I think the idea is that you're a runner in some sort of Utopian police state (is that a paradox?) or something, hence the blandness. Think Equilibrium.
Story inspired by Firefly/Serenity (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53034).
As if you needed another reason to want this game.
Preview (http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=920)That's very interesting. I like the thought of that "change of pace" style of gameplay already, since so many games overthrow you with weapons, ammo, etc etc.
Sounds great. Seems gunplay will be minimal since carrying a gun hinders your acrobatic movement and there are no ammo pickups (whatever is in the gun is all you will get to use).
As the game's sprawling levels provide many opportunities, the most obvious choices are painted red, a device developer EA DICE refers to as Runner Vision.That's good that Runner Vision can be disabled and all. I'm sure not everybody wants to follow one linear route to get to their objective.
However, a company representative was quick to point out that Runner Vision only provides a general guide to the objective, and not the most efficient path. It can also be entirely disabled, if desired.
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Mirror's Edge Soundtrack Features 'Still Alive,' Releasing in November
by Chris Faylor Oct 07, 2008 12:03pm CST tags: Mirrors Edge
A downloadable Mirror's Edge soundtrack will be released on November 11 alongside the impending parkour-inspired first-person action game, publisher EA has announced.
The soundtrack features Lisa Miskovsky's performance of "Still Alive," which was written by Rami Yacoub and Arnthor Birgisson and shares no resemblance to Jonathan Coulton's beloved Portal end song of the same name. The track list follows:
Mirror's Edge Remix Album
1. Lisa Miskovsky - Still Alive (Mirror's Edge Theme Song)
2. Benny Benassi - Still Alive (Remix)
3. Junkie XL - Still Alive (Remix)
4. Paul van Dyk - Still Alive (Remix)
5. Teddybears - Still Alive (Remix)
6. Armand Van Helden - Still Alive (Remix)
No price point was announced for the album. Those that pre-order the game from Best Buy will receive a single CD featuring Miskovsky's "Still Alive" and the Benassi remix.
Developed by DICE, Mirror's Edge ships in PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 form on November 11, with the PC version following later in the winter .
Mirror's Edge: The Trilogy?
[October 14, 2008, 8:36 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments
On Mirror's Edge has a detail we missed from the Mirror's Edge video interview on AusGamers mentioned here over the weekend (story). When asked about a sequel to the acrobatic action game DICE's Owen O'Brien indicates their current story is "kind of a trilogy" which just cover's Faith's story, while they feel the franchise is ripe for further expansion beyond a trilogy "to take the story in other directions." DICE is familiar with sequels as a steady stream of Battlefield games demonstrates, but of course the first game probably needs to succeed to justify follow-ups.
Except for the sometimes ugly frame rate (30 Hz, king of jitter on 60-Hz displays) I was impressed by what I was seeing and doing. Playing through it again is probably a good idea. I felt fairly inept most of the time, but when things worked, I was very much into it. I couldn't figure out how not to get killed after handing over the bag, and that's where I quit. I was just too tired.
I never noticed frame chugs. You're on a 360, right? Maybe the 360 got the lesser version this time around?
No chugging. A perfectly stable vsynched 30 fps. And perfectly jittery because of the temporal aliasing. The hardware refresh is exactly twice the software's, which means you see everything in two places, and not in a pleasant way. It's particularly obvious on pans. Stand still, look at the skyline, and spin around.
I used to bitch about this even at work. I used to tell people that if we couldn't achieve 60 fps in what we were doing, we didn't want to go for 30, but some other number, lower or higher. I did not win a lot of converts.
Since you're on the PS3, I can only assume the frame rate is the same. 30 fps is unmistakable to me. I've been into animation on video displays most of my adult life.
8.3 from Gametrailers
7.3 from IGN
7.0 from Gamespot
Reviews are trickling in. Complaints about the game are all the same across the board though -- the story and the cutscenes feel out of place and the game feels like trial and error until you get it right. The campaign is also short at about 6-7 hours. . . .
[snip]
11/19/2008 6:35:40 PM | Game Announcements |
DICE Puts Faith in NVIDIA PhysX Technology for Mirror's Edge
In the award-winning videogame Mirror's Edge, DICE, an Electronic Arts Inc. studio, introduces players to a new heroine named Faith. Faith belongs to a network of couriers called 'runners' who use acrobatic moves to transport confidential information across the cityscape of rooftops and aerial skyways to avoid being detected. To deliver this never-before-seen sense of movement and perspective, DICE has turned to NVIDIA PhysX technology to give gamers an eye-popping experience on the PC.
"Faith's world in Mirror's Edge is visceral, immediate, and very dangerous; it is imperative that the gameplay reflect this level of urgency," said Owen O'Brien, Senior Producer at DICE. "NVIDIA PhysX technology affords us the ability to bring a totally new level of immersion to the game, and by doing so, gamers can truly become part of the world."
With the NVIDIA PhysX physics engine, the world of Mirror's Edge comes to life with real affects of wind, weapons impact, and in-game movements. Every-day objects within the game become part of the overall experience. Cloth, flags, and banners can now impact weapons and players; ground fog interacts with the player's footsteps; explosions fill the air with smoke and debris; and weapon impacts are enhanced with interactive particles.
On the PC, PhysX technology harnesses the power of CUDA, NVIDIA's general-purpose, parallel-computing architecture, to handle 10-20 times more visual complexity than what's possible without a GeForce CUDA-enabled GPU. And unlike competitors' solutions, which do not offer hardware-scaling capabilities, only PhysX technology leverages the best of both CPU and GPU architectures to deliver the ultimate, immersive, user experience. With over 100 million CUDA-compatible GeForce 8 Series and higher GPUs shipped to date, PhysX technology has the largest installed base of general-purpose, parallel-computing processors to run on.
"If you love intense combat scenes, fast-paced chases, and sky-high adventures then Mirror's Edge is the game for you," said Ujesh Desai, vice president of GeForce desktop business at NVIDIA. "Gamers will appreciate the greater freedom of movement, including sliding under barriers, tumbling, wall-running, and shimmying across ledges -- all within an environment that is dynamic and immersive, delivered in part by our PhysX technology."
Consisting of a robust physics engine, API, and middleware software, NVIDIA PhysX technology is interactive entertainment's most pervasive physics engine and is already included in more than 140 shipping titles for PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360 computer and video game system from Microsoft, Wii, and the PC.
Mirror's Edge was awarded "Best Xbox 360 Game" at the GC Developers Conference in Leipzig, Germany. It also received the Game Critics Award for "Best Original Game" at E3 in July. Mirror's Edge shipped to retail stores worldwide on November 11th for the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system and the Xbox 360 videogame and entertainment system. The PC version of Mirror's Edge will ship in January 2009 to retailers worldwide. For more information about the game, please visit http://www.mirrorsedge.com/
That's disappointing to hear. I was plannin gon picking this up[ for christas but i guess i won't now. i guess i'll wait fo rhte thprice drop before i picke tiup
We wanted to support the editor but there just hasn't been enough time to make it ready in a state that would be supported. There's a lot of backend stuff with leaderboards and menuwork to display the levels as well as the added support for QA and testing.
As far as PhysX is concerned - The game will run fine without it.
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP SP2/Vista
Processor Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz or 100% compatible equivalent
Memory 1GB RAM
Video Card 256MB memory with Shader Model 3.0*
HDD Space 8GB
DVD Drive 1x DVD Drive
Soundcard Soundcard with DirectX 9.0c compatibility
DirectX DirectX 9.0c
Network: An online connection is required for access to Leaderboards
That's the min-specc machine and that will have physX turned off.
While the physX stuff looks amazing and we're greatful to the help we've had from Nvidia to implement it, we always knew we couldn't make it a "must-have" just yet in a game, as not everyone has it. So you will have the same core experience without it.
Plus I think most people just don't like the art style of the cutscenes. Personally, I hate it.
Yeah, they play the vid when it's loading. I like it when games have that going on, kinda masks the wait time.
Agreed. It only stutters when the cut-scene vid starts, basically -- that's it. No big whoopty-do. Nice way to keep us entertained, while the game loads. Wish more games would do something like that.I didn't experience any stuttering in the videos. Might be a hardware config thing.
Also, if I remember, the 3rd person hack mod revealed that Faith is hardly even actually animated -- since the designers only did enough animation necessary that would be fine for the game being only in first person, since you're locked into 1st person. Maybe that's why they did animated cut-scenes -- b/c they didn't have Faith fully animated in-game?
Faith's gameplay animations are irrelevant. They can animate her as necessary for cutscenes.I wonder why they didn't. Laziness? EA wanted to kick the game out the door before X-Mas (for console versions)?
There are in-game cutscenes where Faith watches things happening around her or has conversations and the other characters are well-animated.Great scene, by the way -- especially since it stayed in first-person. Felt like you (as Faith) were really hugging your sister, Kate. Emotional scene.
In one scene Faith hugs her sister (the camera angle remains in 1st person), when would you see that animation during gameplay?
I think it would have played to the game's strengths if the loading cutscenes were done in a similar way, all from Faith's point of view.All great points, X -- especially since most of the game is entirely in first-person.
Yeah, much as I despise EA, I admire DICE for making one of the most visually compelling games out there. Plus the gameplay and parkour are a lot of fun.
Note: I still hate the idea of the limited activations EA put on this game.Amen to this.
The cutscenes are rather meh. It feels like they wanted to do some anime-style cutscenes but ran out of time/budget so they did them in Flash. I just get that feeling from the style they were shooting for. You put some Ghost in the Shell SAC level animation on those cutscenes and it would have so much better. I don't think in-engine would have helped many of them since they were covering for loading, so they had to be video.I think the cut-scenes were okay, but I rather DICE have used the in-game engine to do all of the cut-scenes.
So yeah, thumbs up in general from me. The problems don't really take away from the fun I'm having.Despite some of my complaints with the game -- cut-scenes broke the game's atmosphere; the few hanging thread once the game ends; characters and story really don't have a lot of depth and meat to them -- the game was still fun and very good.