Mirror's Edge: Ditch The Gun

FINALLY: A first person aerialist/acrobatics game is coming around. And the icing on the cake? It's got kung fu too. All in first person action mode. All first-person games other than Thief: The Dark Project (the First Person Sneaker) have emphasized either shooting or swordplay. But Mirror's Edge puts a parkourian emphasis on speed, agility, and physical/environmental resourcefulness, instead of on blasting villains with a gun.

I never thought I would live to see the day. Never before has an FPS game illustrated that most cardinal rule of human society and civilization: do not throw a haymaker at somebody versed in judo.

Play the demo and see what I mean.

We Don't Need Your Stinkin Handgun

When I originally read that Mirror's Edge would steer mostly clear of gunplay but would still leave shooting in the game as a possibility for the player, I saw it as cowardice. I thought the developers were blowing their chance to go all the way-- the whole enchilada, the whole 9 yards-- with their new take on the First Person idiom. I was mad.

But then I played the demo and smacked myself for ever thinking such stupid thoughts. The fact of the matter is this: the reason why disarming an opponent and discarding his weapon is at all exciting or meaningful is because game lets you fire the gun at people if you so choose. If you so choose. The game does not prohibit you from using the gun. It does not force you into the shoes of a peacenik. No, you will have to slip on those shoes, and tie them yourself.

Which means that when you grab that enemy's gun, drop out the magazine, pop out the chambered bullet, then throw the device away like the doorstop that it is, it MEANS SOMETHING. This small act has MEANING for the player. You are throwing away firepower, you are throwing away *power*, and you are throwing away the liability (like the encumbrance of its weight and mass) that comes with it. You could have done otherwise. Maybe you, unlike me, *do* otherwise.

Movies were way ahead of games with the badass-who-discards-the-gun-separately-from-the-ammuniation-and-then-goes-hand-to-hand. But even when games lag decades behind the cinema, it's nice when they catch up.

I APPLAUD YOU MIRROR'S EDGE developers, for finally allowing me to be both Batman and Jason Bourne all in the same game.