The Combat of Mirror's Edge.

This is Part 2 of a little 3 part ditty on the game Mirror's Edge. Check out Part 1 - The Flow of Mirror's Edge.


I really like Mirror's Edge. I think that it is kind of like an updated version of the platformer. Everything is about precision jumping and the proper execution of simple button commands. I'm more stressed playing this game than just about any other game I've played in the past few years. So it does lots of things right.

Combat, however, is wrong.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, Mirror's Edge is about the flow - that feeling of a continual hurdling over obstacles. The feeling that nothing can slow you down and you adapt to your surroundings to make sure that's true. Merc, the in-your-ear, tell-you-what-to-do guy, even tells you to run away from any "Blues" (cops) you run into.

So that's what I did. I knew this wasn't a game about fighting baddies. The game designers knew this wasn't a game about fighting baddies. And yet, I came to a room in the seventh chapter where the only exit was a door that takes about five seconds to open guarded by four soldiers with machine guns (and uncanny accuracy...). I think I tried thirty times to do it without killing anyone - just be confusion and misleading - but every time, I got shot dead at the door (if I made it...).

Combat is a real problem in this game. In some ways, it suffers the same problem as certain parts of the parkour system do: a zero margin of error. When I run and jump-kick a guard, I had better have lined up that kick just right and he better not be swinging his arm to hit me. If that's true, I'll sometimes land a hit. Forgive me for having this opinion, but I think first person melee combat should have at least a little bit of a margin for error.

The combat verbs are remarkably limited, too. My "attack" button triggers a right punch, a left, and then some kind of shove. It's very difficult to interrupt any of these commands should your opponent have moved or fallen quickly.

The Disarm action is especially infuriating. If you can hit the button at the exact moment the weapon flashes red, Faith will do some cool flippy moves to both knock out and disarm the opponent. If you miss, she flails forward with her arms both getting hit by the opponent and taking forever. If you're particularly slow learning (like I tend to be in games like this), you often end up hitting the button in the same moment of the opponent's attack cycle, thus opening yourself up for attack again. (Side note: Can someone explain to me why I can get hit by three bullets before dying, but I can only take two hits from a rifle butt? What sense does that make?) It's all very frustrating.

How it could be better: I think a little leniency could go a long way in how frustrating it is to damage the enemies in this game, but what Mirror's Edge really needs is some kind of target lock system. If we are supposed to take out enemies one at a time, then a single-enemy target lock system, combined with more contextualized actions, would be very effective in reducing player frustration with combat.

The real problem with the combat, though, is its very existence! This game is not about an awesome secret agent infiltrating the government and taking out an army of soldiers. It's about the Flow! Why on earth did DICE ask the players to stop the Flow to experience crappy combat?

I really can't think of a reason why the designers seemed to put so much emphasis on it in later levels. In fact, at the end of one of the final levels, there's what amounts to a boss fight against a ninja assassin! This brings me to my Game Design Maxim of the Day: Focus on your core gameplay experience. Anything else is tangential and should not detract from that core experience. Clearly, the combat detracted from the parkour. But boy. That Flow.... It's a good time.

The Flow of Mirror's Edge.

I've been playing a lot of Mirror's Edge since getting back on vacation. I'm a pretty big fan, but there are some troubling problems.

For a game that's about "the flow" (as the lead character, Faith, says in the intro), there could be more... flow. The designers do their best. I mean, it's a first person game about parkour. I'm amazed they could pull off a first person game that requires so much awareness of body, distance, and momentum. They use a very bright red to indicate an object that can be used for one of the parkour moves that they introduce. For the most part, this red stands in stark contrast to the rest of the set and is very helpful. In large, open, outdoor levels, it's great. The white of the buildings highlight the boards and bricks that give Faith the ability to do crazy things. The problem is in the indoor levels.

The indoor levels are almost the opposite of the outdoor levels. The outdoor levels usually have a plethora of paths that Faith can take to get from point A to point B. Very few of them are interesting or optimal, but if something goes horribly awry, you can always try something else. Indoors, there is exactly one path to take. Not a problem. Usually, it is obvious which way to go and what to do. There are plenty of unopenable doors and dead ends that are fairly clear before you head towards them. On occasion, though, the one path comes to a large room (or two. or three.). This is where the headaches begin.

The designers forsaw that players would have trouble knowing where to go. The B button fixes Faith's gaze on the next goal or door. But some frustrating times, they turn this off. I don't know if they think it's obvious enough that they don't need it or they are trying to get a player to explore, but it doesn't work. Usually because people are shooting at you. With machine guns.

Last night, I spent about 45 minutes trying to explore a mall filled with cops to find the exit. I would run in, get their attention, delay getting shot by a few minutes, sometimes steal a gun and shoot them back, not find an exit, and die. Over and over and over and over again. My B button direction was turned off and I almost threw the controller in frustration. I cursed the designers over and over again before finally consulting a walk through. (Turns out there was a bar [colored slightly red] that blended in with a low hanging wall that I was supposed to swing to...)

Here's a game design maxim that all this has taught me: Difficulty should not come from not knowing what to do. It should be the task itself that is difficult.

This frustration comes back to the desired experience of "flow." Letting the player guess their route means that they won't stay there very long. The players do not know the rooftops of the city like Faith does. I found myself many times thinking, "Wow. I want to play this level again until I know the route well enough to really run through here." That would be a fun experience. To know where you are going and to use the parkour moves to get there.

Maybe the designers meant for me to think that. Maybe that's the "replay value" in this game. (I put quotes because I won't actually do it...) I think a better solution would be to put some kind of red path in Faith's vision. At least on the rooftops that she is familiar with. That way, we as players, are privy to her knowledge and are more able to sync up with the experience that we paid money to have. Flow is a lot easier when you know which way to go.

Even despite my frustrations about the Flow of Mirror's Edge, I'm still enjoying it. The rare moments when I can confidently wall run, jump, dive, and slide are well worth the money I paid to play this game. I just wish the designers had made it easier to feel that more often.