Abstract vs Realism Part 2: Parkour Hardcore
Parkour, without any doubt, is the coolest.
I don't care who you are, watching parkour videos of talented people with go-pros glued to their heads hop across buildings is a vicarious catharsis like no other. Watching clearly staged videos of security men chasing after a lone runner all the while he does the sickest parkour jumps is like a drug to the rule abiding, goody two shoes person I am.
The high of breaking the rules by scaling a concrete jungle is a fantasy that I've always dreamt of as a kid. As the world scrolled past looking out my elementary school's bus window, I'd form my hand into a tiny little finger man. He'd move his fingery appendages along the pane of the glass, acting as if telephone wires were tightropes, roofs of houses were inclines, and cars were moving platforms. I yearned for the freedom that came from making the world my playground.
The problem was... I did not have the athletics for doing this, nor the refined control needed over my body. I was always freakishly tall as a kid, and controlling my body was like those reindeer toys with the wooden appendages that'd go limp as a biscuit when you pressed a button. Add onto that being the poster child for Fat Boy Fall, I was out of my league to be parkour hardcore. I was far too afraid of my freakish massive body crushing the mini people around me that I'd handicap myself in order to prevent an atrocity from happening. Call it gentle giant syndrome, call it whatever, the point still stands: I was probably never going to run and jump off buildings. My heart wasn't in it. And with my size and stature, I'd probably crush them under the weight of my giant foot.
Mirror's Edge is a window into that fantasy.
In my Cavern of Dreams review, I broke down the concepts of the 3D platformer, how platformers naturally function as an abstraction, and how in comparison, First Person Shooters have gone a separate route from the shooty-shooty bang-bangs of yesteryear. FPS games started moving from more abstract level design like in Wolfenstein and Doom, to a gradual fixation on realism, like in Call of Duty and Battlefield.
In that same review, I make brief mention of parkour as an example of an abstraction done through the real world, similar to an obstacle course. The roofs of buildings are not designed to be a jungle gym, yet parkourists take advantage of their architectural design to create a sort of play. Mirror's Edge is a perfect example of an outlier within these definitions of abstraction and realism, bridging the gap between the two and becoming, on all technicalities, a 3D platformer/first-person shooter hybrid.
On The Edge Of Something New
Back in 2008, I was an FPS fiend. Halo 3 is one of the only games I can claim I'm fairly good at. I was the kid in your Call of Duty 4 lobby shouting homophobic slurs I shouldn't have known nor said. I was your atypical gamer in the 2000's. I experienced the demo to Mirror's Edge on a now red-ring of death'd Xbox 360, and I vividly remember attempting the first real challenge: grabbing a pipe on the far side of a building in the first chapter. Every time, over and over again, I'd miss just miss grabbing onto that stupid pipe. I'd run up, I'd fall to my death. I'd try and gain some speed, I'd miss, fall to death. After a dozen or so attempts, I finally succeeded. And it was then that I recall my 12 year old self thinking "this game is really cool".
Yet, despite this, I never acted upon seeking the game out for myself. I never took that opportunity to buy something new and outside my wheelhouse at that time. I continued to move on with what was familiar. And that bothers me, because I really wish I did.
In Mirror's Edge, you slide, vault, roll and jump from skyscraper to skyscraper as swarms of soldiers attempt to stop you. Your survival in this dystopia city is dependent on speed. Faith is nimble with her movements, but is heavy footed like the rest of us when gravity enters the mix. Before you take a leap of faith, you'll need to take a running start and pray you have enough speed to cross. If you fall from a far enough height, you'll need to preserve your inertia with a roll to prevent your legs from shattering like glass. Ventilation fans, transformers, construction scaffolding and sand bags litter the roofs of this unstained city, providing ample opportunity to launch yourself up towards a ledge with a quick one-two step.
There's a sense of finesse present within Mirror's Edge that, well, edges out the parkour competition. Which, admittedly is not a lot. I mean for God's sake, Assassin's Creed and Uncharted are on the list of Parkour games. BRINK is on the list. Remember fucking BRINK?
Which like, yeah, they're technically parkour games, I guess. But not to this level. No other game I've played carries the same sense of weight, nor carries the clear, crystallized, condensed feeling of placing myself into those running shoes. The first person perspective helps me sink into the body of someone with refined motor control of their limbs, and I get to feel that.
When I called Mirror's Edge a 3D Platformer-First Person Shooter hybrid earlier, the order was being stated deliberately. There was a moment 3/4ths into my playthrough that I realized "oh, I can pick up guns in this game?" And that is a testament to the fact that Mirror's Edge treats it's gunplay like an afterthought. In fact, besides maybe a story related sniper mission, you could play the entire game without holding a gun if you so chose to? Faith is more than capable of defeating armadas of militarized police forces with just her bare hands, though later on, you may have more trouble.
I find this approach rather fascinating as a decision. My gut tells me that this may be another case of EA pulling an EA and mandating a team to include something they did not want to include due to market research. But really, who knows? Personally, I enjoy the end result becoming more of an option than a mandatory requirement. A self imposed challenge that the designers really, REALLY encourage to give a try.
There's an ethereal tinge to Mirror's Edge that's difficult to nail down. Pristine whites fill up the blurry mold of the skylines, buildings acting as mausoleums to the death of individuality. You're lead along by waves of red, representing the Runner's resistence to the dystopian police state engorging them. The further you progress throughout Mirror's Edge, the more the reds of freedom begin to dissipate, with oranges and green coming into the fray to represent the rivaling factions you're bumping heads with. Walls, light fixtures, rooms in their entirety are baked with primary colors that explode the world in a fantastical reality. The walk up to the final tower fades all other colors except oppressive blues, showcasing the suffocating power of the police's dominion that looms over you.
Helping punctuate this minimal battle between base colors are these serene, glitch stretching, ice-xylophonic sounds. Waves of calm overtake you as soft synths dance and swim through the air with the lightness of clouds. Melancholy sinks deeper within your heart the more you listen, an unspoken feeling that dwells within you. What more lies ahead?
Taking The Jump
My reviews have started becoming a backlog of a backlog on Backloggd. As I toil away writing longer form reviews, I'm simultaneously creating more work for myself whilst playing new games, on top of real life responsibilities. I played Mirror's Edge about a few months ago by now, and as I'm writing these words, I've cemented to myself just how enthralled I am by the game. Mirror's Edge exists in a space all by itself. AAA games are almost never like this. No other game captures this same vibrant mood. No other game feels as impeccably designed to place yourself in these same shoes. In some ways, Mirror's Edge feels as though it's been made exactly for me. Like the game has been waiting here all this time for me to reach out and grab it.
I just wish I would have taken that leap of faith sooner.
