You’d think moving and jumping in a video game with a first person perspective would be easy—because hey, we see the world in that way and it comes naturally. Well you’d be wrong. Part of the reason I’ve always hated first person shooters stems from my inability to navigate the terrain and orient myself in the world.
I can remember playing Halo 3 and trying to get some hidden skulls that required crazy jumps to acquire and just getting frustrated because I kept falling. Could never tell if I was actually standing on the edge of a platform or not. The spatial representation between the character I’m controlling and objects in the world always seem off to me in these games.
Well I’m having all of those issues playing Mirror’s Edge on the Xbox 360. The environments look beautiful and when I actually get the controls working in sync with my movements the game can be pretty satisfying. I’ve only completed a few levels so maybe I’ll adjust eventually and see the true wonder that is flowing around in Mirror’s Edge. But right now I don’t get where all the hype came from when this game dropped a few months ago. Sure the ‘idea’ of a first person perspective game based on parkour (free running) instead of shooting is refreshing, but something tells me I’ll bore of it quickly and stop playing after I complete the story. Which seems to be the case with the rest of the hype I’ve experienced as of late…Gears of War 2…Prince of Persia…Dead Space…Star Wars:The Force Unleashed…
I suppose it’s not a bad thing if the experience is short when it’s is polished, focused, and unique, but games are expensive and I sort of want more for my $59.99 investment. When compared to games like Rock Band 2 or Animal Crossing: City Folk where I’ve played for over 80 hours combined—an 8 hour ride that costs the same seems way out of whack. Good thing there is this service called GameFly…
