Despite being 8 years ago, 2008 only seems like yesterday and it was a brilliant year for gaming. With amazing titles such as Fallout 3, Dead Space, and Gears of War 2 all sharing the holiday season along with many many more, it was a crowded scene to say the least. It's understandable then that an often forgotten cult classic was produced during that time by a neglectful EA and a pre-Battlefield 3 DICE. Yes I am of course referring to Mirrors Edge, a first person free-running action game where you control Faith Connors as she unravels a mystery behind a political killing in a utopian future. It was a simply fantastic game, even if it didn't actually have a huge amount going for it. It was disastrously short, the story was wasn't exactly spectacular, and the gameplay was pretty basic though extremely enjoyable nonetheless. So why did it garner such a passionate cult following? Because of the fantastic potential the IP held, all it would take was a half decent development period and a reasonable amount of funding from EA to have a brilliant and completely unique game. Well 8 years have indeed passed and here is a sentence I thought I would never be able to write. There is a new Mirrors Edge game, and it is fantastic.
Forget everything you know about the Mirrors Edge story because Catalyst wipes the slate clean. After having witnessed the murder of her parents and sister at the hands of Gabriel Kruger as a young child, Faith Connors was taken in by an underground organisation that call themselves runners. Parkour experts that traverse the city of Glass, couriers for those who do not want Kruger Security (K-Sec), the city's eyes and ears, knowing their secrets. After being released from juvenile detention, Faith is re-initiated into the runners and has gained somewhat of a bad reputation for the actions that landed her in the hands of K-Sec. Determined to shake this image, she runs a particularly dangerous job to earn enough money to pay off a debt. In the process however Faith obtains a data drive with classified K-Sec information on something called Reflection.
As Faith becomes a fugitive from K-Sec, landing the runners in danger too, a plot to incite a revolution begins brewing with a terrorist organisation called Black November who plan to use the data on Reflection to cripple K-Sec's influence on the citizens of Glass.
It's a much deeper story than what the original Mirrors Edge had. Unfortunately though, the story is one of the weakest components of the game. It's extremely cliché and much like the original game it leaves a lot unexplained. Many of the main characters aren't particularly great and it's still pretty short. It is however extremely well paced, with each new mission raising the stakes higher than the previous one, leading up to a particularly breathtaking and explosive finale. It's also interesting to see how Black November act as the moral grey area between good and bad. Demolishing a shopping mall with explosives, as well as several other buildings around the city, killing thousands of innocent people, all in an attempt to turn the people against K-Sec.
It deals with some pretty interesting narratives, yet it doesn't do enough with them to make them particularly worthy of praise. In many ways, it's another case of missed potential with the world of Mirrors Edge.
Forget everything you know about the Mirrors Edge story because Catalyst wipes the slate clean. After having witnessed the murder of her parents and sister at the hands of Gabriel Kruger as a young child, Faith Connors was taken in by an underground organisation that call themselves runners. Parkour experts that traverse the city of Glass, couriers for those who do not want Kruger Security (K-Sec), the city's eyes and ears, knowing their secrets. After being released from juvenile detention, Faith is re-initiated into the runners and has gained somewhat of a bad reputation for the actions that landed her in the hands of K-Sec. Determined to shake this image, she runs a particularly dangerous job to earn enough money to pay off a debt. In the process however Faith obtains a data drive with classified K-Sec information on something called Reflection.
As Faith becomes a fugitive from K-Sec, landing the runners in danger too, a plot to incite a revolution begins brewing with a terrorist organisation called Black November who plan to use the data on Reflection to cripple K-Sec's influence on the citizens of Glass.
It's a much deeper story than what the original Mirrors Edge had. Unfortunately though, the story is one of the weakest components of the game. It's extremely cliché and much like the original game it leaves a lot unexplained. Many of the main characters aren't particularly great and it's still pretty short. It is however extremely well paced, with each new mission raising the stakes higher than the previous one, leading up to a particularly breathtaking and explosive finale. It's also interesting to see how Black November act as the moral grey area between good and bad. Demolishing a shopping mall with explosives, as well as several other buildings around the city, killing thousands of innocent people, all in an attempt to turn the people against K-Sec.
It deals with some pretty interesting narratives, yet it doesn't do enough with them to make them particularly worthy of praise. In many ways, it's another case of missed potential with the world of Mirrors Edge.
The gameplay however is a completely different beast. Mirrors Edge: Catalyst may perhaps be one of the most enjoyable gameplay experiences on current generation consoles. Giving you an open world to explore was the best decision DICE could have made for Catalyst. It's a very difficult experience to explain, but being able to run, jump, slide, roll, and climb from one end of the game world to the other as breakneck speeds is an experience like no other and perhaps the single greatest reason to invest in the game. The longer you play the more you master how Faith moves and how to best traverse the environment, after just a few hours you'll feel like a free-running master and be able to pull off some simply amazing manoeuvres.
Most of Faith's abilities are locked behind an upgrade tree however. Whilst for the most part this is a benefit for the game, allowing a slow progression of ability over several hours. It does lock out very basic, essential moves such as the roll and quickturn until you purchase them with skill points. They come very early on in the tree which certainly softens the blow, but it puzzles me as to why they were locked out in the first place, for two such essential moves to Faith's skillset.
Beyond the story you have plenty to keep you busy in Catalyst. You have dozens of time trials, hundreds of collectibles, and a large number of side missions to keep you occupied for around 30-40 hours if you plan on achieving the illustrious 100%. You can also build trials for your friends to race against, introducing a basic form of multiplayer to the game.
The world is extremely well designed too, with plenty of the side activities requiring a precise mastery of Faith's skills in order to succeed. However, it did not stop some pretty hit & miss collision detection on ziplines and ledges, often causing me to plummet to my demise despite being well within reaching distance of the object. Sometimes Faith would also climb a wall differently to how I had wanted to for no apparent reason. This proved frustrating, though not something that outright ruined the experience.
Visually Mirrors Edge: Catalyst is a mixed bag. For the most part I was pretty disappointed with low resolution textures, object pop-in, and some poor lighting during night time sections. However when running through the environment at full speed, many of these problems are hardly noticeable. It is very disappointing though to see that very little effort was put into the games graphics in an era where high fidelity visuals are being pushed harder than they ever have before, especially from a company such as DICE who are often renowned for their incredible graphics work.
The audio is a completely different matter however with some amazing sound quality from start to finish. For the majority of the game there is no music, instead it's just the sounds of the city and the wind rushing past your ears which really immerse you into the game. When music does play it's usually pretty good; I wouldn't pick up the soundtrack, but it is certainly well done.
The voice acting can at times leave a lot to be desired, but this could be in part to a reasonably dry script and some forced dialogue that can sound pretty out of character, the worst offenders by far are Icarus and Isabel Kruger, though Faith goes through some pretty rough patches now and again. The best deliveries are from Dogen and Plastic, each providing great, believable performances even when the script wasn't at its best.
So how does Mirrors Edge: Catalyst fare overall? It's certainly not a bad game and it's one of the most unique big budget titles in a while. You'd have to be a pretty miserable person not to enjoy playing it thanks to the pretty amazing gameplay, plus you're going to be set for a while thanks to the amount of side missions and collectibles there are littered around Glass.
However, don't go in expecting a fantastic story and don't go in expecting a great looking game. If they are the two most important things that you look for when buying games then Catalyst will certainly miss the mark.
It seems that for the next game, if there will ever be one, that all DICE need to do is make the story a bit longer and hire a better writer, as well as provide us with a good looking game which we all know they are capable of.
Most of Faith's abilities are locked behind an upgrade tree however. Whilst for the most part this is a benefit for the game, allowing a slow progression of ability over several hours. It does lock out very basic, essential moves such as the roll and quickturn until you purchase them with skill points. They come very early on in the tree which certainly softens the blow, but it puzzles me as to why they were locked out in the first place, for two such essential moves to Faith's skillset.
Beyond the story you have plenty to keep you busy in Catalyst. You have dozens of time trials, hundreds of collectibles, and a large number of side missions to keep you occupied for around 30-40 hours if you plan on achieving the illustrious 100%. You can also build trials for your friends to race against, introducing a basic form of multiplayer to the game.
The world is extremely well designed too, with plenty of the side activities requiring a precise mastery of Faith's skills in order to succeed. However, it did not stop some pretty hit & miss collision detection on ziplines and ledges, often causing me to plummet to my demise despite being well within reaching distance of the object. Sometimes Faith would also climb a wall differently to how I had wanted to for no apparent reason. This proved frustrating, though not something that outright ruined the experience.
Visually Mirrors Edge: Catalyst is a mixed bag. For the most part I was pretty disappointed with low resolution textures, object pop-in, and some poor lighting during night time sections. However when running through the environment at full speed, many of these problems are hardly noticeable. It is very disappointing though to see that very little effort was put into the games graphics in an era where high fidelity visuals are being pushed harder than they ever have before, especially from a company such as DICE who are often renowned for their incredible graphics work.
The audio is a completely different matter however with some amazing sound quality from start to finish. For the majority of the game there is no music, instead it's just the sounds of the city and the wind rushing past your ears which really immerse you into the game. When music does play it's usually pretty good; I wouldn't pick up the soundtrack, but it is certainly well done.
The voice acting can at times leave a lot to be desired, but this could be in part to a reasonably dry script and some forced dialogue that can sound pretty out of character, the worst offenders by far are Icarus and Isabel Kruger, though Faith goes through some pretty rough patches now and again. The best deliveries are from Dogen and Plastic, each providing great, believable performances even when the script wasn't at its best.
So how does Mirrors Edge: Catalyst fare overall? It's certainly not a bad game and it's one of the most unique big budget titles in a while. You'd have to be a pretty miserable person not to enjoy playing it thanks to the pretty amazing gameplay, plus you're going to be set for a while thanks to the amount of side missions and collectibles there are littered around Glass.
However, don't go in expecting a fantastic story and don't go in expecting a great looking game. If they are the two most important things that you look for when buying games then Catalyst will certainly miss the mark.
It seems that for the next game, if there will ever be one, that all DICE need to do is make the story a bit longer and hire a better writer, as well as provide us with a good looking game which we all know they are capable of.
STORY: 7/10
GAMEPLAY: 7/10
PRESENTATION: 7/10
LIFESPAN: 7/10
SCORE: 7/10
Mirrors Edge: Catalyst may not be the best game of 2016, but it is certainly one of the most enjoyable to play and one I see myself losing a lot of time just running around in.