http://www.vulomedia.com/audio/audiofiles/35917StillAliveInstrumental.mp3

Wee!

Could you perhaps give an example of this? On the PS3 version at least, it may not have been as interactive as it should have been, but I never got the feeling that pressing a button was doing more than one thing…

Okay, wallrunning should have required you to actually move the analogue stick, and grabbing swing-ring-things needed a less generous time-window, but from what you’re saying it almost sounds as if they streamlined things even more for the PC version.

I disagree with the checkpoint comment. Rewinding time would be horrible for a game like ME, and I think the checkpoint system was pulled off pretty well. It certainly makes difficult combos a lot more satisfying.

ME reminded me a lot of NES/SNES era platformers. They’re not bad, but they’re certainly a lot less forgiving than modern games. I’d say it’s in a different genre from most other FPSs, where you’re encouraged to recover from your mistakes instead of formulating a new plan and trying again.

Unfortunately, the part that now sticks in my head the most about the game is the fight sequence right before the final scene, or more specifically how I had to replay the same fucking fight scene about 50 times before I could actually get on with the damn thing, just to find out all I get for that grueling battle is an amazingly thin ending.

I’m not one for replaying a single player game, as it greatly reduces all of what the game has to offer. If I was allowed to keep that machine pistol the riot cops had with unlimited ammo, I might reconsider though. I loved that thing, and how it didn’t impair my movement.

Great parkour, amazing setting, fucking terrible combat.

Also, very short. And the time trials, unfortunately, don’t add much. What I envisioned for multiplay was something like a game of tag: Run around like crazy, “tag” someone by punching/kicking them (which staggers them to prevent instant-tagbacks but does no damage), and then run away. Now THAT would add replayability.

I think I’d probably agree with you. First person works well with a mouse, but definitely lacks with the analogue. Sometimes you just wonder, how the hell were we ever good at the old Rare classics? Third person, with the 8 compass points… that’s good. That’s acceptable, anyway. I think there’s something to be said for 3p=console, 1p=PC. Maybe they should just release a mouse and keyboard for the consoles. The Wii uses a USB keyboard, right?

Crane, it’s true Mirror’s Edge’s checkpoint system isn’t good. It’s not terrible, but Prince of Persia previously had the best possible failure system: rewinding. The new PoP’s magic-hand is okay by me, I never much cared about difficulty, but it’s weird that they would invent a new and inferior one when they had a near-monopoly on the holy grail of frustration avoidance.

My problem with PoP, apart from wanting to stab the Prince in the fucking neck with a biro the second he opened his mouth, was that I didn’t feel like it was me doing any of the acrobatics. I just press space, then he goes off and does a whole long series of moves by himself. I don’t mind it being easy, but I have to feel like it’s me doing the easy stuff, not watching someone else.

Also,talking about letterboxes

<>

I prefer “Prince of Persia” over “Mirror’s Edge”. Vastly.

It could simply be a control issue, that ME with its first-person perspective works better on a PC, and POP is clunkier and more awkward with a mouse and keyboard.

Personally though, I found that ME had too many instances of sloppy collision detection and clumsy controls, coupled with tiresome scenes where you were being attacked by enemies, and could only really proceed by trying to map the area you were in by running around it for the three seconds before you were ventilated. Then you had to sit through the damned loading screen again, plus make your way back from the checkpoint.

POP on the other hand… Whilst I can agree it could have stood to be harder, I found that I preferred being able to fly around the levels at top speed with little challenge, rather than the die-reload-retry-die-reload-retry of Mirror’s Edge.

Okay; it’s possible I just suck, but even so, I think that for freerunning games like ME and POP, it’s far far better that they be too easy than too hard.

But no matter, do most of the Games writers agree on if a game is good or bad? Though of cource im taking your 84% review because you are award winning. Good luck with the changes, though of cource people will critize them no matter what.

Rightly so though, you do the same to games, lol only joking, can we have bullets flying across the screen in the same manner as the snowflakes for christmas.

Ive just realized that this is a mirrors edge post: The screenshots youve given do make the areas feel like a city, but are still somewhat surreal.

It’s tough when it’s a game, since you choose what to do. TV and film reviewers don’t have to worry about that kind of thing.

Also, your last comment on the lack of non-widescreen support is bizarre, but with Ubisoft’s woefully lacking PC support from any game released in the last few years, not utterly surprising. Never heard of it myself, either, I wonder if many reviews mention it.

Cloak, the main thing is you need a widescreen monitor. It forces letterboxing on 4:3 displays, which makes the viewing area almost unplayably small. If I ever meet the Vice President of Idiotic Decisions at DICE or Ubisoft (Assassin’s Creed committed the same crime), I’m going hit them with the nearest conventional flatpanel.

J-Man, the post cycling’s not a replacement for the archive, it’s just something I never had before because I thought somehow it would be hard to do. The archive can’t stay on the main page because it meant every pageview of every page was calling on my SQL database to access every post I’ve ever written every single time, which occasionally gets my site suspended for excessive CPU usage. I’m going to make a separate page one. There’ll also be a search bar.

Rei, I do take a little objection to that ‘brown’ statement. I love Blue Sky Games and their allies, but it seems to me that many people are beating a strawman. So many reviews or posts on any game with a bright palette include this backhanded ‘and it’s a bright spark in the sea of brown’ remark. Let’s say grey is an honourary brown. What titles that anyone cares about are brown? I see Resistance and Gears. What else? Half-Life 2 is the brownest thing I can think of off the top of my head. Actually, TF2 is probably the brownest game in the world on average, but it’s got phong shading so let’s give it a pass. Armageddon Empires and Fallout 3 have brown desert wastelands… Oh, and Motorstorm. Its desert dust and mud is brown rather than the correct choice, chartreuse.

I can understand this from professional reviewers/critics, whose paychecks demand that they play Budget Firearms of Conflict 2 – that kind of thing can give you a skewed perception – but is there really an epidemic of brown among games we care about, people? Has there been one in the last ten years?

My specialities are games I wish I was reviewing for PC Gamer but can’t because of the timing and console ports of RTSs no-one else wants to play. Lately I’ve done Tomb Raider Underworld for PC Format, Supreme Commander and Red Alert 3 for Xbox World.

Clearly you need a great graphics card and at least 4gig of ram to play this game to make it look worth playing, curse the skies!!

Now I have to get moar subscriptions!

Seriously, I think those screenshots are awe inspiring and I’m happy the reviews are positive. I’ll definitely give the game a shot. Perhaps this will herald in a new era of games using a much more vibrant colour palette.

It’s too early in the morning.

Just a quick correction, Graham’s review is actually online at the CVG website and has been since before the latest issue of PCG was publicly available.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=205769

(I also didn’t mind the combat. If you don’t try to disarm everybody, the kung fu actually works pretty well.)

I’m sad that there are only two posts on the main page, and no ‘next page’ button at the bottom. When my browser is full-screen (as it rarely is), the important part of this site, with the posts and comments, could take up more horizontal space. I noticed that there are only two links on the upper right now, there’s plenty of room for four. And it changes to three, which works fine.

Of course I love your site no matter what.

Also, what happened to your “Trust me with your ears” segments, I’d like more of those.

As for Mirrors Edge, it’s not worth my money at $50, and I have other stuff to play. I might pick it up sometime in the future. Its faults certainly do not lie in its graphics though.

As much as im not into this type of niche platformer thing (i said that before i got Portal too), those shots are mouthwatering. Im thinking of buying it just to gawk at it.