Mirror's Edge Let's Play Part 5 | GO FIND [Irrelevant Nickname Here]

Channel:

Mister Penguino

Subscribers:

107

Published on April 3, 2016 10:00:01 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDqhTVO9AAI

Game:

Mirror's Edge (2008)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 14:46

4 views

2

Dying is not a shortcut.
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▼More about Mirror’s Edge!▼
http://store.steampowered.com/app/17410/
In a city where information is heavily monitored, agile couriers called Runners transport sensitive data away from prying eyes. In this seemingly utopian paradise, a crime has been committed, your sister has been framed and now you are being hunted. You are a Runner called Faith and this innovative first-person action-adventure is your story.

Mirror's Edge™ delivers you straight into the shoes of this unique heroine as she traverses the vertigo-inducing cityscape, engaging in intense combat and fast paced chases. With a never before seen sense of movement and perspective, you will be drawn into Faith's world. A world that is visceral, immediate, and very dangerous.

So we have finally caught up to Jacknife (and now I know how to spell his name (yay subtitles)). He politely stays unconscious for exactly the amount of time it takes us to run around 4 buildings just to get to him then explains that we should look into Ropeburn, a wrestler turned security manager who is up to no good. First, probably just to introduce a character who will be important to the plot later, Faith takes a trip to the police department to meet with Detective Miller. Essentially nothing is gained from a few minutes of expositional dialogue before Faith heads off to Ropeburn’s company for some good ol’ fashioned corporate espionage. We make it all the way into the building without attracting any unwanted attention, and learn that Ropeburn is behind Pope’s murder as well as knee deep in this Project Icarus business. Upon entering his office we set off an alarm, attracting all of the security guards we have been missing for the last 20 minutes.

I actually find this game to be much more relaxing and enjoyable when there are no guards trying incessantly to kill me. Which makes sense, because the purpose of adding the guards is to increase player tension and create a sense of urgency. The question is, does it really improve the overall feeling of the game? Even though I generally get frustrated at all of the parts that include guards, I would say yes. If you do any research into story or game design you’ll quickly come across something called an Interest Curve. Contrary to our basic understanding of how stories work (slowly building up to a major conflict, then coming down for a resolution), interest curves in stories in games tend to have several peaks over the course of the media. What keeps a consumer invested over a longer period of time is a series of smaller conflicts that get more intense leading up to the main event rather than just a slow consistent build.

In Mirror’s Edge you can see this with the changing off between areas that have guards (fast) and areas that are more puzzle oriented (slow). The reason a developer might do this is clear in how the change makes the player feel. At the end of the video I am clearly more on edge, and ready for combat or running away while getting shot. There are (seemingly) more real consequences to solving the puzzle. At the end of one of these sections the player might hit a cutscene and be warped to a different part of the city, or the player might get away from the guards. Now the player has a chance to breathe, and is grateful for the increased opportunity to enjoy the environment, level design, and puzzles - even if this is done through passive consumption. In a well designed game, the player will stumble into another area with guards and suddenly be on high alert before the point where the slow pace of the game negatively affects the player’s interest. Specifically, the designers don’t want you - the player - to reach a point where you cross a threshold and become bored with the game. This might happen if you play a calm part of the game for too long without something happening to shake up the safety the player feels. On the other end of the spectrum, a game that constantly has the player in a sense of panic might burn the player out way before the game is over.

In most cases, games will take advantage of calm moments to deliver exposition, or remove the player’s control entirely for cutscenes. Cutscenes, usually, are the safest places for the player to be because they can’t lose if they don’t have control. One game that had a fair amount of success delivering exposition in calm moments without cutscenes is Bastion: nearly all of the narrator’s dialogue is timed to come up between big battles, or even during short recesses in a larger fight.

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