Mirror’s Edge

Mirror’s Edge

I bought it on the Pre-Holiday Sale on Steam, finally can play it!

But god! Its one of those crappy console ports again.

The menu is 100% console,

my mouse lagged behind for ages, like half a second, in the menu.

And of course, I couldn’t change resolution in-game, so I had to go back to the main menu and change it.

Then start a new game again.

And hell, I hate it when I can’t skip (in-game) sequences, which was the case.

Can’t even skip the intro sequence (camera fly to the character, bit of a view over the level).

And what really pissed me off was the training.

Another runner is showing you the way, where you should go.

If you fail, you will be reset, and he will show you again.

And while he shows you, you’re bound in place, staring at that runner, taking you for a stupid.

I saw it the first time! Don’t show me again. And again.

If I could at least skip it.

My god, only on consoles…

But don’t give me that shit on my beloved PC.

–

And WTF?

After having it minimized, it will not move at all.

Sound will stop after some time, sound by sound, until nothing is left.

If you CTRL+ALT+DEL, it will continue (yeah, while you don’t see the game at all), and you will even hear your character jump, if you did issue the jump command (space) while it was frozen.

Great.

After some tries, I was able to continue, but not even a minute, until it will freeze again.

I think on a teleport of my character to another position.

Anyway, after those teleportings on sparring training, it worked again.

–

Wow, so I can skip cinematics and in-game cutscenes.

It was just training where I couldn’t.

And ofc. it’s space, your jump button.

And after watching some cut-scenes, I think I just accidentally skipped one. -.-

Great.

And of course there’s no saving, no returning to right before the cut-scene.

Or after failing 3 times because of stuttering saving before the hard part, so you’ll just have to do that one.

–

Mh, I also wanted to blame the game for having to lower graphis to a degree I can’t understand or agree to.

And it would stutter after pretty much every corner or going up stairs.

Now I noticed firefox bug, consuming one full core of the CPU entirely after exiting (I did quit it before playing), while doing nothing.

So I’ll try that one again.

Anyway, I like the style and without further stuttering hope to enjoy this game (further).

I disabled cursor and the “runner view” (marking path red) entirely.

Adds more to the atmosphere. 🙂

Update 05.12.2009:

The stuttering issue was not a game issue after all.

Had some smooth fps now.

The game is kind of frustrating.

Especially one “boss” (the one throwing you down first, then charging at you with a weapon). I tried everything, pressed all buttons, tried to slow-mo and find another way.

I probably had to re-watch the sequence 20 times.

In the end, the red-color for disarm was missing, and I had to press it in the right time, which I couldn’t see.

The jumping seems unresponsive at times, especially when swinging.

If you press jump in the moment with most momentum, where you should fly/jump farthest/highest, nothing will happen.

You’ll have to do so at the furthest point of your swing.

That it won’t respond in any way when you’re too early is pretty bad.

Strafing is useless.

You will lose momentum if you press one of the strafe buttons. Very different from what you’re used to from other games (especially if you know strafe-jumping :P).

So they’re 100% useless. Or, disturbing.

Be careful.

You may (or will) die from falling 2 or 3 meters. Most of the time.

Sometimes you won’t… If it’s where you’re supposed to go.

I also found an invisible wall in the subway.

Wow, they still do it these days oO

Yeah I passed the ladder I was supposed to take. But still…

(You could even follow the subway rails one one side, but would be blocked if you wanted to step on them. So it was no end of tunnel, but right on the side of the path you were supposed to take. For a pretty long way.)

I died quite often now… 🙁

Just quite because I was at another place where police will follow and shoot you.

And after the fourth try or so, I had enough.

The (painted) animations (/cartoons) are ok.

I’m accustomed to better.

Be it good anime or kids cartoons. Could have been made better to add to the atmosphere. But ok.

(This was very clear when Faith was walking away, and her feet would go to her front-side (each foot to its side) instead of straight forward. The body would go straight forward though. Looked pretty strange/funny.)

Conclusion

The game was worth the 3€, because I always wanted to play it.

I like the game idea and how the atmosphere and fun could be if I wouldn’t die that often, or the helicopter(s) wouldn’t shoot at me 10 minutes, while I’m running and on another harder place (or if you’re too slow) you’ll die though.

But I probably wouldn’t be happy with having paid 10€ or something.

Especially since I hate those multi-platform games where you, on your PC, instantly feel and see that the game was made for and optimized for consoles.

I’m a PC gamer for fucks sake, and yes I am demanding.

But I’m also grateful for quality and will support, if the game is good.

Games made for PC. Games that are worth their money.

Like World of Goo or Team Fortress 2.