The Jolly Gamesman and His Many Toys
Mirror’s Edge for the iPad (Currently only available on the US iTunes Store)
Released in November of 2009, the original Mirror’s Edge was one of the most unique titles of the busy holiday season. It’s a first person parkour romp through a brightly coloured totalitarian regime governed-future, where “runners” are outlawed messengers of physical communications, hired to skirt the highly-monitored communication lines.
Mirror’s Edge was quietly ported over to the iPad as a tent pole release. The only time the game shows off its 3.5 inch roots is during the load screen when you are presented with some heavily pixelated scrolling text filling out the story between levels. Aside from that one complaint, the graphics in Mirror’s Edge are top notch.
The iPad version takes a departure from the camera perspective of the console version, but keeps the environments and objectives. Switching to a side scrolling 2.5D camera changes the way you control Faith, the protagonist. As you run forward you jump, roll, slide and wall climb, using just one finger and a few gestures. Faith’s response to your input is all context sensitive. Swiping up makes you jump, swiping down makes you roll if you’re falling, then slide to sweep a leg, or dismount from a zip cord. The fluidity and response of your on screen avatar makes the roof top runs a dream from beginning to end.
Mirror’s Edge features 12 levels spread over 6 missions. The game starts off with a tutorial level that gets you into the groove of the control scheme that stays consistent throughout the entire adventure. As you progress, new obstacles are presented, but build off knowledge you gain from the previous levels. I really enjoyed that there were no frustrating puzzles or arbitrary boss battles to pull you out of the kinetic experience of the game. Although the Mirror’s Edge universe seems to only consist of roof tops and industrial warehouses, the designers have managed to keep the level design fresh throughout.
The developers of Mirror’s Edge have included a few features that will be sure to keep players coming back. My favourite is the time trial ghost races. Not only can you compete against your best time (represented by a translucent red version of yourself), you can download the best times off the world wide leader boards to compete against the best in the world.
Incentives to continue exploring the levels of Mirror’s Edge include unlocking badges, the games equivalent to Xbox 360 Achievements or PS3 trophies. Challenges include toppling a certain amount of enemies in a level, to finding the many hidden messenger bags sprinkled amongst the girders. With enough badges you are rewarded with a slew of backgrounds that you can save to your iPad to use as your wallpaper.
Utilizing the screen size of the iPad, the developers were able to included two multiplayer modes. These modes help bring your friends into the action, and the constant challenges presented from the leader boards really extend the life of this title. The first is a basic race to the finish with the screen split horizontally, while the device is laid down in portrait mode. Also available is a Rivals Mode which is a throwback to the multiplayer mode in New Super Mario Brothers, whereby you duke it out for a preset time period trying to collect as many messenger bags as possible, knocking your opponent down to steal their goods.
Although the single player story is short, there is much satisfaction to be had with Mirror’s Edge. With the hours of entertainment Mirror’s Edge has brought me and my friends, the $12.99 price tag no longer seems too high a price for admission. I can only hope that developers will use the extra screen and processor size of the iPad to bring us more high quality games and less casual titles.
~The Fine Print~
Price: $12.99 US
