How would you have improved Mirror's Edge?

[similar.squirrel]

I got my Xbox back a while ago after a prolonged period of separation, and after finishing Portal twice, I decided to boot up Mirror's Edge.
Now, Mirror's Edge is one of my favourite games ever. I will be the first to admit that it has some flaws, but the core mechanic, the aesthetic and even the story [until the end, in any case] are almost perfect.
Where the game falls flat is execution; free-running is as much about flow and improvisation as it is about feats of athleticism, and whilst Mirror's Edge caters to the latter with a variety of alternate routes, the sense of flow is severely hampered the fact that Faith plummets to an untimely and crunchy death with a monotony that tested even my patience at first. That, or she's clubbed to death by an overzealous Blue..

Anyway, how would you have fixed these issues? I can't really think of anything other than a sort of isometric mini-map showing the topography of wherever you are, or a series of visual cues that extend beyond the bright colouration of certain objects in the actual game. As for the combat, I think a block, dodge and parry mechanic would have reduced the number of headaches, with the three face buttons representing each move.

Also, am I alone in thinking that the game would have benefited from having cel-shaded graphics during the gameplay as well? The intro, where you see the city from a first-person perspective in a cartooney style looked amazing.

Anyway..um..Discuss!

 

[GiantRaven]

No. Guns. At. All.

 

[Irridium]

No. Guns. At. All.

Yeah, I'd have limited the combat to just disarming guards. And focused more on the free-running across rooftops rather than skulking about in tight buildings and whatnot.

 

[PatSilverFox]

A better fighting mechanic, and more fighting.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Zombies and Nazis obviously, that is the minimum requirement or a modern game

 

[jakko12345]

It's critically flawed. Free running in first person will always be disorientating and irritating

 

[GiantRaven]

Yeah, I'd have limited the combat to just disarming guards. And focused more on the free-running across rooftops rather than skulking about in tight buildings and whatnot.

I wouldn't even have had the guards with guns. The worst thing about Mirror's Edge was the rushing in order to not get shot to death.

 

[Pearwood]

More platforming, less combat. Or at least make the platforming a part of combat.

 

[similar.squirrel]

No. Guns. At. All.

Yeah, I'd have limited the combat to just disarming guards. And focused more on the free-running across rooftops rather than skulking about in tight buildings and whatnot.

I just finished the game on the highest difficulty setting without firing a single shot [aside from the server-room at the very end]. You can limit the combat yourself.

But yeah, the indoor sections got tiresome, especially when the ventilation shafts came into the equation.
What surprised me, however, is how they handled the sewer level. It almost seems like it began as a kind of joke, whereby they decided to respect FPS tradition by including it and then actually having it make perfect sense.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

1. No combat.

2. The addition of a cooperative multiplayer mode in which you must have 2 people to execute special moves (boosting each other, using each other to distract guards, etc.)

3. Some kind of race multiplayer mode with a level editor to give the game a bit more replay value.

 

[garmaniac]

Two words: 3rd Person

That is all

 

[mexicola]

More developed cover system for shooting and maybe some RPG elements to keep it fresh, like putting points in running or luck.

 

[Gigatoast]

People need to stop ragging on this game!

I'm not the kind of impatient prick who will deride a game for being too difficult to just let you run through a level in one go. And I'm not the kind of queasy wuss who gets dizzy and nauseous doing first person platforming.

So frankly, I didn't find any real faults in the game, it was a tad insubstantial though. It definitely would have benefited from some form of multiplayer.

 

[GeorgW]

Third person and no combat.
/thread
The fact that it was first person was part of its appeal and it was a nice change, but it really needs some fine tuning before it can work. And the combat was completely unnecessary and ruined the flow.

 

[rbn06]

As mentioned before, the combat slowed the game down, remove it.

There should have been a lot less sections inside buildings. Again, it slowed the game down and I simply got bored of crawling through vents and being shot at with only one way to go. Being inside, the game was too linear and frankly boring. Outside there were way more options for the player, allowing them to take multiple routes to get to their destination. You had to think fast, whilst you were on the run, and that was fun.

 

[Wayneguard]

The flow that you speak of comes after going through the levels a few times. If you play the time trial courses, after a while you get the damn things into muscle memory. That's when you truly get the free running "feeling". I wouldn't have changed anything. Mirrors Edge was perfect.

 

[Dense_Electric]

Oh lord no, cell-shaded graphics would have destroyed the ultra-immersive aesthetic. A mini-map even more. And third person would have destroyed it even more. And considering immersion is what absolutely made that game for me, those thing = bad.

I really don't get why everyone complains about the gameplay. Maybe I'm just some sort of virtual-parkour deity, but I found it to be very natural and intuitive. About halfway through my first play through I turned off runner-vision and had very few problems with it. The combat, while the game certainly could have done without it, didn't take anything away from the experience for me either.

The only thing that could have made it better for me is if they had made an entire free-roaming city, fully recognized with a ton of interiors to explore and even more rooftop passageways, but being a map designer myself I know how huge an undertaking that would be unless they were sitting on (at least) a few dozen mappers.

Either way I just hope they get this sequel out the door, and I really hope they don't get rid of the things that made it so immersive in the first place.

 

[verdugo136]

i think making it a sand box game would be good

 

[Katana314]

I absolutely felt the first-person was a part of what made it unique, but there would definitely need to be changes to make it feel less disorienting, while still maintaining the feel of momentum inherent with running. Possibly limit the level that the game's first-person view can rotate, and for the wall-grabbing sections, have her spaced backwards from the wall perhaps a bit more than is realistic.

One thing I might do is replace the joystick for running with a single button. The speedrunners of the game like me avoided strafing at all costs, and it helped the feel of momentum when you ignore all other directions of movement.

I'm actually wondering what would happen if you combined what Mirror's Edge invented with the ideas of a Sonic game, to see if it would actually revive either franchise.