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When we reviewed EA and DICE’s Mirror’s Edge late last year we made it quite clear that the platforming made it a success. It wasn’t for everyone, but if it clicked you had the best first-person platformer ever, and a game that allowed the dedicated few to set times way above the competition. Because of this it was the time trial mode that held most replay value, doing away with the occasionally tedious combat and interference from enemies, and it’s this area that has seen the first DLC update.
The Mirror’s Edge Pure Time Trial Pack includes eight levels (including two that are quite similar to each other, and one extra if you’re a PS3 gamer). These new time trial areas are unlike anything you’ll have seen during the original game, doing away with realism in favour of fantasy designs that see platforms floating in mid air and a colour scheme that wouldn’t seem out of place in TRON.
It’s incredibly hard to describe exactly what you get, but aside from the two that share geometry they’re all very different. What’s more, they’re damn hard. If you haven’t played Mirror’s Edge in a while you’d be wise to brush up on your general skills before trying to run and leap through these perilous levels. Faith was always on the edge of a platform during the original game, but here the dangers are everywhere. One unnecessary step and she’ll plummet to her death, one over eager jump and she’ll miss a platform completely, and one misjudged wall jump and it’s a trip down the bottomless abyss.
These levels have been designed for expert play, there’s no question about it. Just taking the first level, Chroma, as an example, our best efforts in the office over the period of about 40 minutes saw us record a time of 01:19:28 – that’s a good 25 seconds off the best time in the world on PS3. Chroma isn’t even one of the tough levels included in the pack, so the gap between our best times and the best is even wider in some cases. We found one course, Reflex Redux, so tough that we only managed to finish a single run (with an obscenely high time) after a good hour and a half of depressing failure.
Part of Mirror’s Edge’s appeal came from its quite striking visuals, which made the most of clean colours and crisp lines, and the same is true of the DLC pack. Each level has been created without any care for realism, and as such they’re unlike anything we’ve seen in a video game before. Platforms jut out into nothingness, structures tower into the sky and you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d entered some kind of alien world. The new levels really do look spectacular, and the decision to design them in a different style to the original was a very smart move indeed.
So it all comes down to whether or not you should fork out the £6.29 (800 Microsoft Points) for the new levels. For us the price is perfectly justified, but only if you’re a hardcore fan of the original game and are only expecting new time trial levels. If you found yourself putting a ridiculous amount of time into the time trial mode after finishing the campaign you’ll almost definitely like what DICE has made here, and have a fresh excuse to sink even more hours into the game while cursing every time Faith misses a jump.
