The world is Faith’s playground.

I have the video game attention span of a sugar-smacked toddler, so I always need to be looking for something newer and more interesting than what I’m currently obsessed with.

The latest development is Mirror’s Edge for the PS3 (EA), a first-person action adventure/sometimes-shooter that has the main character (Faith) using skyscraper parkour  to escape from agents of a despotic, Big Brother-esque government.

I’m not usually one for first-person games – I find them disorienting and way too limiting (You can only see what you’re actually looking at ? Ridiculous!).

But this one seems different, mainly because it is.

Ubisoft did the whole parkour thing with Prince of Persia, and they did it quite well. But with PoP there was one set way to get where you were going, and if you didn’t go that way, you fell to your death.
This game has several different routes that all go to the same place, making it more like Assassin’s Creed. But most importantly, it seems that the majority of Mirror’s Edge consists of you escaping people/situations, making it even more crucial to choose your way correctly AND quickly, all the time.

Take too much time, you lose.

Travel efficiently, you escape.

This added element will, I think, make the game nerve-wracking, but also more exciting in the process.

Along this same vein is another element that uses the environments in a different way. There is a competition-based portion of the game called “Time-Trial Mode”, in which there are several checkpoints that you must pass. You can replay a particular course, but each time you will be accompanied by the “ghost” of your best time. This red human-shaped figure will run the course the exact way you did, allowing you to change your route and shave seconds off of your time.

This video shows Sebastien Foucan, parkour legend, mimicking some of Faith’s moves while also demonstrating the Time-Trial feature.

Mirror’s Edge is apparently the first game of a trilogy. If the first one is as good as it looks, I’m going to play all three.

-BM