Published on March 25, 2024 | Posted in Gaming
Thoughts on Mirrors Edge Catalyst
I recently picked up Mirrors Edge during one of the recent Xbox store sales. At the time of its launch, I was interested in playing it because I liked the idea of a parkour first-person game.
History
The game was initially released in 2016, developed by Dice, and published by EA. It’s a reboot of the original Mirror Edge game, first released in 2008. According to what I found reading up, the game sold between 1.7 million and 2 million in the first three months of release. But I imagine many more people have played the game now since it has been on sale multiple times and is on the EA game pass. Also a good amount of time has passed since its launch which should increase that number.
About the game
The game is a first-person Parkour game where you run, jump, slide, swing and crawl through the futuristic metropolitan city with high-rise buildings. You play Faith Connors, a runner in the fictional City of Glass. A runner is a messenger who delivers packages or information. The game starts with Faith leaving juvenile detention. After spending two years in detention, she wants to return to running to pay off a debt. On her first run back Faith discovers an encrypted hard drive containing some information a top seceret corporate project called Reflection. Without spoiling the game, you find out what’s on the hard drive and how it relates to her history.
What I liked
- Runner Vision is like a GPS you would find in a game like GTA or Saints Row. A red line highlights the path you have to take. I found it both good and bad. The good as it shows you the route to go when playing the game. Bad as it became a crutch for me as I relied on it to much and didn’t experiment in finding my own route to get to my destination.
- Once you get used to the movements and have enough of the upgrade, you can parkour around the rooftops. The game city is a playground for traversing it, and you find yourself entering a mini-flow state, jumping around the city.
What I didn’t like
- The storyline won’t win any awards. The writing is very predictable and plays on multiple genre stereotypes. The characters are very one-dimensional and lack depth.
- Side missions – The map looks something like Ubisoft games such as Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry where there are multiple missions and loads of collectables. Such as GridLeak, Computer chips and audio files. The side missions are not memorable and are just really padding with missions such as Fragile Delivery, where you have to deliver a package to a different location on the map and prevent the package from getting any damage. Which didn’t give me much motivation to complete it as the story mode is quite generous for its in-game currency
Final Thoughts
The game feels like a perfect Xbox Game Pass game, which isn’t an insult. It’s the sort of game that’s worth playing and enjoyable in parts, as it’s very short if you stick to the story mode and doesn’t overstay its welcome. I think if the game managed to get another sequel and build on what it had done, refining and polishing what this game has already done would be a further step to making a unique and different game series.