🏃‍♀️ Mirror's Edge

The best way to describe Mirror’s Edge is to say that it’s a game in constant motion. Literally standing on the edge of the mirror, the edges of the enormous glass of which the buildings of La Città are made, one runs and jumps without any brakes.

The parkour element of the game is extremely immersive; although I haven’t played the first game in the series for long enough, but only the second, Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst, I can talk about a magical experience about the latter. Perhaps thanks to the graphics, more realistic than the first game, certainly thanks to the controls, responsive but not excessively taxing, the pace of the game is naturally pressing.

For a title that can be enjoyed with standard equipment, not in virtual reality, the extent of this quality is decidedly impressive. Often while playing Mirror’s Edge I found myself in states of flow that were both refreshing and tense in which, without me thinking too much about it, I went in just a few seconds from anxiety due to exaggerated leaps of faith, in which it was as if my weight on the chair was canceled out making me feel like I was suspended in the air, to others of continuous running with low effort, almost as if Faith was moving alone and not by my hand.

The game cannot disappoint even those who, after a subjective analysis, might believe that such a formula could quickly become monotonous: Mirror’s Edge is not just platforming and parkour, but features hand-to-hand combat against human entities (practically the police who want to hinder runners). In the most suitable moments to break up the rhythm of the gameplay, you come across stakeouts that you have to deal with immediately, with dry and continuous moves: the less time you waste, and the sooner you continue on your path, the better.

It’s a real shame that, with a very good probability, we will never see a third game be created for the saga, for reasons related to the trends of the video game market. Oh God, actually a third game already exists, Mirror’s Edge Mobile: it was released in 2011 (well before Catalyst) for iOS and Windows Phone, and perhaps I could try it with Microsoft’s Windows Phone emulator for Windows desktop, I would like to be able to play it on my Android smartphone, but for the moment this is not yet possible.