Leap of faith

by ERIK LEIJON

Speed is the name of the game for these holiday releases: Mirror’s Edge (PS3, X360/EA, DICE) and Sonic Unleashed (X360, PS3/Sega, Sonic Team), but not all barn burners are created equal. The former is the most unique gameplay experience of the year, and the latter pales in comparison to the 1999 game it’s attempting to emulate.

Mirror’s Edge stars a young parkour traceur named Faith, running from skyscraper rooftop to rooftop, avoiding the Man and gathering evidence to save her incarcerated sister. Parkour elements have been used before in the Prince of Persia and Tomb Raider series, but Mirror’s Edge is the first to try it from a first-person perspective.

It’s no mere FPS though—it’s an action game with hair-raising jumps, dizzying heights, constant running and numerous life-risking obstacles to evade. The excellent time trial missions show Mirror’s Edge to be more in line with Mario-style platforming mixed with Jet Set Radio-style visuals and themes of future metropolis security. To admonish the game’s linear nature is to misunderstand the game entirely: it’s meant to play as a series of increasingly dangerous stunts such as leaping from a crane suspended hundreds of feet in the air, and generally doing things even daredevil tightrope walker Philippe Petit would consider excessive.

A movement-heavy first-person game always seemed like a difficult proposition because of the inevitable queasiness and eye strain it would cause among players, but for some reason doing air flips and bouncing off walls wasn’t too rough. The two-toned colour palette—an excess of white as the sun reflects off every skyscraper window and red indicating an object to interact with—is unlike anything ever created before, and there’s enough variation with indoor missions to keep the rigid gameplay fresh.

The controls aren’t perfect and the timing of the quick close-quarters combat is a bit suspect in the faster later missions, but the ambitious Mirror’s Edge almost nails a perfect landing on the first attempt.

As for Sonic Unleashed, Sonic will routinely hit 300 mph on the beautifully designed levels, but there’s so much dead time in between the occasionally great moments, there’s little momentum to go with the speed. Thanks to Dr. Eggman/Robotnik’s experiments, Sonic now becomes a werehog at night.

The werehog missions are your typical button-mashing third-person brawler, and monotonous compared to the regular hedgehog stages. While some filler is to be expected when your prize levels routinely last under 10 minutes, the actual Sonic levels are less hands-on than before. Sometimes Sonic is moving down a 3D track similar to a generic racing game, and there’s very little for the player to do beyond pushing the analog stick forward and occasionally watching out for spikes.

Although a respectable return to form, just trying to reach the heights of a game released nearly a decade ago (1999’s Sonic Adventure) isn’t good enough for one of gaming’s most recognizable faces. The bosses are well-designed and the cutscenes where Sonic is avoiding enemy gunfire at breakneck speeds looks like fun. Perhaps there’s a better game there than under the current set-up?

Return to rapture

If, for whatever reason, you haven’t given 2007’s most commended game of the year a spin, there is finally a PS3 version of FPS BioShock (PS3/2K Games, 2K Marin) to complement the heralded X360 and PC originals. For their patience, PS3 owners get three additional puzzle rooms and a new insanely difficult survivor mode. Although not much different from the other editions, it’s nice to see BioShock reaching as many gamers as possible.