Mirror's Edge

[Flawless]

Battlefield creator DICE wants to "put the person back into first-person" with the upcoming Mirror's Edge. Can this acrobatic title revitalize first-person game design?

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6598&Itemid=2

Sounds great.

[Flawless]

Re: Mirror's Edge

You should read the article above if you haven't. Anyways a couple screens have been released.

http://on-mirrors-edge.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=1

On-Mirror's-Edge and DICE are please to bring two brand new screenshots. The level of detail is exceptional!

Mirror’s Edge is going to redefine the way that players are able to move in first person allowing them to run, jump, vault and slide in a way that has never been seen before in a first person game. The environment seen in these screens certainly looks alluring to do all that! What do you think?

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

[jmood88]

Re: Mirror's Edge

Sounds interesting.

[jmood88]

Re: Mirror's Edge

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Mirror's Edge

This game will give me vertigo for sure.

[Jistic]

Re: Mirror's Edge

It looks cool, but on a a big HDTV I will be vomiting everywhere. Hell I'm dizzy from the screen shots.

[Flawless]

Re: Mirror's Edge

I love the sterile aesthetic.


Eurogamer Impressions

We quickly tune out of what he's saying though, because Mirror's Edge is very absorbing to watch. First-person games are almost always about the gun rather than the person holding it, and DICE designed Mirror's Edge as a counterpoint to that. "The first thing we wanted to look at was just getting the feeling of movement and momentum, so walking, jogging and running," says O'Brien, winning our attention again. "Very simple things, but things that haven't really been done well in first-person shooters." You don't even have a gun - instead you're told to concentrate on moving quickly, maintaining momentum through tricky environments, much as we did during the freer-flowing parts of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed. Controls are deliberately simple: movement and view-adjustment on the analogue sticks, and then context-sensitive "up" and "down" functions on a pair of buttons (presumably the triggers - did we mention it was dark?). "Up" can be jumping, climbing, wall-running, vaulting, or grabbing hold of something above you, like a zip-line, while "down" can be used to perform a power-slide under a low object, or to break your fall with a parachute roll.

Fail to string these things together properly and you will lose momentum, and may fall off things or get shot if someone's chasing you. If our demo was anything to go by though, the main penalty is not enjoying yourself as much: it looked very good, especially as our DICE handlers navigated a busy rooftop in a fluid sequence of stylish manoeuvres clearly inspired by the best bits of the Bourne film series, the building site bit at the start of Casino Royale, and other recent examples of cinema's sudden fascination with parkour. One big problem when applying this sort of thing to games, though, is making it obvious where to go without simplifying or regimenting your options too much and without confusing you. DICE's answer to this is something called Runner Vision.

"Basically, when you move through this game very fast, we wanted the player to be able to understand very quickly when or where they could go or should go," says O'Brien. "The way I often describe it is that Jason Bourne sees the world differently to everyone else - he sees weapons where you see a pen - so in this case [the game] shows us a route...and this happens dynamically throughout."

In practice what you see is an object glowing bright red against the game's largely white and cool-blue palette (one of the first screenshots illustrates the concept). If there's a door you're meant to go through, it will turn red as you approach it, and then you can adjust your sprint or flight through the air to land and smash through it smoothly. It also highlights things like cranes and pipes suspended between buildings.

Runner Vision - "TM!" jokes O'Brien - will need to be employed as guidance rather than a crutch for dumb players, but DICE seems to get this. The one puzzle we're shown is a simple movement puzzle in a cramped hallway, where Faith has to try and reach a highlighted vent near the ceiling, and the challenge is working out how to combine the various ledges and footholds around the room to get to the top rather than trying to work out where to go. O'Brien says to expect more complex puzzles later on, suggesting that for all the movement and momentum chatter the developer has worked to vary the pace.

So guns do exist, but they're "kind of a temporary power-up", says O'Brien, lasting for as long as there are bullets in the clip, but slowing you down. You wouldn't be much good at parkour if you had an assault rifle on your back, after all.

Getting away from the rest of the cops involves breaking line of sight, says O'Brien, but in meantime Faith has a bigger problem, which is that she's running out of rooftop. Fortunately there's a news helicopter swooping past. This gives our minders a chance to show off Reaction Time - "basically our version of Bullet Time" - which is accumulated by stringing together slick moves. It's used to slow down time and fine-tune big jumps, of which this is one, leaping Faith from roof edge to helicopter skid at the end of a sequence of ducks, dips and dives.

[The GIGGAS]

Re: Mirror's Edge

Looking forward to it a lot.

[SPTO]

Re: Mirror's Edge

No thanks, this game will give me a headache and dizzy spells.

[Flawless]

Re: Mirror's Edge

1UP Interview

Mirror's Edge, whether its creators want the pressure of the attention or not, has been pegged by the press as having the potential to be a triple-A, genre-changing title. Its concept incorporates parkour free-running into a first-person experience, set amongst the rooftops (from what we've seen) of a glimmering, open-world metropolis.

1UP: As far as more complex moves, is that something you unlock or can you do everything from the start, it's just a matter of finding the place to do it?

TF: It's like Prince of Persia. In theory the Prince could do everything at the beginning of the game; it was just the geometry that allowed him to do it. And what happens in our game is, again, you can do all the moves as long as the geometry's there to allow you to do them. And what happens through the game is that the moves that we require the player to do to get through the level, we start to round that up so that by the third or fourth level we require you to have mastered more moves.

OO: It kinda keys back into the whole character as well, the whole character of Faith. You're playing this character and she's supposed to be this amazing runner. Why can't she do anything? If you're limiting all of the things...a character like that should sort of empower you; you should feel capable, which is why we didn't want to just drop you into the game feeling like a noob.

1UP: Can you go down to street level ever?

TF: We're not talking too much about the other levels but basically you do move through the city and you move through all the levels of the city, so you go through interiors, you go onto street level, you go underground. You keep moving up and down through the city.

1UP: I noticed there was no noticeable loading going in and out of the doors that we saw in the demo; is that going to be seamless?

TF: The goal is for it to be seamless; there's no loading. I think that software hadn't been optimized, so there's a slight snap in it. It is pretty seamless; we can get it better. But again, yeah, that's the goal. I mean, this all ties back into the whole experience of being Faith and not breaking that. This is why we don't do things like "You have unlocked this move" because that wouldn't make sense. Or we don't want to be going to loading screens or level complete screens. We want to keep you in Faith's body, in Faith's world as much as possible.

[Flawless]

Re: Mirror's Edge

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[Cyros]

Re: Mirror's Edge

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Dang. Thought I was getting some gameplay in this video.

[Flawless]

Re: Mirror's Edge

New screens and concept art

[Flawless]

Re: Mirror's Edge

Trailer (gameplay)

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OMG!

[Scott]

Re: Mirror's Edge

That looks incredible...