Mirror's Rough Edge

Like it or not, Mirror’s Edge is a really important game. It’s an innovative title backed by EA of all publishers (Spore, Crysis, Command & Conquer… all EA and a topic for another post). Its visuals are intertwined with gameplay at a level previously unseen in most action games. It built up a lot of hype through 2008, but, with mediocre sales, will probably end up the best sleeper of 2008.

I’ve read a few more reviews of Mirror’s Edge recently, and I find it interesting that some people absolutely fawn over the game while others call it a missed opportunity. I find myself sort of stuck between both camps. There’s plenty to disagree on with Mirror’s Edge; DICE took some real risks with the design. Personally, I think it’s slightly easier to forgive a game of its flaws if they occur by design rather than underdevelopment. But getting back to the point…

On the one hand, in trying to avoid repetition, the game strays too far away from its winning jumping-off-rooftops formula for slow, cramped indoor sequences that are really really not fun. To me, this is what threw the game off the most. If DICE foresaw repetition as a problem, they should have come up with a more creative way to break up the pace.

Combat was the other part of their solution, but I found the gunplay to be a unique and fun twist (melee combat slightly less so). For a game that supposedly wasn’t about guns, all the weapons looked, sounded, and felt like they belonged in a triple-A shooter. The enemy AI moved pretty well too. Admittedly, aiming was difficult and the guns only fired a few shots and couldn’t reload, but changing either of those would have made the game a run-and-gunner, and that’s clearly not what DICE wanted. As it stands, the gunplay provides a quick distraction from the platforming for those who want it. A game based entirely on these shooting mechanics probably wouldn’t work, but in quick bites it works great. And those who don’t want to bother can have fun jumping around, finding the next path while dodging bullets. I really looked forward to the encounters where I’d run into a group of SWAT, disarm, fire, repeat. It was unforgiving and exhilarating; despite dying often, I didn’t mind it nearly as much as I did dying after missing a jump or having to search around for hours for the way forward.

But while I’m on the subject, I couldn’t believe how many people complained about the trial-and-error gameplay. That’s where the challenge comes from: either be careful, observant, quick-thinking, and fast all at the same time, or die and do better next time. Yes, the sense of unbridled speed is great, and the story mode should have had a few more of those easier sequences, but the challenge needs to come from somewhere. Sometimes the checkpoints were a little too far back, but for the most part, they could have been worse. Get over it, guys.

Mirror’s Edge has a great premise, and some great core gameplay; it’s just rough around the edges. Hopefully the announced sequel will iron out these issues, but I really hope they don’t do too much to change the gunplay I enjoyed so much.

More on Far Cry 2 and My Review Philosophy

I had a discussion the other day with my cousin Al, who had read my review of Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2, which I had raved about and given an A. While he hadn’t played the game, he told me he was automatically suspicious of such a praising review for a game that was relatively low profile (hey, it’s Holiday 2008).

To be honest, that was exactly what I was worried about when writing my review. Usually before I finish my review, I can’t help but look at Metacritic to see what others are saying about the game. I certainly don’t try to match up with anyone else’s criticisms, but I know that by the law of averages people tend to be skeptical of reviews that don’t fall within a general consensus. And the consensus currently says 8.5: pretty darn good, but not as great as I thought it was.

So I made sure my review made it very clear why I thought people should by FC2 in a season packed with great games: the AI, the graphics, the dynamic, unpredictable combat, and the sheer number of hours in the game. But I also readily admitted the game had some problems (that my editor took out of the review because it was too long). The pacing was off, the story wasn’t very good, and the multiplayer was average. But to me, these flaws only brought the game down from an A+ to an A because the core gameplay was so fresh and well done.

I understand why some reviewers wouldn’t score the game the same, even if we have similar views (Shaun McInnis of Gamespot said very similar things but took the game’s flaws more harshly, giving it an 8.5). If someone goes by a scorecard of what the game gets right and wrong, that score makes perfect sense. But I personally prefer to go on how I view the overall experience when giving it a score because I feel that gives people a clearer picture if they’re trying to decide, bottom line, whether they think a game will be fun or not.

I also try to consider my audience when writing. As I’ve said, my main objective with a review is to tell the reader whether or not they should spend a substantial chunk of change on a game. But I write for both the “casual” reader, who will probably be getting Gear of War 2 this season, and the “hardcore” reader, who will probably be getting Mirror’s Edge. When I say that FC2 has easily thirty hours of gameplay with a slowly paced story, I know that’s probably going to sour the causal reader but pique the hardcore reader’s interest and suspicion. And since I only have 650 words to say what I need to say, I don’t go into much detail about how the save system works or how guns break down with use because, in the grand scheme of things, those aren’t the most important details. To me, everything boils down to this: the game is fun, fresh, and dynamic, and there are several big picture reasons why.

I’ll use the AI as an example. Al asked about who my audience was after having read a line that said something like the AI “takes cover.” While a hardcore reader will probably roll their eyes at the description of a behavior that is pretty much standard for good AI these days, I wrote like that to give a clearer picture of what the AI is like to the casual reader who probably doesn’t look that closely at FPS AI behavior. I also wrote about how the AI seems noticeably aware of one another, spreading out and trying to flank the player. Gun to my head, I would say that my favorite part of FC2 is how, in open spaces, the AI is always surprising me. I tried to get that across in my review because the casual reader will (hopefully) think, “Wow, that sounds pretty cool,” even if they don’t appreciate the nuance, while the hardcore reader will know that that doesn’t happen in every FPS. The only time I ever remember it happening was, ironically enough, in Crytek’s Far Cry 1.

So there’s a little more on my review philosophy. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m usually pretty opinionated about these games, and while I’m not going to lower a score of a game I think is really great just because consensus doesn’t really agree, I don’t have extreme opinions about most games that I review.

Quick last point: I rated Spore, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, and Mirror’s Edge all in the B range because while I really had a lot of fun playing those games, I didn’t feel like the core gameplay was strong enough to cover their few issues. I gave Silent Hill: Homecoming a C because while I enjoyed it, I didn’t really feel like I got my $60 worth because the gameplay just couldn’t cut it. I probably antagonized most over my scoring of Mirror’s Edge because while it was fresh and fun, it had so many frustrating bottlenecks that I wanted to give it a C. So I wrote that grade down, slept on it, played some more the next day, and decided that on balance I really did enjoy the game, hence the B-.

I say all this because I think many people, again by some weird law of averages, assume a critic has to give bad reviews to be a good critic. I call them like I see them, and my review should act as justification for my score. My lack of any D or F reviews reflects two things. One, I am a college student on a budget, and so I’m already prejudiced to buy games that I think will be good based on previews, prerelease buzz, etc. And two, 2008 is really a banner year for games in terms of sheer quality. Lousy games have probably already fallen through the cracks, and the advantage of writing biweekly criticisms in a newspaper rather than a dedicated gaming press outlet is that I don’t have an obligation to catch them.

Bottom line: I think the grading system is good for context, but no one should rely on that alone. Otherwise I wouldn’t have written the friggin review.