Today I was fortunate enough to have a somewhat unique gaming experience. I was able to play the first two and a half hours of Mirrors Edge (PS3 version). I live in Stockholm, home of DICE, and there were PS3 consoles put up in the middle of Stureplan for all to play.

The setup was outdoors, playing on bad monitors and with almost no sound. Luckily I was able to play for 2 1/2 hours uninterrupted. But in short, the experience was somewhat dulled by not sitting in a comfortable sofa at home with a good TV and nice soundsetup (which I don't really have anyways). What bothered me most was the low resolution the game was displayed in. I'm not really sure, but it didn't seem to be more than regular TV resolution, despite playing on a LCD screen. Fuzzy picture, really. Didn't do the game justice.

For those of you unfamiliar with Mirror's Edge, it is a First Person Platformer (FPP), and possibly the first of its kind. Most definatly the first one I have ever played, at least. In short, you run, jump, slide, wallrun, hang, climb and glide your way through a city. It's a parkour simulator. It's Prince of Persia, in first person and with guns.

Yes. Guns. Mirror's Edge (ME) is not completely devoid of combat. Most of the time you will be running from people firing at you, but from time to time you'll be in a position where fighting is necessary for survival. Most of the time though, your ability to quickly scale walls, jump incredible distances and neverending stamina are the better way to deal with opponents.

And now that you know what the game is about, I can quickly move on to what I thought about it. Anyone who has a thing for platformers knows that half the secret lies with the controls, and that's what I have the most of. The other half, naturally, lies with level design, and that I cannot say much about. I was too happy just blazing through the levels.

When I first got the control in my hand, I was really bothered by the fact that it was indeed a controller. Myself, I have always thought that FPS's do better with mouse and keyboard. Despite this fact, after just walking around for a couple of minutes, and getting through the tutorial stage, I got really comfortable with the controls. They work very, very smoothly, and I was soon linking moves together, gliding over the rooftops in a most satisfying way. These parts are all that I could ever want, and more. It's intuitive and easy to learn. It requires skill to do well, but is easy to get into.

There are a few problems though. Jump and duck are the two buttons you will be using 90% of the time, and therefore I had some problems remembering the other ones, resulting in 180 degree turns instead of firing my weapon a couple of times, much fumbling around to find the button that presses keys, and lots of deaths from not remembering which button disarms enemies. This gives the feeling that the parkour parts work perfectly while the rest of the game, combat and puzzles (such as they are), suffers greatly. No real autoaim or weapon zoom also gives shooting a distinct awkwardness.

Another thing to note is that in playing a level you will die. Repeatedly. Often at the same place more than twice. My friend who played next to me died 10 times in the exact same location. At least he learned to get there quickly. Thankfully, you never have to replay long stretches of the game, checkpoints are about every 3 steps. Still, all this death detracts from the flow of the game, at least in the beginning. Once one learns the courses the flow increases and you really start to get a feel for what DICE has created.

I like innovation. I like platformers. I like experiments using the first person view. In short, I love playing Mirrors Edge. It does all three :)

I can certainly agree with your personal review, bro.

I certainly can't really judge final game material yet because I just played the demo today, the PS3 version. I do agree with you on the jump and duck buttons and firearms. I died a lot for not remembering these. The whole concept of running and dodging and climbing in this game is excuted really well. I think a lot of people are really underrating this aspect of the game.

The dying part I got use to after awhile. It was annoying but it tries to get you to get it together the next time you attempt to make it across or do that sequence. I had a little problem with the disarm. It's like you have to wait for the enemy take a hit at you and then you press the triangle button and then you disarm the enemy. It was annoying at first because I didn't time it right and he would just shoot me to death but after awhile I got the hang of it and disarmed him.

The controls are spot on, confusing at the beginning but the learning curve is easy after about 15 minutes into the game. Remember I only played the demo and loved it. You played the full game and loved it but pointed out the flaws I saw too!

Overall I want this game, and I'm glad to hear your review on it.

Seems unique, I played the demo way too many times so far, but I can't help shirk the feeling that the game sucks and that the demo is just really good.... well the demo was really GOOD as in good but not great not bad at all though. IT seems so western cliche... which is more common in hollywood movies than games so for some it's new I guess.