Be Excellent To Each Other

I don't fancy it at all. 'Hey, lets make a parkour FPS' is an idea that should get the suggeste a beating with a shovel.

Now, why haven't we had a Snow Crash game? I'd pay good money to play a Kourier game, or strap on Hiro Protagonist's swords.

Please let this change the way FPS games are designed and dreamt up. Please please please.

I'd love to see games ditch the "Only you can flurgleburgle Raxin Fraxin in the hour of the blumbledumble..." or "A specialist special forces man, chosen because he is in someway special, on a special mission to take out some terrorists. Specially."

Instead I'd love a game where you live at home with your family who aren't brutally slain to give you motivation, and who you can return to after fulfilling strange and wonderful modern urban myth quests in a beautiful setting such as seen in Mirror's Edge. I'd love to play a Sam Lowry day-dream, a government worker who inexplicably grows wings and flys around a city doing amazing stunts to impress a girl he doesn't know the name of but who is all the while chased by the authorities and scientists who fear his difference. No fighting crime, just literal flight rather than fight. Or a woman who creates sculptures that one day all come to life. Most of the sculptures are benign or friendly, some of her crueler ones creep off into the city and cause trouble. She's famous for a few days and then people's paintings start coming to life too. All art is banned and bonfires are set up. Throughout one night her and others race to find an answer to what's going on - if there is one, each accompanied by a friendly creation of their own. Leading to a sword fight with an evil Mona Lisa. Or something.

But come on games designers! New ideas! Like Mirror's Edge!

Bonus points to them if you can complete it without actually killing anyone or firing a gun. Hope you can.

Colour me excited about this one, though!

I don't fancy it at all. 'Hey, lets make a parkour FPS' is an idea that should get the suggeste a beating with a shovel.

Or a woman who creates sculptures that one day all come to life. Most of the sculptures are benign or friendly, some of her crueler ones creep off into the city and cause trouble. She's famous for a few days and then people's paintings start coming to life too. All art is banned and bonfires are set up. Throughout one night her and others race to find an answer to what's going on - if there is one, each accompanied by a friendly creation of their own. Leading to a sword fight with an evil Mona Lisa. Or something.

I'd love to play a Sam Lowry day-dream, a government worker who inexplicably grows wings and flys around a city doing amazing stunts to impress a girl he doesn't know the name of but who is all the while chased by the authorities and scientists who fear his difference. No fighting crime, just literal flight rather than fight.

And besides IT HAS BLUE SKIES!

Please let this change the way FPS games are designed and dreamt up. Please please please.

I'd love to see games ditch the "Only you can flurgleburgle Raxin Fraxin in the hour of the blumbledumble..." or "A specialist special forces man, chosen because he is in someway special, on a special mission to take out some terrorists. Specially."

Instead I'd love a game where you live at home with your family who aren't brutally slain to give you motivation, and who you can return to after fulfilling strange and wonderful modern urban myth quests in a beautiful setting such as seen in Mirror's Edge. I'd love to play a Sam Lowry day-dream, a government worker who inexplicably grows wings and flys around a city doing amazing stunts to impress a girl he doesn't know the name of but who is all the while chased by the authorities and scientists who fear his difference. No fighting crime, just literal flight rather than fight. Or a woman who creates sculptures that one day all come to life. Most of the sculptures are benign or friendly, some of her crueler ones creep off into the city and cause trouble. She's famous for a few days and then people's paintings start coming to life too. All art is banned and bonfires are set up. Throughout one night her and others race to find an answer to what's going on - if there is one, each accompanied by a friendly creation of their own. Leading to a sword fight with an evil Mona Lisa. Or something.

But come on games designers! New ideas! Like Mirror's Edge!

Bonus points to them if you can complete it without actually killing anyone or firing a gun. Hope you can.

Colour me excited about this one, though!

Does such a story/plotline exist, or did you just make that up?

If the latter, can I borrow it?

She also posts/posted on WoS, allegedly.

I am so up for this game it hurts. Me=sick of grotty, dilapidated, dystopian futures.

Likewise, my only criticism for it, was that I kept wishing it controlled a little bit more like Prince of Persia.

And the third, and most important, sign is focus. This is a game about movement, and it elevates the simple act of getting around to a position of prime importance. That's a potential risk, particularly as Mirror's Edge is emphatically first-person, which, when combined with platforming has historically been about as much fun as being backed over by a combine harvester. But there's something about this one that inspires confidence. The developers talk a good game, certainly, but don't they always? Instead, hope lies in the clarity of the design, in the sure-footed poise displayed in the environments and style. Mirror's Edge may finally be the game to break the curse of wonky jumping and floaty combat that ultimately sunk previous first-person action games like Breakdown. It's certainly got ideas as to how it plans on doing it.


What's in Faith's satchel? We'd guess donuts, but since this is the Unreal Engine 3, it's probably a cube of meat.
For starters, developer DICE has taken pains to put the person into first-person. Look down and you'll see a torso and legs beneath you; jump, and your feet kick out in front, allowing you to guide your descent; run, and you'll find you have to build up speed realistically, each foot that hits the ground providing not just a reassuring animation, but an actual physical sense of movement and connection to the environment. Other games have tried this, and Dark Messiah of Might & Magic got closest, but there were still times your body was clearly just another bit of scenery. For Mirror's Edge to pull it off, the effect has to be near-perfect.

Then there's the control system, which is showing a lot of promise. It's heavily streamlined, but not, thankfully, pared down to the autopilot standards of Assassin's Creed. Given the game's focus on vertical environments, Mirror's Edge's two main buttons are L1 and L2 on the Sixaxis, which are used as 'up' and 'down' (how well this will map to the 360's bumper remains to be seen). Both work contextually: pressing up allows you jump over low railings, or grab ledges and pull yourself onto them; down sends you into a slide if running, or lets you roll under barriers. The system's apparent simplicity hints at a game that wants you to master it quickly and then begin experimenting. You can cludge your way through these levels stupidly, bouncing off air vents and smacking into walls, but you're not getting the most out of the game until you can fling impromptu combos together with abandon, thinking on your feet, and moving through the landscape like a sweatpanted torpedo.

Mirror's Edge's two main buttons are L1 and L2 on the Sixaxis, which are used as 'up' and 'down' (how well this will map to the 360's bumper remains to be seen)

Before concluding his demonstration, O'Brien gives us a really random fact: In every level, a rat gets killed in an interesting way. In the storm drains area, we saw a soldier snipe a rat from across the room. Look for more hands-on impressions (and possible rat-death sightings) in our E3 coverage next week.

But I really enjoyed it's ambiguous plot, it's running about, and it's wonderful setting.

http://buttonmasher.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/stormdrain1.jpg

That last one is especially awesome.

I'm wondering if it might be something to do with the bumpers being digital, not analogue, unlike the triggers.

Slightly more disappointed to learn she also wrote for Heavenly Sword and Overlord - which I don't remember people saying had decent plots. Stilll I've not played them so maybe...

IT IS ambiguous plot. IT IS running about. IT IS wonderful setting.

IT IS Mirror's Edge!

They should put that on the box.



Whyso howso?

But L2 is analogue, and L1 is digital on the Sixaxis.

ORLY? Oh, well, Eurogamer are apparently just muppets then, as Pundabaya said.

There is an achievement for completing the game without firing a single bullet.