Mirror's Edge Review

Even though I was only halfway through the game at the end of my last play session, I quite easily finished the game in a second. All told, the length was somewhere right around 8 hours. While that would normally feel short to me, after playing through 36 hours of Twilight Princess, it was a breath of fresh air. I thought about making a separate post to detail the time/stuff I did in my second session, but the game continued on being more or less the same as the first half -- this was not a bad thing. With that out of the way, my final thoughts:

Loved

• Grace/Momentum. When you are able to control Faith properly, this game just... flows. The speed is satisfying, the obstacles are interesting, and overall I felt like I was almost surfing through these levels. I've never played a game that had such a satisfying level of grace and momentum. Even the Prince of Persia and Tomb Raider games, which probably had influence here, never even came close to feeling as smooth as Mirror's Edge does.
• Visual Style. The minimalist/blank color palette coupled with the occasional strong colors worked really well. As I said before, the game felt like a real world with a comic book drawn over the top of it. I discussed this quite a bit in my Initial Impressions; in short, it was just good.
• Additional Content. After I finished the game, I saw that I could also do speed runs and time trials. While a speed run is nothing more than trying to get a good time on a specific chapter, the time trials are really fun. Basically, each one is a piece of one of the chapters. Each of them have approximately 5 checkpoints that you must race through. The obvious goal is to get through all in the fastest time possible, with 1, 2, and 3 "star" times to beat. To get a 3 star time, you not only need to have a flawless run, but take the best possible path. While part of the fun is trying to find these paths, the game also has an online leader board where you can choose any of the top 100 times and actually race a ghost of that time. I think that it is a great feature and helped me to find some new/interesting paths through some of the levels.
• Immersion. Games these days seem to be really ratcheting up the immersion factor and this game was no exception. When I started playing, I immediately turned off the targeting reticule (except in gun mode) which provided me with a completely hud-less experience. As I continued to play, I found myself doing something I haven't done in years: I was actually leaning into the jumps. Not my game character, ME. I realized I was leaning forward when trying to make some of the tricky long jumps and in one brilliant little section where you ride on a train dodging obstacles, I noticed that I was not only leaning side to side, I was DUCKING. It has been a very long time since I have gotten that into a game and it really speaks a lot for the immersion level.

Hated

• Momentum Breakers. Without a doubt, the speed/momentum is what makes this game. Because of that, anytime I hit something that would break/slow my momentum, it would be particularly aggravating. I've compiled a small list of some of the many things that would do this, all of which were ridiculously frequent. In my opinion, the game could have done without pretty much all of these things. The list includes but is not limited to:
• Climbing pipes
• Climbing ladders
• Crawling through a ventilation shafts
• Having to sit around and figure out how to climb up/get down in an interior location
• Carrying any large weapon
• Combat. Combat in this game just doesn't work very well. Disarming opponents generally felt satisfying, and actually managed to allow you keep quite a bit of momentum most of the time, but both hand to hand combat and gun combat felt clumsy. Every so often the game would throw a handful of enemies at me, each of which was wielding a very large machine gun. Regardless of the gun in my hands, they would hit me from 100+ yards while I would WALK towards them (large weapons slow you down) trying to line up my cross hair with the clumsy game pad controls. The only time combat felt any good were the couple of times I got an Uzi-like gun in my hands, as it allowed me to still run. I basically just ran right at the enemies spraying bullets. Now THAT was fulfilling.

While you would probably expect me to complain about the length of the game, I just don't think I can. A game like this could becomes really repetitive if it went on too long, but Mirror's Edge stopped right when it should have. The story was good, but not spectacular; it even left room for a sequel.

Final recommendation: GO BUY THIS GAME. I think you can get it for every platform for <$20 these days and it is easily worth that. Oh, and be sure to add me as a friend in the in game client. I WILL beat any and all times you post.

Mirror's Edge Initial Impressions

Having finally finished Twilight Princess, I installed Mirror's Edge on my PC last night. The first thing I noticed was how unbelievably long it took to install; it was seriously in excess of 20 minutes. The installation progress bar was also VERY uninformative. I'm going to throw one point (they were bound to get one eventually) to the console crowd for no/few installs.

Once in the game itself, I was immediately impressed by the visual style. The world itself has a relatively blank/white coloring scheme. The game uses strong colors to showcase certain features of the game. Anything related to the player character or "running" shows in a strong red. Police related events/areas are blue, offices show in strong greens and yellows. I don't think anybody could really do it justice just by explaining it, but it works VERY well. It feels like a realistic world with sort of a comic book drawn over the top of it.

Additionally, all the in-game cutscenes are done in a cartoon/comic style that is brilliant. Once again, it is a perfect fit for the game world and does the game a lot more justice than cutscenes done with in-game assets would. I definitely have to give the art/game designers at Dice props here, I think they put together a beautiful game.

The prettiness aside, the gameplay is a BLAST. I opted for a gamepad, as the game is mostly platforming, which I feel was a wise choice. It's a pretty basic left stick move, right stick look setup, with most of the action buttons (jump, slide, turn) on the various triggers. I'm not a huge fan of having jump as the left bumper (should probably change it), but it isn't that bad. I looked at the mouse/keyboard options, but most of them looked pretty bad in comparison.

The game does a remarkable job of marking you feel fast and/or coordinated. Once you get the hang of the controls, it's really easy to run from rooftop to rooftop jumping, leaping, and diving as required. My only real complaint in the acrobatics is the relatively slow speed at which you climb (either game designers in general set this too slow or I'm just impatient). When I found myself vaulting around the rooftops only to slow down dramatically when I grabbed onto a pipe to climb it, my sense of momentum was greatly impacted. I really feel like somebody as fit as Faith would be able to climb up a ladder/pipe a little bit faster.

The other main element of the game is combat. So far, I've had to do relatively little. Without a doubt, it is the weakest thing in the game. It's fun/easy to run a "blue" down and disarm him, but when I then have to deal with half a dozen other cops, the game definitely slows down. The gun combat feels weak and clumsy (especially with a gamepad). I'm hoping that it doesn't become too big a part of the game, although I've heard otherwise.

Regardless of my minor quibbles, I'm VERY impressed by the game so far. It's a lot of fun and definitely a breath of fresh air after slogging through Zelda. My initial recommendation is to go pick it up (it's super cheap on all systems) if you haven't already played it.

Zelda: Twilight Princess Review

Well, it took 8 posts and 36 hours of play time, but I finally finished Twilight Princess. I'll now regale you with my final thoughts:

Loved

• Quality. This game is just VERY high quality. It pushes the Wii to its limits, it's practically bug-free, and the level design is just superb. Regardless of things I may say down below, this is a GREAT game and there is just no getting around that.
  
• Similar but Different. Twilight Princess is a Zelda game. If you've played Zelda games, you'll know what to expect here. I appreciated that because well, I like Zelda games and this definitely was one. Twilight Princess did a great job of not only providing all the "classic weapons" (bow, arrows, hookshot, etc), but also providing some new, fun stuff as well, with the bomb arrows and the spinner being my two favorite weapon additions.
• The fortune teller. I thought this was a great feature. Secrets and gathering are staples of all adventure games, but they have a tendency to either be ridiculously tedious or practically require the use of a FAQ. By being able to go to her and have her give you a clue to the location of a heart container, it allowed the locations to still be "secret" without being super annoying to find. My only grief was that I couldn't use her to point me towards golden bugs and Poes.
  

Hated

• You've found a blue rupee (5)! At the end of the game, this was hands down the thing that annoyed me the most. The very first time I encounter a rupee of a specific color, it's alright for it to show me this message. It's even okay for it to show it too me when I pull the rupee out of a chest. It is NOT okay to show me the message EVERY time I pick up a blue rupee in a new area. NOT okay at all.
• Climbing. I mentioned this before, but this was something that continued to annoy me throughout the rest of the game. It was just too slow. Period. Furthermore, the climbing controls were not very precise -- there were multiple times when I was pushing the control stick to the side and watched Link climb right off the bottom of the vines. It was hands down the WORST mechanic that has ever appeared in ANY Zelda game and was only slightly behind the rupee messages in annoying me.
• Mini-games. Again, already addressed, but they just didn't live up to the mini-games from previous games. They were alright, but I really could have used a couple of really solid bow/slingshot/bomb bug shooting galleries, and there just weren't any.
• Item progression/requirements. There were definitely some fun items in this game, but it really didn't do a very good job of working them into puzzles. While I felt like I used the clawshot and bow all the time, I was almost never forced to use the spinner. Also, the Dominion Rod was basically only used in the Temple of Time and in the lead up to the City in the Sky. The slingshot was NEVER used nor were the bomb bug things. The game could have done a lot better in working ALL the items into the game a little bit better.
• Pacing. This game started WAY too slow. I've completed entire games in the amount of time it took this thing to get started. I also felt like the game was just way too long. Something in the 20 hour range probably would have felt pretty decent too me, as it was, there were just lots of really long, relatively boring interlude sections.

I could probably ramble on for quite awhile, but that is most likely sufficient. So, in a sentence, how is it? It's a brilliant game. It really is. It's not without its flaws and it's definitely not a 10, but it is a really good game. If you are a Zelda fan of even a small degree, it's for you. I definitely enjoyed my time here, but I'm also VERY ready to move onto something else. Expect some Mirror's Edge initial impressions soon.

Oh, and playing through and reviewing a 3 year old game? I'm pretty sure I'm this guy.

Clever endgame subject here

The not so epic conclusion of my Zelda: Twilight Princess play through:

As I finished last time, I was standing right inside the entrance of the Twilight Palace. Right away, I ran into some twilight clouds, that when entered, instantly transformed me back into wolf form. After 3 rooms and as many clouds, I found myself face to face with an image of Zant, the evil king. He did little more than summon some minions and "die." Afterwards, I liberated an orb, a Sol, from what looked like one of those old "grab me and take me back to the start of the dungeon hands." I had no sooner freed the orb, than the hand came alive and started chasing after me. The next segment was basically a mad dash that had me taking the orb back to the beginning of the dungeon while trying to slow down the hand. The Sol had the additional benefits of not only dissipating the twilight clouds, but also acting as "keys" that could activate various switches. It was more interesting than I thought it would be, and was hands down the most unique dungeon (but not necessarily the most fun) so far.

After returning the Sol to the entrance, I was sent after another one, which was basically the same only with slightly different rooms. With both Sols liberated, my Master Sword was imbued with light (Light Sword, whoop!) and gained all the same powers that I had previous used the Sols for (getting through the twilight clouds, etc). I was able to use this to work my way through the rest of the dungeon and finally found myself face to face with Zant himself.

Fighting Zant was sort of a classic throw back fight in which he "teleported" us to various boss rooms and I was forced to use the strategies I had originally used for those bosses (boomerangs, magnetic boots, etc). This part felt a little weak to me, as it was the 3 boss rooms from the first 3 dungeons, the mini-boss room from the first dungeon, and the boss room from the 6th dungeon. It felt a bit disconnected to me... I really felt like they should have gone through all 7 with no mini-bosses. The final part of the fight was a pretty basic sword fight, and with that, Zant was dead.

Now, I'm not enough of a Zelda noob to think that I had finished the game, but I was basically expecting Ganon to come out right then and there and fight me. I was definitely surprised when I was sent to the Hyrule castle. Again, I figured that I was basically going to walk in and fight Ganon, but I was AGAIN surprised when it turned out to be a full dungeon.

I did NOT enjoy this dungeon. While I enjoyed the mini-boss fight from the Temple of Time, I didn't enjoy it enough to want to repeat it the 4(!?!) times that I had to in here. By the time I found the boss room (the dungeon really wasn't all that big), I was VERY ready to be done in there.

The final boss fight was definitely standard Zelda fare. It involved the following phases:

• A classic use the sword to bat the projectile phase
• Use arrows then sword
• Wolf vs. monster
• Horse back
• Mono y mono sword fight (ANOTHER ONE OF THESE?!?)

All in all, it was an okay fight, but wasn't all that compelling. It was NOT hard, and I don't think I ever even went below half life. The final sword fight phase was REALLY long and was downright boring. I can see why they put it as the final phase, but it basically just made it feel like the fight was ending on a low note. The cutscenes and the credits were crazy long and I finally saw that glorious little "The End" text appear on the screen. I felt like the ending was at least satisfying, even if it wasn't all that unexpected.

Expect a full review in my next (and final!) Twilight Princess post.

Windy Day

More Zelda: Twilight Princess:

As I wrapped up last time, I was sitting next to a broken cannon 298 rupees short of being able to repair it. I did a little Googling and decided the fastest and easiest way to earn the money would be to collect the rest of the golden bugs. The added bonus here is that it also would give me the largest wallet upon completion. Not wanting to spend time randomly wandering around Hyrule, I paid a visit to Gamefaqs and collected the bugs one by one. I was kind of glad that I didn't try to find them on my own, because even with pretty good descriptions, some of them were quite hard to find. Some (those crazy grasshoppers!) were actually hard to catch. With bugs in hand (pocket?) I went back to Agitha and went through the tedious process of handing them all in (one by one). I ended with 600 rupees (where did all those rupees go that didn't fit in my wallet?) and a new 1000 rupee wallet. A teleport, cannon fixing cutscene, and a cannon blast later left me sitting in a pool of water in the City in the Sky.

Once again, the game sort of snuck up on me here. I thought the City in the Sky was a prelude area to the Sky Temple proper. Nope. Once again, I was in the actual dungeon. Right off the bat, this dungeon had me using my clawshot quite frequently. It also made liberal use of the nearby Ooccas (intelligent chicken... things) to perform slow falls with gliding. Other than a VERY frustrating section early on involving a hidden diamond switch, the first half of the dungeon was pretty straightforward. Even at this early point, I found myself thoroughly enjoy the dungeon. It definitely felt like one of the more interesting both in setting and in puzzle design.

Before too long, I found myself in the mini-boss's room. This was a pretty clear fight (especially since he was using a clawshot target as a shield) and didn't pose too much of a problem. Due to my time on Gamefaqs, I knew I was going to get the double clawshot here. What I didn't understand was quite what it was. I had assumed that it was a simply my clawshot but with twice the length, as that was more or less what other Zelda games had done. When I opened the chest and pulled out a SECOND clawshot, I must admit I was a little bit surprised. The surprise faded VERY quickly as my mind suddenly pieced together exactly how I would be using two clawshots in the dungeon. The revelation made me happy.

This second part of the dungeon was one of my favorite parts in the entire game so far. I REALLY like the double clawshot idea. I found myself swinging around in a way that almost reminded me of Bionic Commando. It also made a lot of the remaining puzzles and challenges have incredibly interesting solutions. In one section towards the end of the dungeon, I had to stop a fan from spinning so I could dangle on clawshot #1 between the blades while using clawshot #2 to grab onto a switch. The whole idea/concept just felt really fresh and fun to me, even though it was basically just "another clawshot" dungeon.

The boss wasn't too far away, and I soon found myself on the very top of the city with a dragon flying overhead. This setup instantly reminded me of the 7th dungeon boss in Link's Awakening (on original Gameboy) which also had you fighting a dragon on a tower with the hookshot. Phase one of the fight involved using the clawshot and the steel boots to force the dragon to crash and break off some pieces of the armor. While this phase wasn't all that interesting, phase two was just plain awesome.

As soon as he broke free from his armor, it began to rain. This caused the nearby whirly plants to grow (the ones you can clawshot onto) and fly up. I then had to use the two clawshots to transition between two towers eventually grabbing onto the closest whirly. From there, I could zip between the whirly plants until I got behind him and then clawshot his back. While it was in no way the most challenging boss fight, I would definitely say it was one of the most fun I've had in any Zelda game. I repeated my aerial acrobats twice more and collected my heart container.

Back on Terra firma, I went to the desert to put the Mirror back together and go to the Palace of Twilight. As soon as I inside, I decided that I wanted to collect the rest of the pieces of heart. Why did I decide this? I really don't know. I generally don't like running all over the world doing collection quests and what not, but I sort of felt strangely compelled. I also knew that if I didn't do it now, I definitely wouldn't come back and do it after I beat the game. Lucky for me, Twilight Princess has a fortune teller (one of my favorite features in the game hands down) who, for 10 rupees will show you a picture of a spot where you can get a piece of heart. Since I had pretty much been everywhere by this point, I was able to find each and every one of them without too much grief. All in all, I think I ended up collecting about 15 pieces of heart in the space of about an hour an a half. As far as I know, the final two are in the Twilight Palace.

While this play session involved not one, but two different "go all over the world fetching stuff" outings, I would say it was one of the funnest ones I've had so far. I've basically done everything worth doing in the game (except the remaining Poes which have a bad reward and more fishing) other than the final dungeon. I have about 33 hours of play time. This game is definitely longer than I original expected, but hasn't dragged on even close to as much as I thought it would.

Prepare yourselves: next time I conquer the Palace of Twilight.

A Link in the Past

More Zelda: Twilight Princess:

When I finished last time, I was sitting outside the entrance to the Temple of Time. I walked through the gate and was very pleasantly surprised to discover myself transported back in time. In this time period, the sacred grove was in fact the Temple of Time! I thought it was a delightful Ocarina of Time cross over and it definitely brought a smile to my face.

Once inside, I activated the "Master Sword Switch" again, and then was on my way. The first half of the dungeon was pretty straightforward. None of the puzzles were all that difficult; they mostly they just involved shooting diamond switches or places weights on buttons or scales. Before I knew it, I was at the mini-boss. This fight was a classic swordsman vs swordsman fight and was quite a bit of fun. None of my auxiliary weapons did anything to him, so I was forced to rely mostly on my secret moves and Wii-mote waggling. Following the theme so far, he died relatively easily. The game once again surprised me by offering up the Dominion Rod.

When you use the rod, it sends a little green orb out (it has a finite range) that, if it comes in contact with a specific type of statue (they have obvious holes in them), puts the statue under your control. That is, it moves in all the same directions that you do, and if you press the B button, it will perform an action (generally swing a weapon). I had seen at the beginning of the dungeon that there was a statue missing and lo and behold, it was in the mini-boss's room. I then had to take control of the statue and navigate it all the way back through the dungeon. Generally I HATE having to retread steps in games, but having the statue along for the ride made all the puzzle solutions just different enough to make it all feel fresh. Again, there wasn't anything too crazy here difficulty wise, it just took a bit of time. Before long, I had him back on his spot and the door to the boss room open.

The dungeon boss was a very large spider hanging on the ceiling. His one single eye would open and close periodically. I was kind of surprised there wasn't a big cartoon sign that said "Put Arrow Here," as it felt that obvious to me. Each arrow shot would make him fall, where I would quickly take control of a nearby statue and pound him. After three hits, he exploded in typical Zelda fashion, I sheathed my sword, and I started looking around for the heart container. Instead, I saw... his eye! The eye sprouted legs and was instantly surrounded by other small spiders. It ran away from me with comical music playing in the background. I must admit that I actually laughed out loud at this point. I chased the eye down, applied my sword blade liberally, and collected my heart container.

The next dungeon on my list was "in the sky." I went to Telma's bar in Castle Town who sent me to Kakariko, who sent me with a note back to Telma. She then sent me on a bit of a wild goose chase to find something that could help Ilia get her memory back. If I was playing an MMO, I would have been complaining about "all these Fed-Ex quests." Ilia regained part of her memory and I was sent to the Hidden Town that was full of moblins. One bow and arrow shooting gallery later left me standing by an old woman who had Ilia's charm. She sent me back to Ilia who regained her memory and gave me the charm... an item which calls Epona (I GET THE CALL EPONA ANYWHERE CHARM THIS LATE IN THE GAME!?!). Ilia then sent me BACK to the Hidden Town to talk to the old lady who gave me the ancient language book. I then went back to Kakariko and talked to the scholar guy there. He then sent me all over Hyrule to use my Dominion Rod on various statues so I could obtain the missing word from my book. I eventually made my way panting back to Kakariko and had the guy read the book. That allowed me to move a statue and find an old/broken cannon, which I knew I needed to take to the cannon guy. I did that, but he needed 300 rupees (I had 4), so I quit.

I want you to notice how many times I used the words "back" and "sent" in that previous paragraph. That was intentional. This interlude section of the game was wildly annoying and frustrating to me. Hopefully the next couple of temples allow the game to finish strong... I've liked it so far, but some things in this game have definitely been sub-par. *fingers crossed*

The weather outside is frightful

More time in Zelda: Twilight Princess:

When I last played, I had just finished the Arbiter's Grounds (desert/sand dungeon). When I picked the game back up this time, I once again spent time just sort of wandering around looking for golden bugs, hidden grottoes, repairing the western bridge, and doing other similar things. As is usually the case, I soon grew bored and decided to make my way to the next dungeon. I was informed that a snow beast had been seen in the Zora domain and given a picture of said monster. After asking around, I learned that he had a rare fish in his hands that only the Zora prince was known to be able to catch. I made a quick trip to Kakariko and then ported back to the Zora domain to do a little fishing.

Now, let me explain something: nearly every time I've gotten stuck on a puzzle or problem in this game, it has somehow been related to the wolf senses. I knew that I needed to catch a Reekfish and use it somehow to "guide" me through the blizzard. In my mind, this involved catching a fish and then using it as bait for the yeti so he could come and fetch me (or something similar). With that idea in mind, I caught multiple fish and then tried everything I could think of to pick this fish up. I realized (soon, but not soon enough) that I was barking up the wrong tree. I did notice that when I caught the fish he left a little "stink" cloud on the ground. I figured that I must need to either bottle the scent or get it on me. I decided that the water was washing it off, so I devised a route from the fishing spot to the snow area, caught a fish, ran through the cloud, and then made my way to the snow region. That, of course, was also a failure. It was only after I had given up and was reading through a fishing FAQ did I learn I needed to sniff that stink cloud as a wolf to learn the scent. If my daughter had been home at the time, I'm quite certain I would have woken her with the sound of my palm colliding with my forehead.

With the scent "learned," I was able to navigate the blizzard and make it to the top of Snowpeak Mountain and have my first meeting with the yeti. He wasn't a bad chap and provided me with the means to sled my way down the mountain. One mini-game later left me at his doorstep. As I walked in, I saw the usual introduction cutscene with the text "Snowpeak Ruins." I was a little confused by that as I figured it was just this guy's house. I sort of assumed that it was just a small area that I was to go through to open up the way to the dungeon proper; I was wrong.

As it turned out, his house WAS the dungeon. His "sick" wife sent me on some random wild goose chases after the mirror shard, which did little more than provide some new ingredients for the yeti's soup (which I helped myself to gratuitously).

All throughout this dungeon, there were icy blocks and barriers that I was obviously meant to break through later. I was certain that I was going to be obtaining the fire arrows (or something similarly on fire) and went about my merry little way.

Not long later, I found myself fighting the dungeon mini-boss. A mean suit of armor with a spiked ball on a chain, he provided me with a definite amount of annoyance until I realized that I could grapple behind him and swat his tail. To my surprise, the weapon I was granted was his ball and chain! Whilst equipped, Link's run speed is slowed as the ball is quite large. By pressing and holding the use button, he swings the ball above his head. Release the button and he sends it flying towards it's target. By using this weapon, I was able to destroy the ice walls and monsters and even cause some hanging platforms to start swinging. I was VERY impressed by this new item and was pleased that the game had once again surprised me with its dungeon item.

The rest of the dungeon was relatively uneventful. I really enjoyed the general setting of the place as it was a very non-dungeon style setting. This was most evidenced by the fact that I didn't even realize it was a dungeon until I was a third of the way through it. The end boss was quite easy and simply involved me throwing my ball at various sized blocks of ice.

Afterward, I did a little bit more exploring and soon received a letter inviting me back to Snowpeak for some sled racing. Always a sucker for a good mini-game (with rewards), I ported back and raced the yeti down the hill. After beating him quite soundly on my first attempt, I was quite disappointed to discover that there was NO reward. I brushed it aside and headed towards the next dungeon.

Next on my list was a trip back to the sacred grove area where I had obtained the Master Sword. To my utter consternation, I again found myself face to face with that very odd little guardian guy who kept summoning those weird puppet monsters. I still have NO idea what is up with that guy, but once again, he proved to be little challenge.

After besting him, I flipped the "Master Sword Switch," unlocked a new warping location and called it a night.

At this point, I'm definitely looking forward to these last few dungeons as the post-mid-game dungeons so far have been stellar. I'm also really hoping for a couple more cool items and not more "lame" upgrades (although I'm pretty sure I'm due for a hookshot clawshot upgrade and a new set of clothes before too much longer). I should be able to get through the next dungeon or two tonight. I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes.