I just finished Mirror's Edge. Naturally, that means that rather than sleep, I have to digest and write about it. Spoilers are... well, it's not like there's too much lost if the plot's spoiled, but mid-tier spoilers.
1) Faith's character
The plot may not be stellar, but Faith is an interesting character. "Amoral" doesn't quite fit the bill. In my opinion, she can be seen in two ways: resistance fighter, or cynical veteran of nonviolent protesting.
Mirror's Edge's plot is very MTV cartoon, both in depth and in tone. This means that some of the subleties of a character don't always come through. There also isn't much dialog or cut-scene to reveal her character, so the real character-building moments happen during gameplay.
Personally, there's enough of a split between the two ways of playing the game (stealth-alike runner versus kill everything) that I feel it's fair to split Faith's character into two possibilities. Both are interesting, and she's a strong character regardless -- but the sheer nebulousness of Faith is kinda fascinating. I have a mental image of her (in the cutscene, cartoon form) holding an M4.
Anyway. Interesting character, and an interesting example of how gameplay determines how players view the characer.
2) Feminism: It's Good!
How many other games hit all of these criteria?
a) Passes the Bechdel test
b) Features a female protagonist (or main character)
c) Is a AAA, mainstream game
d) Doesn't sexualize the female protagonist. Or in this case, any character, period.
I know I'll be drawing comparisons to BioShock Infinite later, but Infinite's one of the only other games I can think of, off the top of my head (your mileage may vary on Infinite). Faith and Celeste are buds, Faith and Kate are sisters, and they all talk like real humans. Faith's is sexy because she's a smart, fit and extremely capable person, not because of her outfit -- call her an Alyx Vance type of character, if that helps explain the kind of healthy sexy I mean. And at no point does the script play up any sexuality.
Don't misinterpret me, I'm not praising Mirror's Edge for being clinical and sexless, but it feels like almost every other game with a strong female protagonist (Mass Effect, say) at least taps into that vein of being willing to be sexy and/or sensual. There's room in the gaming world for sexless games with female protagonists, as there is for them with male protagonists, and it's good to see Mirror's Edge fit that space.
(Note: While I try to promote feminism, especially in games, please don't hesitate to call me out if you see a flaw in what I say hear -- whether I missed something horrifying, or if I mis-present feminism's case on this. Also, yes, I'm aware that movements aren't monolithic, yadda yadda I was a sociology major I will conditionalize until I talk myself to death if no one stops me.)
3) Comparing Mirror's Edge to BioShock
I'm definitely a horrible person, because very few games compare well to Ken Levine's baby, both original and Infinite. It's a worthwhile comparison though, in this case, because all of these are games with some non-shooter spark that gets tripped up by (some of) their shooter baggage.
In my opinion, Mirror's Edge is a puzzle game when it's at its best. The best moment I had had zero flow, zero combat, and zero guidance from the game beyond "Get to this location." If you've played, it's the sequence in climbing to the top floor of the mall under construction, where the walkway at each floor is built, but they aren't connected.
And then immediately afterwards, you're tasked with descending down the other side of the mall, in a wide stairwell filled with enemies. Worse, the space is designed so that it actually strips away your normal runner "vocabulary" of actions: There's no ledge to jump to, allowing you to bypass guards, and if you try to just sprint past them, the stairwell is big and open enough that you just get gunned down. Personally, I had to go into shooter mode, which the game is eminently bad at.
There are a couple of these encounters that are just plain bad. Even if I wanted to play Faith as a shooty character, the difficulty comes from swarms of enemies, and tactical depth is limited to just trying to kite enemies away from each other, so you can run in and grab dropped weapons after your own runs dry. And since my interpretation of Faith's character depends on whether she shoots and kills enemies, having that decision forced on me by bad game design rankles.
It reminds me a lot of some of the fights in BioShock Infinite. We can all agree Infinite wasn't about the shooting, right? It usually did it pretty well, but it could've existed in another genre and still had the same essence. In particular, I'm thinking of the ghost boss. That goddamn ghost boss. I had that same sense of frustration in Mirror's Edge in the later combat set pieces. (There were other issues I had with Infinite rooted in its shooting, but that's the big example.)
Look, I work in the industry. I know that having some shooting pieces probably helped the game sell... maybe three times as much. Could well be. But evaluating it as a game, the sheer frustration these caused me knocked the game down a lot in my book.
And there you have it! Well worth the... what is it, $10 now? It's not a full-price game, but a good game to get on sale.
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