Mirror's Edge - Beaten

I don’t generally like to say a game is beaten, I perfer to say completed or finished. Much like you don’t generally beat a book or movie.

I’ve beaten Mirror’s Edge.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, thus the mentality of a punishingly difficult game no longer appeals to me, maybe it’s that I played through without guns that made it harder. The last three chapters (of 10) were just unforgivably hard.

I am still interested in the story and the fundamentals of the game play. I’ll probably pick up what ever sequel comes for the game, but I do hope that DICE has learned and makes a game that doesn’t punish the player next time around.

Sony and Nintendo E3 press briefings

I have to admit, I don’t own a Wii or a PS3 and I’m not inclined to get either, (though Monkey Island on WiiWare might change that). As such I didn’t really follow either press event closely this year, certainly didn’t try to catch a live stream in any case.

Nintendo

Nintendo is a little more interesting to me. Like many older gamers I have a soft spot for Nintendo gently lined with childhood memories. While I didn’t grow up with an NES or SNES I did have a GameBoy and remember fondly playing NES when visiting other friends and family. (not to mention pirateware C64 ports of NES games).

I also own a DS, though beyond Brain Age and Mario there’s not been a lot there that I’ve really wanted to play.

This year’s Nintendo conference was much more interesting than last. They did a MUCH better job of mixing things to appeal to the Wii’s base, such as Wii Fit 2 and Wii Heart Monitor with things that appeal to long time gamers such as New Super Mario and Metroid.

Still, even though Nintendo offered more for the life long gamer, they still seem like they’re playing to an almost completely different market than Sony and Microsoft are.

Sony

I actually have a strong dislike of Sony at this point, starting with their community management around Everquest and festering over the years in other product encounters. So Sony’s presser is more interesting to me from the standpoint of watching the leader fail than it is for genuine excitement for their products.

To that end the Sony “Waggle Wand”™ is highly amusing. While Microsoft’s Natal project seems to take the idea of motion control and iterate on it in an innovative way, Sony’s solution leaves the impression that it wants to be a Wiimote but not infringe on Nintendo’s patents.

On the software side Sony, much like Microsoft, had more of what their fans love to show off. Where Microsoft had Halo, Forza, Rock Band and Crackdown Sony had Metal Gear, Grand Turismo, God of War and Final Fantasy.

Perhaps it was because Sony’s press conference was second, but it left me with a real sense of “me too!” instead of anything really new and interesting.

Mirror's Edge - Final Thoughts

I don’t know if I’m going to finish this game. Chapter 7 was a kick in the bag in terms of difficulty. Chapter 8 picks right up and starts t-bagging you while you’re down. I’m actually really glad I bought in late and picked this game up for half price because at $60 I would have probably wanted to return it.

Chapter 8 starts with two sections of roof running that require you to exactly follow the line planned flawlessly and with perfect timing in order to evade a group of police runners. These are impossible to fight and disarm. I’m too old to be dealing with a game that is as unforgiving difficult anymore. Mirrors edge is fun when you’re running through the environment, but DICE kept adding more and more combat elements to the game to the point where it’s just not fun anymore.

Maybe I should go pay some neighbor kid $5 to finish the game for me so I can get my achievements.

Microsoft E3 Press Briefing 2009

Work at home days can be a lot of fun. While banging through some SAP training materials I had the chance to watch the live stream of the Microsoft E3 press briefing. This year, the G4 video feed (from justin.tv) seemed to work reasonably well after the first few minutes of the briefing.

Anyway here's some of my highlights:

• Modern Warfare 2 - Looks awesome, at least for the single player game. I did enjoy the original Modern Warfare single player quite a bit so I’ll have this one on the stack of “games to get eventually”.
• Joy Ride - free, looks potentially fun, at least for those family game nights when I get the clan from across the country together to play.
• Left 4 Dead 2 - zOMG! I love playing the original Left 4 Dead, even though I don’t often get the chance. Might be too soon for a sequel already but I’m still inclined to buy it.
• Splinter Cell: Conviction – Looks really cool, interesting story set up. That said I’ve never played the other Splinter Cell games so I don’t have that much interest in this one. I’ll probably pass, there is neither time nor money to play everything.
• Forza 3 – Wow this looks like a great racing game. I’ve only really dabbled in Forza 2, having picked it up used at Blockbuster for $7 a while ago. Still I’m surprised to see burnout style deformation and acrobatics from a game with real cars and physics. Very cool.
• Halo – I’m going to buy Halo:ODST the day it comes out, the same is true for Halo:Reach. I didn’t get to watch either portion of the presser though as I was needed elsewhere. Both kids and work have the impeccable timing of needing my attention during the part of the conference I really wanted to see.
• Metal Gear Solid – So the rumors are partially true. Not at all surprised. MGS is not my kind of game really, but as an Xbox fan it’s great to see it come to the platform. The same can be said for FFXIII
• Social Networking – I don’t tweet, I don’t have a Facebook account (yet) and I’ve never used Last.FM but both seem to be the realization of Sony’s “console as a living room computer” vision. Seems like Microsoft blocked them with the Xbox, knocked them down with the Xbox 360, then curb stomped them with the Natal project.
• Natal / Motion Control – This just looks cool. Definitely better suited to living room and big screen play, but I’ll buy one and see how well it works with my desk and 24” monitor rig.

All told, the press conference did what it was supposed to, left me wanting to spend a bunch of my money. The only thing that it didn’t do was leave me wanting to buy a Zune HD for the port-o-gaming. Maybe xYz is next year’s big project.

Mirror’s Edge – Second Impression

Well into chapter 7 now, but not quite done with the game. I have to agree with the assessment of others on the forums, blogs and enthusiast press and say that there are parts of the game that are just flat out ball bustlingly hard.

I’ve not yet tried the gun play, as I’m working towards the achievement for finishing a play through without firing a gun, but the game is definitely at its best when Faith is running through the environment at speed, and still pretty good when you slow down to figure out the next step in the path. Where things fall apart is combat.

Every time the game forces you to fight your way out of a situation I find that I’m restarting 10, 15, 20 times before I get the timing of my disarms down perfectly.

Still, the good parts are out weighing the frustrating so far. You have to go in knowing that the game gets positively HARD.