The first thing that strikes you playing Mirror's Edge - Electronic Arts's first-person free-runner - is how smooth it all feels. The free-flowing camera and intuitive controls combine to provide an absorbing virtual experience of traversing across the rooftops of a sun-kissed city. The world of Mirror's Edge is one of the most beautifully rendered, if subtly myopic, images of the future ever to grace a console. Rather than a bombed-out wasteland or a police state, this is a city in which a sinister government has taken control by ratcheting up the machinations of the nanny state to disturbing proportions. Here, the media spreads disinformation, the apathy of the general populace has been exploited to the full, CCTV cameras dot the corners of every street and information is the most important commodity of all. Players take on the role of Faith, a free-running courier who transports confidential information between parties using the rooftops, rather than roads, pursued almost constantly by armed government operatives who want to shut down the information supply lines.Free-running across a cityscape is by no means a unique angle for a videogame - Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed and Crackdown have all offered this experience - but Mirror's Edge is perhaps the first game of this type to offer a first-person perspective. What's even more impressive is how natural it feels, thanks to the light touch of the developer, Dice.
Gameplay is atmospheric. As Faith hurls herself from window ledges to fire escapes, up wire fences, across pipes and through air ducts, the camera bobs along with her as she builds to a sprint, and her heavy breathing can be heard on the evocative soundtrack. When she leaps between buildings, you can hear the wind rush past her ears; glance down, and you will see her legs bicycling through the air in preparation for the landing. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )
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