Mirror's Edge (PS3)

It looks great as an action game, but it's also pretty damn great as a time trial racer.

There is a rare but highly-prized quality that is occasionally found in top-class video games. It's an aspect that many titles strive to attain, but one that few achieve; a characteristic that keeps you playing long past your bedtime, and on into the lonely depths of the midnight hours. We speak of the legendary 'One More Go' phenomenon - a potentially dangerous force that has claimed the life of quite a few gamers. Remember this?

We were recently invited over to EA's headquarters in Guildford to get a bit of hands-on experience with Mirror's Edge, the firm's upcoming parkour-em-up. Rather than sampling the main game, we were given free reign to test our mettle on four time trial courses. The thinking behind this arrangement was presumably that we'd get a sense of the way free-running works, without blowing any of the game's storyline; this was indeed the case - but the trials also underlined how harrowingly addictive the full game may turn out to be.

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There appear to be three dominant factors that govern the way Mirror's Edge plays: time, momentum and simplicity. How these elements will blend with the main campaign remains to be seen, but in these trials at least, these three forces are the gods you worship. Your aim is simply to get from point A to point B as fast as you can. The ticking clock is clearly your enemy, but the issue of timing also relates to the way you handle the controls. Say, for example, that you're approaching two boxes - one placed a short distance in front of the other. If your sense of timing is good, you could jump onto the first crate and then immediately leap again - resulting in a series of bounds that sends you rocketing forward. However, if you leave the jump too late, you might clear the first crate and run straight into the second, bringing you to a halt.

Of course, you could simply run around the boxes entirely. That wouldn't be as fast as springing off the boxes, but if taking this route meant you could reach your next objective without slowing down and changing direction, then it might be a good idea. You're trying to maintain momentum here - any move you make could cost you valuable seconds, or it could shave down your time. Do you go for the high risk route - the path that is fastest but only if you're perfect on your timing? Or should you take the safer, slower route - and just do it as best you can?

After a handful of attempts, your fingers will genetically merge with the joypad. The controls will be totally instinctive...

It's this kind of thinking that can lead to severe cases of 'One More Go'. It doesn't hurt that it feels extremely cool to go zipping around a futuristic landscape. To keep and build your momentum it's absolutely mandatory to vault that fence at speed, to slide down that rooftop, to land from that fall and go straight into a forward role. This is where the simplicity comes in, because almost all your movements in Mirror's Edge are controlled through the thumb sticks and the two left-hand shoulder buttons. The latter are context sensitive and govern either 'up' movements or 'down' movements. Heading for a fence? Hit L1/LB and sail right over. Dropping to a lower level? Hit L2/LT as you hit the deck, and you'll perform a screen-spinning forward role. After a handful of attempts, your fingers will genetically merge with the joypad. The controls will be totally instinctive, leaving you free to gawk unblinking at the screen, dribble seeping down your chin. Every bit of concentration will be dedicated to your timing, and where you're going next.

As we mentioned, we were shown four maps during our time at EA. Three of these were set on shiny white urban rooftops, while a fourth sent us running through the green-lit walkways of a storm drain network. This was by far the most technical stage, demanding the player to make massive jumps from platform to platform. There was also a section that required us to manually balance as we sprinted along a narrow beam. You can use the Sixaxis to pull this off - though we found it near-impossible, and stuck to flicks of the left thumb stick. While we were pretty bad at this stage, it gave a good suggestion of the kind of thrills we'll get in the full game. Mirror's Edge is genuinely exciting when you're dashing full-pelt towards a jump and because there's no HUD you get totally sucked into the action - so much so that's it's rather unnerving the first time you fall to your death from a height.

Some levels are more challenging than others

Of the four maps we spent by far the majority of our time on the first one. Why? Because it got its hooks into us, that's why. There are three target times on any given stage, each corresponding to a rank of one, two or three stars. The one-star rating on the first stage was fairly easy and only took us a few attempts, but the next one demanded that we complete the course in under 55 seconds. So, we gave it a pop, and clocked in at 57 seconds. Not bad, not bad - but not good enough either. Then we had the idea of using wall-runs up the stairwell at the start of the race. That cut a second off the first stretch of the map, but then we kept screwing up during the middle section, where you leap down to a lower roof and then have to scramble atop a raised section. And what about that bit at the end? Surely there was a way to clear that railing with a single jump...

You see, Mirror's Edge positively encourages this obsessive thinking. Your way point markers are clearly visible on each map, marked out by pulsing red columns of light that stretch to the sky - but how you reach them is completely up to you. The game splits each map into sections and breaks down your time for each one, so you always know where you're going too slowly compared with the last attempt. You also have the option to race against a hologram of your previous best time. This ghost is useful as a reminder of the route you last took - with your precise footprints marked out in glowing red - as well as being an indicator of whether or not you're on course to beat your best time. Finally, at the end of a race there's a breakdown of how far you travelled during each section - stats which give clues as to where there is still a quicker route to be found. All these factors add up to a seriously strong 'One More Go' factor.

After many, many attempts - and after much cursing and rapid restarts of the stage - we finally beat the time of 55 seconds. In fact, we eventually filed it down to 53 seconds... but the moment we'll cherish was that first success, when we cleared a two star rating with mere tenths of a second to spare. Try as we might, we can't quite do justice to the sheer bliss that overcame us when we beat that time. We actually whooped and rolled about in our chair for a few moments. Okay, so we looked like a tit... but dammit, we had done it. There is no way to describe just how much we wanted to get that two star rating, but when you play this game for yourself, perhaps you'll know.

Competing against friends for the best time looks set to be a huge time sink

In the dying moments of our visit, we found a new shortcut at the very start of the stage - a box we could climb on and use to skip an entire section of the stairwell. EA's PR rep was practically dragging us out of our chair by this point, so we had to let go. It's kind of scary, really: if the addiction level is this bad when we're just racing ourselves, we hate to think what the full release will be like, given that it'll let you download your mates' ghosts - or those belonging to the best players in the world. On top of that there's the whole single-player experience - something we've barely seen at all.

Our brush with Mirror's Edge left our heart pounding, our palms sweaty and our head spinning. Okay, so some of that might have been due to acute motion sickness - but we're pretty sure that most of it was due to simply enjoying the ride... And what a ride it is.

Mirror's Edge is due for release on PS3 and Xbox 360 on November 14, with a PC version to follow later in the winter. A demo for consoles is due before release.