Graphics and Audio

Mirror’s Edge is powered by a modified version of the Unreal Engine 3 game engine, proving along with Mass Effect that UE3 can render environments beyond brown and gray. The city where your action is centered in is a glittery mass of white and silver, with hints of orange, reds, and blues especially in the interior of buildings. As you move from building to building, your “runner vision” will light up specific action points, like ramps and zip lines, bright red which works to draw your attention to pieces of the environment you can use to maintain your momentum.

Sup baby...

AHH! Kill it with fire!

Character models can be either hit or miss, with the women of the game looking pretty realistic, while the majority of the men have a definite block-like appearance to them. Textures are crisp and clean, adding to the clean looking aesthetic DICE has imparted on the city. And it’s a good thing too, as playing from the first-person perspective means you will get a lot of close-up looks at walls while you dangle 500 feet from the pavement below. HDR and bloom effects are just about perfect in their usage as they work to really add to the sense of detail and speed you will experience throughout the game.



Audio is pretty much adequate, although positional is pretty muddled regardless of your system settings. Despite a majority of action taking place on rooftops, there is a definite lack of expected wind noise. One area of concern is the mid-mission updates which are delivered via an earpiece worn by your character. For whatever reason, you can never really hear what they are saying as the volume is just a bit lower than your surroundings. This makes it almost impossible to hear what they just said, an obviously problematic situation since it usually revolved around where you need to go next or where enemies have just dropped in your way.

Get used to this view

I can see my house from here! And my wife and...the mailman..

Voice acting is about average, as most characters match up with their respective in-game models, with the exception of your main contact Mercury. When you hear his voice during the first level, your mind immediately creates the image of a grizzled old timer, especially since he apparently trained Faith and other runners. Of course, once you see him during a cut scene, he actually appears to be around the same age if not slightly older than your character which creates a definite miss-match.