First of all I’d like to thank Absolute gaming and EA and Dice for the opportunity to play this closed beta.
Mirrors edge, this game has a very unique genre; it is set in the far future, where the only method of getting around is free running in a first person camera angle with a very strange field of view. This game is definitely for those who want to play a game that is action packed with more adventure than combat.
Mirrors edge beta has definitely has given an amazing sneak peek through a crack in the door to what EA and Dice have to offer. Right from the get go you can tell that this is a beta, up comes a message when you enter the game saying please feel free to capture game footage and stream it. However there’s an extremely annoying way for EA and Dice to let people know that it’s a beta by having an annoying water mark jumping around the screen all over the place. Instead of having it sit in the top corner where everyone knows to look. That really annoyed me every time I played the beta. I can see the reasoning for it, however I think it’s a very silly thing to do.
Mirrors edge is about a woman called Faith that lives in Cascadia, who has been released from juvenile prison, and needs to get her life back together and continue to work, by delivering messages and feeling people from the grips of the KSEC guards. You meet a guy called Noah who helps you escape from the prison watching you and find work delivering goods and fighting to end the struggle.
The gameplay is semi smooth with the occasional frame rate drop; however this is a beta that’s only like a month or so away from the full game release from EA and Dice, so it’s understandable. The beta is quiet lengthy I played for around an hour and wasn’t close to what felt like finishing it. Something that’s also note able is the lack of achievements, but it’s once again understandable.
The physics of this game are awesome, even though it’s not focus on combat, the running/parkour is really satisfactory. You can run jump and climb almost everything and maintain an awesome speed while doing it. Even though this game isn’t focused on combat, the combat style is amazing with awesome moves that feel like a finisher move out of WWE! The kicks and punches are very similar to martial arts, with lots of grappling and round house kicks that Chuck Norris will be proud of.
The atmosphere of this game could be really incredible yet it’s done really badly, the draw distance is terrible and the scenery is done on an extremely low level of detail. The main focus isn’t the scenery but this is exceptionally bad. Could this hint at another unfinished release by EA? It sure hints at it. The adverts that play on the billboards around the city seem to be running at 144p and the cars on the ground just appear and disappear all over the show. They are horrible and it ruins the atmosphere, the only somewhat uplifting thing about the atmosphere is the music, it’s very futuristic and appealing. EA has definitely taken ideas form Ubisoft and incorporated them into their own game, changing the details ever so slightly. The map style is similar to assassin’s creed, where it is purely white with the markers. The running and jumping style has similarities to it as well, however it’s been improved overall, considering it’s the main focus when playing the game.
This would be a great game if all the bugs are ironed out and all the issues were attended to, but there’s hope since EA’s last great game was Starwars. So come on EA and Dice let’s make gaming great again by finishing this off smoothly!
The beta is quiet an impressive length with quite a few little side missions and 4 odd main missions, it has given me a good taste to what lies ahead!
I can’t wait to try the full game out!
I also want to say a massive thanks to XCN for the opportunity given for the review code!