EXERCISES IN STYLE
Revisiting Mirror’s Edge
By Jamie Love - March 12th, 2009
Though I didn’t join my fellow Thumbs in mentioning my favourite releases of 2008, it’s worth noting that Mirror’s Edge would have easily made the short list if I had. But it’s been a difficult love from the beginning, each play through presenting an uneasy mixture of both frustration and joy. Yet the challenge this presents in approaching Mirror’s Edge, and the continual need to reflect on these experiences, is exactly why I remain inclined to write about the game so many months after its release.
I have no reservations declaring that Mirror’s Edge uses the first-person perspective to deliver an experience every bit as innovative as advertised. In fact, several of my favourite titles from the FPS genre feel slower and lumbering in comparison to the time I’ve spent in Faith’s shoes. But I’m continually distracted by the haunted abandon of the environment: one part clever minimalism, two parts lifeless nature of The City. And as a chief obstacle to progression, and that which must be tamed and overcome by mastering Faith’s movements, The City is the most important character, perhaps even more so than Faith herself. There are plenty of well-written opinions on why the design of The City is impressive, and I’m not necessarily disagreeing. However, the complete absence of a population continues to prove surreal, and remains the most disengaging element every time I revisit The City.
From the beginning of this relationship, I found myself craving a more Jet Set Radio-flavoured environment. I’m not encouraging an attempt to copy/pasta an attitude or style with the mentioning. Rather, I’m remembering the panicked crowds of the streets and building interiors, the way people jumped back in shock as you skated toward them and caused groups to erupt with confused babbling. The result was an added layer of depth to a world that seemed a more living, breathing environment for the added attention. And when playing Mirror’s Edge, I fantasize about non-existent scenarios – of knocking people over as I move through the buildings, or sliding beneath cafe tables while cops in pursuit stumble into the crowd and people spill their expensive drinks.
Of all the titles living most vividly in my long-term gamer memory cells, the most successful find the means, subtlety or otherwise, to present a world that simply feels lived in. This might be the way Samus can use parasitic life forms to attack obstacles within the world of Metroid: Zero Mission. Or this might be the subtle ways in which City 17 has become a living, breathing place for gamers, earning more character through the initial conditions of life the player witnesses. But the sterile lack of life within Mirror’s Edge centers the attention on a city that is deprived of a greater potential for personality.
And without a doubt, this also causes the focus of player attention to rely heavily on a narrative for guidance, which within Mirror’s Edge constitutes a lack thereof. But while my opinion regarding that weak narrative has never changed, I’ve since questioned whether any narrative could prove capable of doing the game-play justice.
Eventually I fell back to reading Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style. Within those pages there are 99 tellings of the same story from different approaches in style. A straightforward series of events is presented from different thematic points, presenting the opportunity for continual reinterpretation given how the story is re-experienced with each telling.
The idea festered within me each time I played Mirror’s Edge. When Faith moves across The City and I am the player, I lose myself to the immediacy of her movements and the attempt to keep the chain in motion, puzzle-like at a core level. But as the spectator to this game-play, these movements lend to the same openly interpretative possibilities presented by Queneau’s masterwork. And I begin questioning whether any narrative is capable of comprehending and thus expressing what the player is feeling as a result of this type of game-play. This has obviously been a factor in why other FPS protagonists remain silent, preferring to appear wise in that silence rather than opening their mouth, not just to remove all doubt, but to disconnect the player with a crude attempt at summing up the feelings spawned by the game-play. And with a game as innovative in the game-play department as Mirror’s Edge, perhaps narrative pursuits are naturally overwhelmed – incapable of anticipating the experiences and boiling it down to one simple expression of intent.
And yet without narrative, where does the objective of a game come from? Could Mirror’s Edge merely offer an endless array of environments and physical obstacles in order to structure a game-play focused narrative? Would we have to go back to the early beginnings of the NES and revisit the way in which Super Mario Bros. built a foundation of success from that very idea? Enough people even suggest that Mario and company would have been better to stick to that road. But would it work here? And are these questions worthy enough for studios to invest in with as much energy as they spend on the physical mechanics that lay the foundation for games that bring about these questions?
