If you haven’t read our Mirror’s Edge hands-on preview from E3, you may want to start there. Since July, the main attractions of EA’s free running, death-defying, utopian/dystopian cityscape have not changed. As the title draws close to its November launch, the developers over at DICE have certainly tightened up the graphics, eliminating any disclaimers about the lighting. But, everything regarding the deceptively simple controls, vertigo-inducing visuals, and exhilarating gameplay has remained intact since we last got some face time with courier-heroine Faith, and her roof-traversing travails. What was new, at a preview hosted last week by EA, was a chance to try out the promised Time Trial mode, in which our athletic heroine must use her vast repertoire of leaps, vaults, and slides in order to get from point A to point B as fast as she can — stealth and subtlety be damned. I was granted a few informative interviews with EA and DICE representatives, and I was able to get my own hands-on experience with Mirror’s Edge for the first time. By the end of the evening, I had learned quite a bit — including the new opinion that my colleague can take his “proper PC controls” and shove ‘em.
You heard me, sir. You are hereby invited to shove your mouse-and-keyboard fanciness in any number of discreet locations. I shall explain more, after the break.
It’s understandable that many gamers would want to play Mirror’s Edge with a mouse-and-keyboard arrangement. Mirror’s Edge is, after all, a first-person affair, lending itself naturally to a mouselook feature. It’s from such previous PC experiences, in fact, that Mirror’s Edge was born. Nick Channon of DICE, the game’s producer, told me that the impetus for Mirror’s Edge came out of DICE’s experience making FPS titles. “We’ve been creating Battlefield for the last 7-8 years,” said Channon, “and we wanted to create something very different and new, but utilizing the experience we’ve gained from first-person. But we wanted to create a game that was based around movement, not shooting.”
EA’s Aaron Krause, Marketing Manager for Mirror’s Edge, described the game to me as a “First-Person Action-Adventure.” He echoed Channon’s sentiment, saying, “This game is all about movement; it’s all about chase, going as fast as you can… how do I get from point A to point B… this isn’t a first-person shooter. You can play the entire game without shooting a single person. You can disarm your enemies and use their weapons against them if you want, but you’ll be rewarded with achievements and trophies for not shooting anyone in the game.”
Channon sealed the deal, stressing the vitality of a first-person perspective for a game like Mirror’s Edge. “We feel that first-person is really important because you make the connection with the character. As soon as you’re in third-person, you start watching the character. We wanted you to feel like you were there.”
With such a strong emphasis on a seamless first-person experience, the debate would seem to be over. I’ve been grateful for the natural feel of mouselook ever since the original Marathon, and if you were to offer me The Orange Box for PC or 360, I’d opt for the former every time. Before long, I had the chance to get my hands on Mirror’s Edge for the first time, and I steeled myself, promising not to let the console vs. PC experience cloud my first impression.
The feature on display was the hardcore-friendly Time Trial mode, a collection of pre-arranged events which will challenge players to race through the Mirror’s Edge world as fast as Faith can muster. Each trial takes place within the game’s normal levels, and using Faith’s many moves, players must guide her through a series of glowing checkpoints. The paths can vary in length, requiring a one-minute sprint or a 2-3 minute roundabout journey, which also lets the trials vary in difficulty and experience. There’s many more places to make mistakes along a longer path, but making improvements will usually be much more apparent — in a one-minute trial, each improvement is a matter of shaving off a few hundredths of a second. I was able to try out two different trials — one across a bright, sunlit series of rooftops, and another through a dank and massive storm drain, festooned with pipes and catwalks.
Fighting to improve my own time was both fun and frustrating — as a hyper-competitive, leaderboard-obsessed jerk, I take an unearthly pleasure in annihilating an old score, whether it be my own or someone else’s. Mirror’s Edge provides quite a tense opportunity to do so: While the controls are certainly simple and intuitive, and any player can execute a broad variety of breathtaking maneuvers, performing a successful Time Trial demands the utmost precision and timing. Leaping from roof to roof isn’t tough in and of itself — but shifting your weight downward just before landing will allow Faith to tuck and roll with the impact. Fail to do this, and Faith will absorb the landing with her legs, which she’ll need a precious second and a half to recover from. Getting up on top of a utility shed is simple enough, and Faith is a quick climber — but if you can use your prior momentum to bound upwards from an adjacent vent, Faith can grab the shed halfway up and vault to the top instead of climbing, saving you another half-second.
To top it all off, the Time Trial mode includes a glowing red “ghost” of your best (or your friends’ best) performance. This can be quite useful if you happen to swap ghosts with someone whose time is better than yours, allowing you to study their moves. Even against your own ghost, though, it also lends a sense of urgency and tension to the experience, really emphasizing the racing portion of the game mode as you literally chase your best time. It’s maddening when you miss these time-savers by mere inches, watching your better self dash off into the distance, which will inevitably lead us less-patient gamers to mid-trial restarts. But when all my moves finally came together for that perfect run, and I gritted my teeth, straining to beat the timer to the finish line, and squeaked under my old time by one more second, I practically spiked the controller in triumph.
As much as I enjoyed the Time Trials, I had to wonder how appropriate they were to a game like Mirror’s Edge — a game built around “free” running; a game allowing complete freedom of movement and the opportunity to explore the many paths across its urban playgrounds. In a few of my experiences, the time trial is anathema to freedom: Instead of leisurely experimentation and exploration, the time trial demands scientific perfection. A player needs to deduce which set of choices will command the ideal performance, and then replicate those choices without flaw. I asked Channon and Krause about these differences, and learned that there was still plenty of exploration to be done before a player would be able to nail the perfect time trial.
“You’re only limited by your imagination,” said Channon. “What you’ll find is, absolutely, there will come a point when you can’t get through a level faster, but it’s getting there. The time you just set [referring to my latest trial] was a very good time, but we can beat that quite significantly. I think that’s the beauty of the game, is shaving off those seconds. It’s how you use the environment, it’s finding different ways to get through… ultimately, there comes a point when you can’t get any quicker, but that will take some time.”
Krause shared a few of his time trial tips with us, demonstrating the level of creativity that can lead to the ideal speed run. “I’m constantly finding little ways to shave milliseconds off my time,” said Krause, pantomiming a few of his choice moves. “Instead of running straight up stairs, there’s wall-running next to the stairs. Or, wall-running, doing a 180 turn, jumping, and clearing an entire flight of stairs. It’s always about finding that little trick, and every time you play, you can always challenge yourself or your friends, with your ghost, to beat your score by even a millisecond.”
In addition, even if it does come to a point where an expert gamer has devised a perfect, unbeatable line, EA and DICE will be making sure that the replayability and exploration of the Time Trial mode stays fresh: During the interview, it was suggested that plans were in place to deliver new time trial challenges to Mirror’s Edge, utilizing different levels, via DLC.
With a full appreciation of what Time Trial was bringing to the table, and a few practice runs under my belt, it was time to put the new competitive mode of Mirror’s Edge into practice. EA concluded the event with an actual Time Trial contest, offering shiny red Mirror’s Edge iPods for the top few scores of the evening. My colleague has said before that while the controls for Mirror’s Edge are simple, a downside to the experience is the controller-based camera, which really needs to be handled with a mouse for proper execution. I’m here to tell you, that’s a complete load.
I had never played Mirror’s Edge prior to this preview. I had never watched anyone else play it, nor did I really remember what I’d heard about its controls. I had about 20-30 minutes of practice prior to my turn in the contest, which was my entire Mirror’s Edge experience up to that point. That said, I had zero problems with the camera, and the controls are just as intuitive as they say. I came away from my time with Mirror’s Edge firmly believing that any gamer ought to be able to pick up the controller and pull off any number of Faith’s moves. It’s a testament to the simplified controls that a total novice like me was able to put forth a respectable performance in a competitive environment. Would I have done better with a mouse? It’s entirely possible — but anybody who tries to tell you that you need a mouse for a “proper” Mirror’s Edge experience is full of it. Console gamers will be able to play the game just fine, and have a lovely time doing so. How can I be so sure about this?
You tell me.
Don’t be fooled by Mr. Hollister’s flagrant and disturbing PC affections. There’s no problem with the camera on Mirror’s Edge, on a console. You know, unless you suck or something.
Mirror’s Edge launches on November 11th for PS3 and Xbox 360, and later in the Winter for mouse-using PC folk. In the meantime, EA will be releasing a demo of the game later this month. If you pre-order the game, in fact, you can try out the Time Trial mode for yourself in the demo, via Xbox Live or PSN.
And stay tuned for further details on that shiny new iPod, which we just may decide to part with sometime soon.
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