  _____________________________________
  Characters in ME have no depth, they have flat roles such as good cop, **** hired muscle, traitor. There's no situations, no turning points where characters show their traits, their strength. Story looks like a flat line without any bumps. In 2009 it was pretty good, but now we're fed up with these teenager stories in cinematography and literature.
  Story in MEC is a bit more mature. It has no happy end and almost no cliches. Yes it's still mediocre, but it's better than naive teenager story about rescuing your sister.
  _____________________________________
  Combat in ME is just awful, but disarm was a great idea. All guns are based on real-life guns, so any human without armor should be completely neutralized or destroyed after 1-4 shots from pistol or 1 shot from sniper rifle unless that human is superman. But actual gunplay is ridiculously unfair: Faith is kind of a sponge even without any armor on her, when armored and trained enemies die very quickly. ****?
  But you can say "MEC Faith is a sponge too!!!". Yes, she's a sponge too, but MEC is futuristic, guns are fictional, seems like they use almost harmless projectiles instead of bullets. And as you know, KruegerSec's main task is neutralizing, not killing.
  Cameras on roofs have a purpose, while in ME they're just dummies. I really like chasing feature, but there's no Sentinels in chases, so it's kind of easy to escape.
  _____________________________________
  I'd been waiting for ME2 7 years and I'm satisfied. I love both games, but I think MEC is better in every aspect. I still play first ME sometimes, I've completed it two times after completing MEC and despite being worse than MEC in terms of parkour, it has warm and close-to-my-heart atmosphere that makes me feel comfortable and gives me good memories. On other hand MEC has different atmosphere that feels coldly and anxiously.
  Sorry for my bad English but I hope you understand.
- Natsu
  2 posts ✭
  October 6, 2016 5:31PM edited October 2016
  Yeah I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the combat. I truly adore the combat of ME and hate the combat of MEC. I want ultra-high lethality and the need to disarm and use guns yourself. It's very, very entertaining to me. You can say that there's not much to it, but you could also say that there's not much to playing a game like Alien Isolation. AI is one of the best games I have ever played, but some people would call it a hiding or walking simulator. It's really about how the combat/encounters make you *feel,* and less about how to approach them in a gamey sense. Beyond that, there's equally less to the combat in MEC. There wasn't a single encounter in the game that I couldn't complete by alternating sidestrafe and high roundhouse kicks. In fact, in most battles I didn't even get hit a single time while doing this. Nothing stops the almighty power of left Y, right RT, left Y, right RT, rinse and repeat. Even the final boss fight is easily dispatched without being touched by doing this. At least the combat in ME is extremely immersive, and it makes you think about how to isolate enemies which adds serious amounts of depth. There is no concern in isolating enemies in MEC because they group up in mosh pits and you don't care to isolate them anyways because your character can just cheese them to death under any circumstances.
  I also really despise the abundant use of springboards and generally more fast-paced actions in MEC. There's no true momentum and nothing feels like it could be done in real life. MEC is just so much less intuitive to me.
  I also didn't mention this before but I find the entire open world of MEC to be very unfun. The entire design of that city is just very painful to even think about. Nothing about the traversing is fun to me. I think my favorite area was the construction yard above Black November's place. Hookshots are also something I would prefer not to have at all.
  P.S. Springboards are not scripted in the first game. They are indeed dynamic based on shape.
  Post edited by Natsu on October 2016
- FaithConnors
  133 posts ✭
  October 7, 2016 3:09AM
  If they had the same nice camera movement and proper sized body as in ME, it would be excellent in MEC. But it doesn't feel as nice given the more rigid camera despite the larger availability of moves.
  The two games have different atmosphere but I like both :-P The cliffhanger (building hanger, literally) in the first game had a little more want to find out what happened next as they both escaped. In MEC is seems all you did was please Dogen but failed to do the saving and changing they kept talking about. It does lend itself to another game of course.
  "Yeah yeah I'm sure the birds are real impressed Faith, but once you're done showing off think you might concentrate on some actual work?!!" - Merc
- BOSSGreatWall
  92 posts ✭
  November 2, 2016 6:12PM
  Catalyst is amazing in its own right and I really liked it.
  I never expected it to be the exact same style as ME. You have to remember that it's a reboot, so effectively the story takes place in a different city, and since the game was made roughly 7 years later our perceptions of futuristic architecture and technology have obviously changed. I think MEC has a very beautiful urban landscape and the districts are visually pleasing, especially with little effects such as dust motes floating in the air. Sometimes I run around in the game just to see the sights.
  I hoped that Solar Fields wouldn't disappoint when he came back to do the soundtrack and unsurprisingly, he didn't. The songs are definitely more upbeat and varied than in ME but I for one have looked for many of the tracks outside of playing the game. I love the new theme song too, and others have the score playing on repeat even though it's 5 hours long.
  The gameplay in ME is definitely more substantial and it has a very satisfying feel to it when you play, but MEC's more fluid style is also very enjoyable. Sometimes I've kind of had an adrenaline rush because I've been running for a long time and the movements just build to create a heady, exhilarating flow. It makes you feel more capable, more heroic, which is exactly the type of role Faith comes to play in the story; she is a catalyst.
  Yes, MEC didn't capture the same magic as the original, but it has a magic all of its own anyway. While ME will always be iconic and unique and hold a special place in every gamer's heart, and everyone hoped that the sequel would be just like it, I think that since Catalyst has been released the path of the original won't be followed again. That will leave it as it always was- a game that was one of a kind.
  Survival is overrated. You need to live a little too.
- BOSSGreatWall
  92 posts ✭
  November 2, 2016 6:21PM
  Although a lot of people complain about the combat in ME, I didn't really mind it. I can't compare the combat systems of both games as a whole right now, but the gun battles from ME were a highlight and a break from all the parkour, and I actually liked the tension. Fighting KrugerSec in MEC is pretty fun and satisfying, but they can get annoying when you're trying to do a mission and they randomly turn up and pursue. Their presence is a bit over the top and frustrating.
  Survival is overrated. You need to live a little too.
- BOSSGreatWall
  92 posts ✭
  November 2, 2016 6:23PM
  I also like how in MEC the time trials and dashes encourage you to be a faster, better runner and to find the quickest route in order to beat your own score and rise up the leaderboards. And the collectibles immerse you into the story and the history of Glass even more, and when you collect all of them, man is that satisfying.
  Survival is overrated. You need to live a little too.
- BOSSGreatWall
  92 posts ✭
  November 2, 2016 6:31PM
  I agree. Disarming and shooting in ME was satisfying and enjoyable, and I also really liked hiding from and evading my enemies. It made it more realistic and dangerous, in a sense, rather than just knocking down every enemy effortlessly.

  > FaithConnors wrote: »
  > If they had the same nice camera movement and proper sized body as in ME, it would be excellent in MEC. But it doesn't feel as nice given the more rigid camera despite the larger availability of moves.
  > The two games have different atmosphere but I like both :-P The cliffhanger (building hanger, literally) in the first game had a little more want to find out what happened next as they both escaped. In MEC is seems all you did was please Dogen but failed to do the saving and changing they kept talking about. It does lend itself to another game of course.

  I agree with this too. I expected Faith to have more of an impact on the city at the end of MEC, and the story felt a bit rushed and disjointed towards the end, even though it had a good build up at the beginning. Like, if you dissected the game and looked at the story in each half it would seem pretty different.
  On the other hand in ME the story was more stable and I feel that characters such as Celeste and Miller had good depth to them. It also wasn't a cliche "one girl saves the world" kind of thing, but more realistic than that- Faith helps out a person close to her and ends up being tangled into something she can't escape, but ultimately, she's there for the sake of Kate.
  Survival is overrated. You need to live a little too.

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