Which isn’t to say that the final boss fight shouldn’t have kept the game off your list entirely. Christ, that was awful.

In fact, making shooting vs disarming a consequential decision would have improved the game a lot. If you shoot the police, you face more as the game goes on. Not necessarily a different number of shootouts, but squads of different sizes. People who like the shooting get more challenging battles, and people who prefer to escape have a better chance at that drainpipe when they’re only being targeted by one or two cops.

1. A good story (per Tom)
2. An unelaborated premise (per Jason)
3. Having my kneecaps broken with a crowbar
4. The Mirror’s Edge story

The thing is, a good story may be the best option, but it’s a lot tougher to pull off than the second-place finisher. Since the focus of the development was so obviously elsewhere, I wouldn’t have minded saving any storytelling attempts for the sequel.

And certainly the city is what they call in my graphic design textbooks “FUCKING GORGEOUS.” I guess that’s why I wouldn’t mind the lack of an explicit story if I could just immerse myself in the world. You could see it as a throwback to the days before cutscenes, where a game’s whole narrative was communicated implicitly through game mechanics and visual design.

Of course, if that were the case, you’d have to get rid of the “and then I picked up a machine gun and mowed down half a dozen police officers” moments. Not only do they more than justify the city government trying to crack down on runners, they shatter the relationship that the rest of the game builds between the player and the world. It should never have been easier to go all Gordon Freeman on the metrocops than to escape without a fight, and you definitely should never have seen your little 100-pound teenage girl avatar running around blasting dudes with a TRIPOD-MOUNTED MACHINE GUN.

I actually didn’t mind the mechanics of the cop fights, but from a story perspective they really screwed everything up.

Repeat playthroughs are definitely where it shines, not just so you can skip stuff, but because the levels really transform once you’re fluent in the game’s movement. And also because turning Runner Vision off makes the game look a lot better.

Throughout the first playthrough it was a game I wanted to love but just couldn’t. On subsequently playing the time trial and speedrun modes it became a game I genuinely did love.

HOWEVER, after that first playthrough, I found that replaying disjointed segments could be a real treat, even in game modes that still had enemies. I can see why Rei describes it as a tech demo more than a game. I think there are two reasons why Mirror’s Edge works better as a toy than a game:

1) The story is laughable and shoddy in every way possible. The presentation is crap, the plot is cliched, the evil empire is about as threatening as a golden retriever puppy, and the characters are flimsy little smoke-blossoms of empty stylization. Unlike, say, Deus Ex, where the story was so idiosyncratically bonkers that you liked it in spite of yourself, this thing feels focus-tested within an inch of its soulless, hollow little life.

2) The game has two or three incredibly stupid bottlenecks where there is ONE EXACT THING that will allow you to continue. I don’t mean “get the red key” or “kill this person” — I mean “use this exact move on this target to initiate this specific enemy animation which will allow you to initiate a particular counter-attack which FOR NO APPARENT REASON is the one and only way to drop yourself into a cutscene that concludes the confrontation.”

So in an actual playthrough, the awful plot forces you into the frustrating bottlenecks which are only justified by the awful plot and it just feeds on itself. When you’re replaying, however, you can skip the bottlenecks, and the combat sequences aren’t as onerous because you aren’t actually trying to get anywhere. The farther I get from the first playthrough, the more I like the game, and I think the sequel could be an all-time great. But the flaws really overshadowed the inventiveness here, at least for me.

And, sadly, the only other game on this entire list that I’ve actually played is Braid. Which is awesome! But, wow.

I forgive it it’s foibles simply for it’s use of colour and movement. If any game is art, it’s ME, it’s looks fantastic, it has stylistic direction, a vague political statement and you could argue that it’s broken game mechanics (with the combat) renders it close enough to not having a proper use for it to be considered art.

But I do wish the guns were stronger, so you could finish a fight quickly. In fact, the original concept art for ME had Faith carrying a pistol with her. If you could have pulled this out to kill a guy or two, the combat would have been fine. Most levels actually give you the option to run past the baddies.

While getting through this map is not seem as “running” by observer, it *feels* almost exactly as Mirror’s Edge flow. Note that o3j-velocity is very tough for non-hardcore player.

Mirror’s Edge is a rough diamond. Rough diamonds can’t be #1 when there’s cut gems that can be socketed in your weapon for much better bonuses. (Torchlight isn’t my #1 either, but I love it.) I’d happily bump up your #2 though – Braid was spectacular.

> Quake and Half-Life give you swift and agile movement, it’s not much like actual running.

For skilled ones, it is more like dancing than running :) Watch some CPMA, Warsow and DeFRaG trick movies. Strafe jumping, advanced tricks and some inertia do the job, allowing player to smoothly accelerate, keep the desired speed and get the visual feedback. And the more you understanding of game grows, the more you sense the movement. That’s one of the reasons why Quake and similar fast-paced shooters become so popular long ago. It isn’t just straight gliding ahead with some head bobbing.

Maybe, this is a Mirror’s Edge’s advantage, because its skill requirements for sensing the motion is pretty low, probably zero. Other games require much more of it.

Dragon Age I just can’t get excited about, I’m afraid. The one game BioWare keep remaking is only interesting to me when there’s a twist that makes it fresh or exotic: Chinese mythology or space. When it’s just a traditional fantasy world with traditional fantasy stereotypes, however richly backstoried, I just can’t find anything to like.

The ridiculous amount of gallingly time-consuming combat didn’t help. It’s fun if you spend twenty minutes meticulously choreographing one tough fight, but the game throws so many identical opponents at you that you can’t afford to if you want to get anything else done in the next twelve months.

And I’m glad you mentioned Prototype, because I really enjoyed that this year as well (though I don’t think I could play through the story again).

But, all that being said, I guess I’m the only one who liked the new Wolfenstein, aren’t I?

IMHO, the most important part of Mirror’s Edge is simplicity and sketchiness, combined with solid and conceptual art style. That places it to the same level as Quake 3 or Portal.

Most particularly, the bluest image above. I love that image. I wanted to stop and explore it. But no, lots of nice people wanted to kill me.

I still think that Mirror’s Edge is more of a tech demo than a game. This is how future first-person games should implement the protagonist. I can’t wait to see the next game to evolve this idea, and from the looks of things, it will be Brink (yay for Splash Damage!)

I’m interested Dragon Age doesn’t even show up there. Just not your kind of scene?

It was an extremely well spent two-fitty. Though between it and my other purchases (Audiosurf, Mount&Blade), I think I’m lagging almost exactly one year behind the curve.

Dragon Age, however, was much better in my opinion.

Not so sure with Mirror’s Edge being at No 1, no matter how good it is.

I’d do my list but it’d go on and on.

I also think you speak terrible truth by saying Arkham Asylum was the best fighting game of 2009. If it was without anything Batman or any detective stuff, it’d be a great fighting game on its own legs.

I just thank god they actually included Batman and not someone like the Green Lantern. He’s for girls.