A great gem from the lost era when EA decided to give some kind of creative freedom to some studios under the company's monolithic umbrella.

From that same vintage we took things like Dead Space, Dante's Inferno, Mass Effect and, why not, Mirror's Edge.

And then the wings of these studios were clipped...

Dice and Bioware are still out there, but crawling around on the floor screaming for a medic.

Anyway, Mirror's Edge can be easily understood by watching the game's trailer. From start to finish, everything you need to know is there.

It's an first person action platformer (Or a runner if you will) in which you go through modular traversal challenges using parkour and occasionally punching and shooting one or another unfortunate enemy. It's simple to understand, it's simple to play and it's simple to read.

It's a game that is based on the idea of ​​always moving forward as fluidly as possible. This means knowing where you're going, and knowing which move to use on which specific piece of geometry.

The skill ceiling is staggering.

The level design is of consistent and practically impeccable quality, almost always clearly presenting the correct direction to the objective and presenting a contained myriad of traversal options that can be executed with different degrees of competence.

The only bad thing, from what I could see, is that despite being a game practically ready to welcome the speedrun community, you occasionally encounter some inconvenient interruption in the form of a poorly displayed button or door and some movements, perhaps to sell a more believable fantasy, slow the player down completely, meaning that even decent gameplay doesn't have exactly the desired level of momentum.

It's definitely a game that benefits from some kind of prior knowledge about mission layouts and deeper mechanical mastery.

Furthermore, in technical terms the game is still excellent.

Music, performances and sound design in general, very good. Graphics that still hold up, mainly due to the minimalist art direction, which practically only uses white, and occasionally solid colors as functional contrasts to the gameplay. Perfectly responsive and simple to pick up controls. Great animations. Practically non-existent interface favoring immersion. Simply great.

And the story, well, it's a generic excuse with a dystopian background that barely justifies itself. It's hard to pay attention to, but at least it's delivered with some degree of style, through gameplay or very nice 2D animated cutscenes.

It's ok, and can be completely ignored.

Combat is also an afterthought and probably should have been cut (as it was, in the sequel) in favor of a little more polish where it mattered. But it doesn't get in the way.

The game still runs surprisingly well on modern machines and is free of EA's infamous DRM. Add to that the ridiculous price they ask when the game is on sale, and that's it, there's no good reason for you not to give it a try.

It's a tight, innovative, well paced, very rewarding to master and highly replayable piece.

I love parkour civilization! it's my favourite movie and it's so cool to see a game based off of it

"Mirror's Edge" offers a unique and exhilarating first-person parkour experience and the game's minimalist aesthetic and emphasis on speed create a truly immersive experience.