Mirror's Edge

**in mid air** · 07-11-2008, 04:41 AM

Re: Mirror's Edge

Kombo: Pre-E3 Mirror's Edge Impressions

From DICE, the same studio responsible for the Battlefield series, comes Mirror's Edge, a open-ended, go-anywhere parkour-themed adventure set in first-person. In the game, you play as Faith, a character on a mission to clear her sister's name. Mirror's Edge takes place in a city that is ruled by a totalitarian government, who has framed Faith's sister. Helping you along your journey is a Cortana-like character named Mercury, who will guide you by pointing you from one direction to another. Mirror's Edge is a story-driven title, which means the plot will dictate how gameplay unfolds.

Click the link to read more

**Flawless** · 07-14-2008, 05:25 PM

Re: Mirror's Edge

New gameplay from EA's press conference.

**Flawless** · 07-14-2008, 10:39 PM

Re: Mirror's Edge

Off-Screen: See the graceful and hard hitting first person gameplay

**in mid air** · 07-16-2008, 12:05 PM

Re: Mirror's Edge

Gametrailers - Mirror's Edge - E3 2008: Producer Interview

**jmood88** · 07-16-2008, 12:36 PM

Re: Mirror's Edge

Originally posted by Flawless

That was some really nice editing.

**Flawless** · 08-12-2008, 10:26 AM

Re: Mirror's Edge

In-depth interview with producer Thomas Farrer

But even these sequences are much more fluid, more organic. You have a sense of grounding in the world. “When you’re standing up in first person, you’re usually just this camera, and you’ve got static camera, and you’ve got a gun.” To illustrate, Farrer took the nearest object that was longer than it was wide. “And so this water bottle’s going to be my gun… and your gun is down there, and you’ve got a static camera, and THIS is kinda happening.” To make his point, he held it low and at a funny angle, just like it would be positioned in a standard FPS. “And you’re thinking: why am I doing that with my gun? That’s strange.”

DICE’s new approach to FPS design focuses on fixing all these niggling flaws that make it so difficult to suspend disbelief. “So then it’s all about small things, and details. It’s about breathing, it’s about having the camera move. It’s about moving it when you turn, or when you lean. But it’s also about feeling things that you can’t see.”

Depending on where you are and what you’re doing, you’ll be able to see every part of your virtual body. “So if you look down, you’ve got your body, your tummy (hmmm…), your legs, your feet, and all of this stuff, but you need to be able to feel those things and understand what they’re doing. When you’re moving, when you’re jumping. Stuff like that.”

Subtle animation cues will clue you in to exactly the degree of peril bedevilling you. “So if you’re hanging, and holding on to something, you wanna know what’s happening underneath you. So you wanna feel some weight. You can feel that, from what you’re doing with the camera, the way the hands are moving, things like that. That was where the motivation for the movement came from, and obviously everybody said we couldn’t do it and it wouldn’t work.”

“Haha! And we said, ‘No it will, honestly! Trust us! Give us some money!’”

It’s not just about feeling weight and momentum, it’s also about having an all-encompassing point of view, as close as possible to what you see of the real world through your own eyes. “We have a very wide POV. Most first person shooters have a very tight POV. When you switch back to another first person shooter, I often feel like I’m wearing blinkers or something.”

“It’s pretty much as wide as we can get it, without the world bending, and distorting in strange ways.” The problem with simulating the fuzziness of real-world peripheral vision is that it looks, well, fuzzy. “[Mirror’s Edge] doesn’t simulate it, in that we don’t do anything weird with the screen to make it feel like it’s curving or bending. Because that’s actually gonna make it feel less real. It’s gonna make it feel like you’re in a diver’s helmet, or something like that. We’ve just tried to give you as much of a view and an understanding of the world as possible, from this perspective.”

Getting back to the game, Farrer explained that Mirrors’ Edge isn’t just a big obstacle course. “The story’s important to us. We’re not positioning ourselves as a first person shooter. It isn’t about the guns. You don’t even always carry a gun, so there’s a lot of melee combat in there as well. We’re positioning this as an action/adventure title. You don’t just go through areas, clear them of enemies, and keep on going. There’s chasing, there is combat, there’s puzzling… it’s more varied than that. The story is an important aspect of that.”

Oh, and it’s not Burnout Paradise, either – it’s not an open world. “You can’t go anywhere, for example. But that means we can build bespoke, then. The bigger you build, the more generic you have to build. We found a middle ground, and we build there. We built a lot of different routes and paths you can take through those environments.

This is the biggest departure for first-person; you’re not an unstoppable killing machine. “Absolutely not. Say you’ve got maybe two or three police SWAT units, I mean these guys are just… they’re lethal. They’re very very dangerous. If you can single them out, and get them on their own, you can take a weapon from them. So you can take their heavy weapon, which is kind of like a temporary power-up or something. You can use that to defend yourself until it runs out of bullets. But if you have two, or even one guy, and you’ve got no cover, nothing, he will kill you.

“You’ll never even reach him. They’re very, very dangerous.”

Getting back to the visual style of the game, Farrer explained that the modernist look is all part of reinventing the genre. “We looked at, you know, realism, and again, in the same way that we got fed up with first-person conventions and the traditional control methods and things like that, we got bored of things that were gritty and brown and dirty and polluted… everything looks like that. So we decided we wanted to make something that looks clean. And then, we decided that we want to make something stylised as well. So we decided that we wanted to present the world… not as it is, but more as it’s perceived.

On that point, we’re convinced. “Some of the cool stuff we’ve got is the breathing system. We want the camera to move much more organically; we want the body to feel more real. Not like the eight polygon hands you quite often get. You want tendons, and muscles straining, and stuff like that.”

**Flawless** · 08-19-2008, 05:14 PM

Re: Mirror's Edge

Mirror's Edge at Leipzig: How Freaking Cool is This?

The Leipzig Games Convention doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but we've been walking around checking out some of the sights ahead of time. One of the coolest things we've seen is this display for Mirror's Edge right in the middle of the convention center. It shows Faith standing on top of a building in a giant model city. Anyway, here are some photos we took, but it's far more impressive seeing it in person.

It's nice to see EA giving the game such a strong push at the show.

**Spectre** · 08-19-2008, 05:40 PM

Re: Mirror's Edge

This game will own my soul

I love DICE, first Battlefield and now this. Other than Bioware, Dice is right there among my favorite developers. Hell, it shows my distaste of EA is strictly limited to EA Sports

**Flawless** · 08-20-2008, 02:34 AM

Re: Mirror's Edge

New Screens

**3rdAnswer** · 08-20-2008, 03:08 AM

Re: Mirror's Edge

This game looks excellent in every way, shape and form. I wonder when we can expect a demo...?

**Flawless** · 08-20-2008, 01:51 PM

Re: Mirror's Edge

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**jmood88** · 08-21-2008, 12:16 AM

Re: Mirror's Edge

I can't wait for this game.

**Flawless** · 08-23-2008, 04:10 PM

Re: Mirror's Edge

Mirror's Edge timed exclusive for PS3?

According to German site Heise Online, in a special GC 2008 Leipzig interview with Dave Reeves, big boss of Sony Europe. Mirrors Edge will be a PS3 exclusive game for this year and will be coming out next year for PC and Xbox 360. This is big news if it is indeed true, as Mirrors Edge is considered one of the most anticipated games this year.

Now before everyone gets their panties in a twist, this report is really coming third hand considering the whole site is in German and had to be translated using Google translator. Here is the translated quote so you can be the judge.

The PS3 will be continuously supplied with exclusive games: “We are continuously, month after month publish new titles that bring something unique and different target groups. In a month, it is Gran Turismo, in the next SingStar, as well as Third-Party Title as mirrors Edge by Electronic Arts are part of this strategy. “ According to Reeves Mirrors Edge will initially exclusively for the PS3 this year. PC and Xbox 360 versions would follow much later.

Now, when the interviewer asked Dice the developers of Mirrors Edge this is what they had to say:

The developers of DICE for Electronic Arts this statement could not confirm, however: “That we know so far nothing. But it is possible that there is collusion at the highest level, of which we are still not informed.” So far, the developers assume that mirrors Edge at year-end PS3, Xbox 360 and PC simultaneously.

This is pretty tense, so what is going on here? Has the top level execs of Sony bargained a deal with the top level execs of EA? If this is indeed the case did Reeves spill the beans prematurely or is this a translation mix up of sorts?

Usually we would consider an official word from the top executive of a console manufacturer as confirmation of sorts, however in this instance because of the language barrier and no official word from EA or Dice it’s probably wise to wait till the official announcement.

Blimblim who runs Gamersyde had this to say:

Yeah a lot of people were talking about this in the press room of the Game Convention as it was a done deal already. Nice one Sony, that's a great time exclusive to get.

**Flawless** · 09-02-2008, 03:45 AM

Re: Mirror's Edge

Not a timed exclusive, but PS3 will get exclusive DLC.

Sony has dismissed reports Mirror's Edge will be a timed PS3 exclusive - but said there will be downloadable content available only via PlayStation Network.

Confusion arose last month after German site Heise Online quoted David Reeves as saying the new EA title will arrive on PS3 first.

EA has since denied the claim and now a Sony spokesperson has done the same, telling Eurogamer, "There was a misunderstanding in terms of the quote that Mirror's Edge is to be a timed exclusive on PS3."

So, the game will be released for PS3, PC and Xbox 360 on the same day - whenever that may be, as EA's still keeping quiet.

However, Sony did confirm that although Mirror's Edge is multi-platform, "PlayStation has an exclusive marketing agreement with EA regarding the title."

Plus, the spokesperson added, "Exclusive downloadable content will be offered on the PlayStation Network."

It's not yet clear what form this content will take, or whether Xbox 360 and PC owners will get their own exclusive goodies.

GTA IV, Fallout 3, and now Mirror's Edge. I guess this will become a trend.

**Flawless** · 09-24-2008, 03:14 PM

Re: Mirror's Edge

1UP: Making Mirror's Edge Feature

1UP: I remember in the original EDGE article, there were screen shots of a white room. Is that what you used to test out the different animations and see how she moves around?

OO: Yes. The way it worked was [that] Tom actually drew it in pencil and paper first of all -- these first very rough sketches of what you would see onscreen. And that was kind of encouraging. And we took those, and we put that into a Maya scene, and we hand-animated it. And we were very careful with the animators and said to only use animations they believed they could use in the game -- you know, "Don't turn this into an FMV." So we did that, and to be honest that was probably our first lightbulb moment, seeing that video. When we saw that, we said, "Well, if we can deliver that, then we've got something cool." And I think, looking at that moment, we've surpassed that by a long way. But that was the first thing -- that was our first sort of sales tool. Then people started to say, "OK, if you can do that, then that's cool." But you know, at that stage we're like, "Yeah, but you can't do that...."

TF: That really helped us figure out how to build the rig as well, because every single animation we did in there, we had to figure out how we would actually make it. As it turned out, some of the more spectacular movements were the easiest ones to do, and simple ones were the hardest.

OO: I mean, the convincing we had to do externally is kind of mirrored by the design process we've gone through. First of all, people heard we had the idea of Mirror's Edge, and they said, "Oh, it's not going to work; it'll be crap." And then we released the first screenshots, and everyone was, "Oh, they look really cool, but they're obviously fake. There's no way they can do that." Then we released the video, and they're like, "Well, that looks pretty cool, but it's not actual gameplay. They won't control that...it's all automated; you just push forward, and everything happens automatically, and it won't be any fun." And now that people are getting to play the game, they see the controls are intuitive and cool. All those little hurdles of convincing people were little hurdles we had to do internally as well -- and even within the team.

Before production started on Mirror's Edge, the developers at DICE created this video (from November 2006) to prove what they thought they'd be able to create in the game itself.

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Mirror's Edge

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