By Sam Coles:
The original Mirror’s Edge that was released all the
way back in 2008 was a unique platformer with free running movement which a lot
of people seemed to like. Due to poor sales the game fell into obscurity and no
one was expecting a sequel, 8 years later and a new console generation we
finally get a sequel. It’s an average experience which started to test my
patience in the later stages of the game, but it’s not all bad.
You once again step into the shoes of Faith Connors
who is a part of a free running courier group called “Runners” these are
basically illegal couriers that will deliver packages on foot as they jump from
rooftop to rooftop. This game is a prequel so we see Faith as a young woman who
has been released from prison where she then re-joins her fellow runners and
continues her usual shenanigans where she is fighting against a dictatorship in
the form of a company called K-SEC. The story is boring in my opinion, it’s
performed well by the actors excluding Faith where she just comes across as a
whiney teenager with her sulky tantrums as she rolls her eyes where makes me
want to tell her to shut up.
The gameplay is a first person platformer which you
would think it wouldn’t work and yes in the first game it was extremely clunky
and you couldn’t judge some distances. Thankfully it is much better in this
game with a smooth frame rate of 60 frames per second and the ability to adjust
the field of view and this is not common in console games because you would
only see this feature on PC. First impressions were good when they let me roam
around in these big wide open spaces as you get into a rhythm when you time
your jumps and landings perfectly as you wall run and proceed to slide into a
vent. The problem I have with this game is in the second half of the game where
it decides to throw you into claustrophobic spaces where you end up getting
stuck and bounce off every wall in the near vicinity.
There are combat sequences, but these are terrible
they had them in the first game but you could run away and it encouraged you to
run, but in this game it locks you in a room with a few heavily armed riot
police officers and expects you to take them down and it’s frustrating. How the
combat works is that you can perform light attacks or heavy attacks which in
theory should be fine, but you end up strafing around the enemies like an idiot
looking for an opening, there is no strategy with it I wish they focused on the
platforming more because that’s the game’s strength not the combat.
Graphically the game looks alright nothing mind
blowing but I feel they sacrificed graphics for performance which is good
considering this console generation has been pushing better graphics rather
than higher frame rates. The high frame rate helps you time precise jumps and
it just feels better when you leap from rooftop to rooftop. Graphics overall
are bland nothing with some blurry textures that I would generally associate
with an early Xbox 360 and PS3 game coupled with a excessive use of bloom.
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is a great first person
platformer, but due the awful combat and the second half the game where they
put you in tight spaces I found it more frustrating than good. It’s not an
awful game but it’s not a good game it’s just average.
No comments:
Post a Comment