Developer DICE has had a great year.  This summer they released “Battlefield: Bad Company”, a destructible-environment update to the venerated “Battlefield” series that featured a bona-fide single-player campaign (the first for the series) and a white-knuckle multiplayer component that gave “Call of Duty 4” a run for its money.  The game surpassed all expectations and made the tiny Swedish developer a major player in console gaming.

Now that the holiday bum-rush in upon us, EA and DICE are back with “Mirror’s Edge,” a first-person adventure game that seeks to translate the exhilarating sport of Parkour into a thrilling console experience.  They succeeded.

Parkour is a European sport that perfects the art of improvisation.  Also known as “free running”, participants perform death-defying acrobatics, utilizing existing structures to create streamlined, free-formed obstacle courses with solutions that exist only in the runners mind.  If you YouTube “Parkour”, prepare to have your jaw drop.  These guys are nuts.

“Mirror’s Edge” is not the first time Parkour has been translated to the video game world.  “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” allowed players the impression of “do-it-yourself” pathfinding, while last year’s “Assassin’s Creed” took this a step further, creating limitless ways to reach new heights and view the world.

“Mirror’s Edge” is neither of these games.  It is not a journey game like “Prince of Persia”, with an epic scope and overarching goal.  It is not a free-roaming game like “Assassins Creed”, with various objectives and room for exploration.  It is closer to the first “Matrix” and the “Bourne” films, creating a constant sense of panic and urgency and forcing you through a series of mazes and seemingly impossible challenges while constantly being pursued by armed adversaries.  You will leap from building to building, scaling enormous heights with very little time to slow down and explore your surroundings.  It’s intense.

You play Faith, a member of the “Runners”, mercenaries for hire whose only job is to deliver messages in a dystopic future, where information is heavily censored by the government.  The police usually leave the Runners alone, but today is no ordinary day.  People end up dead, allies betray each other, and the police are after Faith, content to shoot first and ask questions later.

The story is the weakest part of the game, but it certainly doesn’t kill it.  The cut scenes play out in cell-shaded animation that looks like the “Esurance” commercials and it’s all kind of pretty, but you really won’t care and you’ll want to get back to running.  I guess it provides some sense of purpose, but the gameplay is the money here.

The aforementioned Parkour makes up the majority of the game, and it rocks.  You vault over fences and slide under obstacles, wall run, swing, and leap to heights and depths, constantly aware of the death that surrounds you.  Sometimes it requires a leap of faith or a keen awareness of your surroundings to find the path, but the lower difficulties provide you with some help (important objects glow red and usually signify the right direction).  The first-person perspective creates an awesome sense of speed and motion, and you’ll be surprised at how much Faith can do.  Doors can be slammed through, assuring you never have to slow down to enter a building.  You can hit the ground with a roll to absorb the impact from great heights, and curl up in a ball to leap over obstacles that are just in reach.

Combat is handled nicely, and serves as a constant reminder that Faith is not a warrior.  You can punch, jump kick, and slide kick, but these are there to stun your opponent, not as a viable way to defeat them.  The best way to defeat an enemy is to deflect an attack, at which time Faith will disarm them and deal a knockout blow.  Their firearm can then be used on other enemies or discarded (it’s obviously tough to Parkour while holding a gun) to free up your hands.  There are pistols, shotguns, and machineguns, and they only last as long as the clip lasts.  When there are several enemies nearby, your shots count, because the last thing you need is to run out of bullets right in front of a machinegun carrying armed guard.  There is no inventory, no hud to speak of, and you can’t take much punishment before you succumb.  You’ll die a lot, but it never feels cheap.  If anything, it gives you a chance to pull off maneuvers more gracefully and with more panache. 

The games graphics are gorgeous.  The game is built on Unreal Engine 3 (not DICE’s proprietary Frostbite Engine) and really exposes the Engine’s potential for the bright side of the palate.  The game is gleaming white, punctuated with greens, reds, oranges, and blues that create a brilliant contrast and a genuine sterility.  You really get a sense of the creepy sameness of everything in this city, and the contrast between indoor and outdoor environments creates a really neat snow-blind effect.  It is a gorgeous game.

There are 3 levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, and Hard mode (Hard mode is unlocked after completing Normal mode and eliminates the red glow on important objects) and no multiplayer component (one wouldn’t really work here).  There is definite replay value and a lot of fun to be had here.

“Mirror’s Edge” is a unique entry in the first-person genre, creating an immersive world that makes you feel like a total badass.  Buy it.

Grade: A