Mirrors Edge Review

As a fan of original titles, it didn't take long for Mirrors Edge to catch my eye with its unique story, interesting mechanics, and stunning visuals. Mirrors Edge is a first person, platforming game developed by DICE at EA Studios, released in 2009.

Story and Setting:

Mirrors Edge presents a moderately original story you don't see to much in video games today. The game takes place in a fictional city set in the future that is being ran by a corrupt government. You play as a woman named Faith who is a member of a group known as the Runners. The Runners are couriers that relay messages across the city while avoiding the corrupt government law enforcement who the Runners call Blues. Runners are experts at parkour running and fighting, which consists of rooftop running and jumping as well as wall running and mantling in a very quick and fluid manner. During a normal delivery, Faith discovers that

her sister Kate has been falsely accused of murder and suspecting it to be a set up. During the course of the game you will be running across rooftops and evading Blues trying to find out who framed Kate and why. The plot keeps you into the game in its entirety but the main issue with it is its length. With the main story taking only an average of six hours to complete with very little replay value and no multilayer to expand on, the game was hard to come back too, which was a problem considering the sixty dollar price point the game had at launch. However, this does not make the game and its story any less memorable.

Soundtrack:

Whether you are running and jumping on rooftops, or being chased by Blues there is always a piece being played to fit the moment. I found my self purposely getting detected by police just so they would come after me because the chase music made it so intense and enjoyable. The games main theme being and instrumental version of “Still Alive” by Swedish singer Lisa Miskovsky just goes so well with the flow of the gameplay.

Gameplay and Visuals:

These two topics are without a doubt the games most strongest points. With it being a first person platforming game, it surprisingly feels very smooth and fluid. The same can be said for the hand to hand combat system, very fluid and easy to learn. There are not button combinations here, you can fly through this game with only a few button presses, yet it still retains its challenged which is a very important accomplishment. There is shooting in this game but it is optional, which is a good thing. The gun play is very clunky and difficult to use, clearly not meant to be a main feature in the game. The graphics however were nothing short of amazing, I remember when the game was first revealed and how I didn't know it was gameplay that was being showed, I thought it was a cinematic trailer, very impressive. There can be a few stutters in performance here and there but overall the game kept is crisp clean look and still ran very smoothly, a goal games today struggle with.

Mirrors Edge is a great game that has its flaws but in none the less still a great game. Games like this show how original and fun games have the potential of being, it all comes down to the people who are making it and if they have the skills and passion for bringing it to life  Fortunately for this game they had the right people behind it, for the most part, and with a sequel set to release is the near future there is allot to be excited about.

Halo: Combat Evolved Review

The Halo series will always hold a special place in my heart, it was the first game that introduced me to story driven games and made me the gamer I am today. As someone who loves movies, you can imagine my amazement when I first came across Halo: Combat Evolved by Bungie studios, back in 2001. Almost everyone who considers themselves gamers have played this title at one time or another. This game not only made first person shooters popular on consoles, but to me it changed the way games are looked at.

I'm going to break this review down into three categories, Story, Soundtrack, Gameplay and Visuals.

Story-

Halo has such a deep lore that goes beyond the games themselves that it would be hard to explain it all in this little review, so I will give you a short version. The year is 2531, the Human race have been at war for the past few decades with a religious driven union of aliens known as The Covenant, who believes the humans to be a race of heretics that needs to be wiped out. Halo: Combat Evolved takes place right after the destruction of Reach, one of the many Human inhabited planets, this one was home to the Spartan Program. 

The Spartans are genetically designed super soldiers that came into great use after the first Covenant invasion, they wore a highly advanced set of armor called MJOLNIR V.  This armor is a technologically-advanced combat exoskeleton system designed to vastly improve the strength, speed, agility, reflexes and durability of a Spartan soldier. It was later implemented with a rechargeable shielding system using technology stolen from the Covenant. But after the destruction of Reach, the Spartans had supposedly been wiped out along with it. Only one Spartan was known to had survived and was in cryo sleep aboard the Pillar of Autumn, a lone military space vessel that fled while the Covenant glassed the planet. The Spartans name is John 117 or Master Chief, this is the character the player will be controlling. The Pillar of Autumn comes out of slip space, this is the opening scene for the game, and approaches a strange object found orbiting a planet, the object has the appearance of a giant ring with water and mountains on its inner sides. 

Afterward the ship is attacked by Covenant forces and they are forced to land on the mysterious ring world during which you play as Master Chief accompanied by an artificial intelligence named Cortana who offers guidance through your missions. Your main mission is to recover your lost crew members, find the captain, and figure out what this ring world is and why the Covenant are so interested in it.

Soundtrack-

The musical score of a video game is just as important as the story, similar to a movie, its role is to capture and intensify the mood of the scene you are witnessing. Halo executes this perfectly, with many jaw dropping pieces by Martin O' Donnell in which every single one fits appropriately with what is going on in the game. To this day the Halo main theme still amazes me. 

Gameplay and Visuals-

Whats the point of playing a video game if its not smooth or good to look at? Fortunately for its time, Halo Combat Evolved was very advanced and revolutionary. Bringing the first person shooter to the consoles must have been a challenged, but Bungie ended up doing it right. The controls are very smooth, fluid, and easy to pick up. Not once did I have trouble remembering which button did what, the set up was very

simple. The visuals however, by today standards would be considered to be very poor, but once again for its time it was state of the art graphics. I remember when I first played the game, how realistic I though it was, and even today the game still looks pretty good. Back in 2011, 343 Industries released a ten year anniversary version of the game called Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, which is exactly the same as the original but remastered. The point of it was to show how far technology has come in ten years, the game allows you to cycle back and forth between the original and revised graphics. So if you are a newer gamer who wants to experience Halo without the outdated visuals, then this one is for you.

Halo: Combat Evolved was an amazing game for its time, setting the benchmark for FPS games on consoles and expressing what a truly original and story driven game should be like. With the Halo series still kicking strong with six games under its belt, its hard to imagine anyone who has not at least heard of this game. If you are a fan of Halo but have not played the first one, I highly recommend that you do and that goes the same for the people who have never played the series.  

Why I enjoy gaming.

Games have always been a part of my life, video games in particular.  I honestly cannot remember the first video game I ever played, it goes that far back.  The earliest memory I have is when I played Sonic The Hedgehog on my dads Sega console back when I was about five or so years old.  It wasn't until I was about eight or nine when I really started to get into games.



I remember the first console I ever owned myself was a Nintendo 64, and boy did I play the crap out of that thing!




        Video games for me is a great way to relax after a long day, they are an escape from the busy and stressful real world into a completely different and exciting new world, filled with fun and enjoyment.  And they still serve that purpose for me today.

When I was younger I mostly played arcade style games with my friends, it was all about competition to see who can get the highest score, and that was all good and fun when you had others to play with, but what about when your friends had to go home to do their homework or chores?   Those games for me got boring pretty fast, so that's when I started diving into more story driven games that were more for solo players and I had a good hand full of those on my Nintendo 64, but it wasn't until after I discovered a game called Halo: Combat Evolved back in 2001 that I saw the potential for video games in a whole different way.  My Dad had bought me an Xbox for Christmas that year and I remember my Dad had got Halo for himself.  Well after a little while I finally decided to give the game at try and I immediately became hooked.  That was the first game I had ever played where I actually felt like I was immersed in a deep and emotional story.  It came to a point where I played the game not just to play it, but to continue the story and find out what happened next.  Just the overall combination of great voice acting, stunning visuals and setting, exciting and dramatic story, and mood boosting soundtrack completely blew me away!  It was something I had only seen in movies at the time.

Ever since then I considered myself a gamer and I have expanded my variety of games immensely because it was only later discovered just how many of them like Halo that there actually were out there.  Games that present such unique and original ideas and story, as well as great execution of telling the story.  For some games it can be like watching a movie that you can control and interact with in many ways.  So on this blog I will be reviewing games I have played in my life that have really impressed me and showed just how much greatness and potential there is in video games, that allot of people don't see at first glance.