Game:

Mirror's Edge (2008)

Duration: 1:57:17

1,073 views

7

Author's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/kekuncias
Download: http://www.moddb.com/games/mirrors-edge/addons/rendering-world-20

Very hard map. Thankfully, it has frequent and well-placed checkpoints. I usually play without runner vision, but had to turn it on in the stormdrain, because otherwise is was not clear where to go. Also has stability issues - game may crash at any moment. Considering this, the level could benefit a lot from password system - when player reaches certain point of the map, a password is shown which can teleport to that point if inputed somewhere at the beginning. Replaying the whole big map because near the end the game crashed or you got the power outage or had to leave the game because there's no more time to play is what should never happen to the player.

Overall, it's better than Troubles in the Skyscraper but suffers from same disadvantages. Hard difficulty is not challenging, but annoying - parkour elements are harder to complete than they should be. It's often not about finding a way to get through interesting area, but about trying different angles for wall-runs, pipe-swings and guesswork for correct timing of each move. And lack of originality is there, too: some parts of it are copies of setpieces from original game.

Remember the flaw of Troubles in the Skyscraper - beams that were very very hard to swing on? Same flaw is dissolved around Rendering World - instead of one very very hard sequence, we have many hard ones.

Unfortunately, I only could record this level up to the stairs behind the red door leading to Jacknife chase. Later it looked like it was recording but I didn't find the videos in the respective folder. Two more attempts to record that part provided the same results. To see what happens next - watch author's walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYiAJfySlnQ

Beginning area - you're supposed to wallrun the vent, turn around and jump. Huge flaw here is that it's broken: Faith only wallruns it if you approach it from certain angle. I spent a lot of time around that vent and it became totally clear to me that the map is broken. Wouldn't advance any further if the author didn't make a walkthrough video I had to look at.

Path to subway - very weird area with colors that don't look good together. Doesn't look realistic at all - feels like a hallucination. Later there will be similarly weird part between New Eden Mall and Pope Building.

Subway - too many identical rooms, each has something which looks like path to advance but actually leads to a dead end.

Stormdrain - nice lighting with creepy shadows. And looks very similar to stormdrain from original game. Cutscene where Faith falls is very exciting and shows player animation that I've never seen before. If you look up at the top of the sky, it's clear that skydome is unfinished: a seam is left there.

Mirror's Edge environment looks pretty good with rain and cloudy sky.

DLC-styled level as Faith's dreams is a good idea. That's what DLC lacked for: it's time trials only - you have to complete them in a hurry, and there are no puzzle levels to do at your own pace. But this part of Rendering World 2.0 doesn't look as stylish as DLC - just some random bits thrown together. Last part of that section is reused Actino Rise map.

Visually Jacknife chase is the most beautiful part of the map - original evening cityscape location with excellent design and atmosphere. Gameplay, however, is spoiled by game-breaking bugs and glitches. Too often the game reloads previous checkpoint even if you're not far behind Jacknife, too often you die because Faith refuses to grab the pipe you need to swing on after doing the vertical wallrun. Also, there's never time to look around and enjoy the scenery besides the very beginning of it.

Suddenly finding Turret and Cube from Portal in RP&A building was funny.

A pleasing break from derivative places is skyscrapers' rooftop sequence which has excellent lighting and nicely shows off the game's nighttime cityscape.

Scaffolding on top of the building with red crane can be climbed but it's a dead end which serves no purpose.

The "Building under construction" is another setpiece heavily based on original game. It begins with nice cutscene where Merc chases Jacknife which shows another unused player animation, but the story never gets anywhere as very soon you get into the boat and after reused Celeste boss fight it just ends abruptly.

I also have never seen the falling Ropeburn, so it looks like I didn't take the path that the author intended. Looks like that part wasn't thoroughly tested.

If you can tolerate huge gameplay time with inability to stop and then continue playing from the same place, reused setpieces, annoying difficulty and story that lacks for proper conclusion, you'll be able to play and enjoy this map. Otherwise it's better to search for something that doesn't have these disadvantages.

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