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It’s a prompt for a chase, to propel me through to the next area. This isn’t supposed to be a combat encounter. “Wire’s going crazy, get out of there, Faith.” Even the cops physically push me onward, like actors in interactive theatre. My handler Mercury-like the messenger god, or Merc to his friends-joins in by yelling over the radio. The info box shows an image of Faith running towards a SWAT team-and then a big, red arrow bending in a U-turn. “You should always try to get away from hostiles,” Mirror’s Edge’s tutorial tells me. “Because life is sweet.” My view turns on its side as another bullet enters my back.Īfter a few more tries, the game crashes to desktop, as if in protest. “Digglers doughnuts,” reads the advertising. Bewildered and blocked in, I run back the way the cops came and stare impotently at the anteroom’s vending machine as red fills my screen. I can only see a baton on his waist-but I could’ve sworn he was firing at me just moments ago. But when I reach triumphantly for his weapon, nothing happens. On the second attempt, I manage to plunge off the lockers and land on an enemy, Mario style, knocking him out. This is no typical DICE shooter-Faith can only catch three or four bullets before taking a long lie down. His colleagues open fire as I stumble, and I drop to the fl oor. When I slip behind the last cop to storm past my hiding place, he turns around at the last second, pushing against my shoulders. If I’m going to pull this playthrough off I’ll need to get used to disarming enemies-and that’s far more easily done when they’re facing the other way.īut no plan survives contact with dystopian reality. I clamber on top, waiting for my pursuers to pass so I can hop down behind them. But as I turn the corner I find a stairwell, and a tall bank of lockers. The space I’ve just left is a small anteroom, in which the men with guns are no more than ten metres away. Bullets follow my footsteps as I jog awkwardly into cover and survey my options. Sure enough, when I drop through a vent into a high-rise intended as a shortcut, I find four cops waiting for me. So much for living carefully on the mirror’s edge-looks like I’ll be putting my violent new set of rules to the test imminently. I suppose eventually a surveillance state polices itself. A news helicopter has tipped the cops off about my building- hopping activities. I’m hoping the package doesn’t have a “this way up” on it-I’m doing a lot of forward rolls. And so today I’m carrying a bag across the rooftops to a comms tower, where another runner, Celeste, will take it to its destination. That precarious position limits their career options to, essentially, private postal work. They’ve opted out of the safe-yet-controlled culture down below, but stay sufficiently distant from real trouble that the police leave them alone. The runners in The City exist in the membrane between civilised and criminal society. Faith might have got us this far, but it’s time to meet Fury. In each instance, I’ll keep firing until the enemies have all fallen over or the ammo runs dry-whichever comes soonest.
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Wherever there’s an option for fl ight, I’ll pick fight first.
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I’m going to play through 2009’s Mirror’s Edge and take every possible opportunity to start a scrap. I’m going back to The City-to the time before it gained the addendum “of Glass”. (Image credit: ea) Kick! Punch! It's all in the mind!