Alright, I recently sat down to play some more Mirror's Edge, and I remembered how awesome it was. It was far from perfect, but I am really excited for the sequel.
Now, Mirror's Edge did at least as many things wrong as it did right, so I'm going to be listing the things I hope to see make a return, the ones I don't want to see again, and a few ideas to improve on the overall game.
What was great about Mirror's Edge:
- The running controls. They felt very fluid, and were simple while still versatile.
- The artstyle. Please, please, please bring this back to Mirror's Edge 2. All the colorful corridors, buildings, everything. It was so wonderful to look at.
- The running mechanic. The selling point of the game really. Combined with some nice level design, this was a thrill to use, once you had learned how to.
- Time trials. Again something that felt like the bread and butter of the game, most of these were very well executed, and very fun to play and challenge yourself in.
- Runner's vision. This really helped keep the game flowing at a high pace, and made a huge difference in not frustrating the player.
- Soundtrack. Lovely soundtrack, and I am still in love with the themesong to this day. It just conveys the essence of the game so well, I can't help but adore it.
- Level design. It was hard to see just how good the level design actually was until you went into the time trials, but there were in fact a lot of small shortcuts to take. Some directly shortcuts, others you learned because you figured out new ways to use the running to your advantage. It really allowed for the game to become much deeper, and was very well done.
What was bad about Mirror's Edge:
- The story. Good god... I almost don't know what to say. It felt like some cookie-cutter conspiracy story really, and the story sequences being animated certainly didn't help one bit.
- The combat. The whole disarm thing was incredibly annoying to use. Time your button press just a little wrong and your odds of living were small. The whole idea behind Faith's martial arts abilites as well as the idea of guns being a temporary powerup were great on paper, but just not that well executed.
- The technology. This is a pretty huge area, and it's easy to put a lot of things in here, because some of them were barely up to par. You could tell it was UE3 being used to power the game, because all the characters were incredibly lifeless and plastic-like, more so than in most UE3 games I reckon. The graphics were quite crude to say the least, though they were saved by the phenomenal artdirection. Then there are the dreaded elevator-rides, that substitute loading screens... Then there was the pretty lousy hit detection, which is quite critical for a game about using the environments as much as Mirror's Edge. To round off, the enemy AI was pretty bad, though still functional. Rarely have NPCs (enemies and friendlies alike) been this stiff and lifeless, both in graphics and behaviour.
- Support. This is about the characters speaking to you while you're running around. It does get rather tiresome to listen to, and I would much rather that there was more of a conversation going on in Faith's head, rather then the bad dialogue spoken in those very forced sequences.
- Length. Through the Speed laps of all the game's levels, it became painfully clear that all the levels could be completed in less than one and a half an hour.
Improvements for Mirror's Edge 2:
- The combat. Rework the disarm mechanic and get the other mechanics some serious polish. And this is just a minimum!
- The technology. On thing I think the game could really benefit from would be to be in 60 FPS. The controls would be even smoother, and I think the game would get an overall better feel. And with the graphical standard set by the first game, it shouldn't be that hard to accomplish (lol). And also, switch away from UE3 please...
- Storyline. I am almost inclined to say "start over!" because the first was anything but well-executed, and I think that wiping the board clean could benefit the game. Have more actual running missions in the game, have more stuff to do than just trying to solve a conspiracy. We are playing as a runner, let us do just that in the story, or as a sidemission or something.
- Levels. Have more ways for us to go about the world, more choices for what routes to take, more things to do. Hell, however challenging an sandbox world for this game might be to make, it could be epically awesome (unlikely though, but still...)!
- Multiplayer. This doesn't need to be big, but having running missions in coop, or players competing to deliver packages or whatever, could be incredibly fun! This could be a selling feature alone!
