Shameless Gaming Month: We’re Done Here

Ladies and gentlemen, please put down your controllers and bring your piles of shame to the front of the classroom for assessment. The month of Shameless Gaming is over, please leave in an orderly fashion and resume your normal gaming habits.

Only a month ago, Shameless Gaming Month started with something resembling a bang. Thanks to the coverage over at Kotaku from Mark Serrels, there were dozens of us taking part in this bizarre event where we tried to play some of those games that we never got around to beating.

Dozens!

Okay, I don’t know the actual participation numbers. This was much too informal of an event for that sort of thing. However, the amount of people that took part is inconsequential to how successful I feel this month has been.

Easily the largest success was the feedback from people telling me how much they had enjoyed finding a hidden gem that had been sitting in their pile of shame.

For me, that gem was Uncharted 2, a game that I had started to play many moons ago and then abandoned because of various distractions. To avoid succumbing to distractions yet again, my plan was to play through the entire game in a single night to kick off Shameless Gaming Month.

I failed.

On the approach to the final boss, early in the morning of July 2nd, my Playstation froze. So much for that. After a few hours of much needed rest, I picked the controller back up and finished one of the best games I’ve played in recent memory.

July was also a success because of the way it changed my gaming habits. One of the reasons my pile of shame had grown to such gargantuan size was because I was always too happy to make excuses.

Instead of having fun in my spare time, I would mindlessly browse the internet in the vain hope of finding something interesting, ignoring the mountain of incredibly interesting games that were sitting right under my nose.

As soon as I started to use my free time more wisely and play the games that I had abandoned or ignored, I was having a lot more fun. When I had a bit of time to myself, I’d sit on the couch and power up a console. When I felt like watching something, I’d force myself to make some progress in on of the games I was playing before allowing myself to be entertained by something that wasn’t a video game.

Some people felt that this made gaming feel like a chore. In a way, they were right. Many games have periods that simply aren’t fun. That’s the point where a lot of people will abandon them in hopes of finding greater enjoyment elsewhere. Forcing yourself to play through these sections, avoiding other more enjoyable forms of entertainment, can definitely feel like a chore.

But once you push through those sections, you might find some brilliance on the other side that you might have missed had you simply abandoned the game. There’s a good chance that the game might not improve but the only way to find out is to push a little further until you reach the point where you can know for sure if the game is worth your time or not.

At the beginning of July, I plucked out five games from my pile of shame to try and finish. They were: Uncharted 2, Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Dead Space and Darksiders. By the end of the month, I only managed to finish three of them, with Darksiders still in progress and Dead Space completely neglected. On top of that, I managed to Alice: Madness Returns, bringing my tally to a respectable four games finished in a single month.

I don’t think I’ve ever managed to finish four games in a month before.

So on a personal level, I feel like this month has been a success. But that’s only part of the story, how did Shameless Gaming Month go for you?

Shameless Gaming Month: The Final Stretch

We’re entering the final stretch of Shameless Gaming Month and things are going better than I expected.

Admittedly, my expectations were amazingly low. Still, I’ve finished three games and there are plenty of people who have managed to have success ranging from reasonable to spectacular. So that’s nice.

It’s pretty clear that my initial goal of finishing five games this month is lying in tatters. Three of the five games I decided to focus on my attention on have been cleared out of my pile of shame but I don’t think that I can finish Darksiders or Dead Space. I’ve yet to start playing Dead Space, so that can’t be particularly good.

Luckily, I came up with a cunning plan to try and get around this slight problem. I’ve been playing Alice: Madness Returns and having fun. In spite of failing to reach my goals, I think that I can count this as a success simply because having fun is more enjoyable than succeeding.

Having fun while succeeding is even better, but having fun while failing works pretty well too.

That and I’ve developed one or two habits that might help me manage my time better to be able to continue taking games out of my pile of shame.

Before Shameless Gaming Month kicked off, I used to be terrible with trying to judge how much time I needed to devote to playing a game. If I thought that I only had half an hour free time before something that had to be done had to be done, then I just wouldn’t bother playing anything. I’d kill time on Reddit or watch something on YouTube.

Now I’ve learned just how much can be done in half an hour.

You can cure a person of demonic heart spiders, discover randomly discarded treasure while shooting bad dudes or even eliminate an alien threat that is poised to conquer the universe. Half an hour is a long time.

This discovery could very well be a crippling blow to my powers of procrastination.

If I can do so much in half an hour, three days is a lifetime. If you’re feeling like you’ve run out of time to take something off of your pile of shame and consider this month a success, just give it a shot anyhow just to see how much you can get done.

At the very least, you’ll probably find a game or two that are worth continuing with once Shameless Gaming Month is over and we return to our regularly scheduled activities.

How To Diminish Your Shame

The first week of Shameless Gaming month is over. Some of us have made progress, others not so much. That’s okay, it happens. There are pesky things, like reality, that might get in the way of progress.

If you are really intent on making a dent in your pile of shame, having some sort of method to your madness may be helpful. Blindly going forth and gaming can be fun, it just doesn’t always work.

Probably the greatest way to get through your pile of shame is to give yourself incentives. If there is a television show you want to watch instead of gaming, deny yourself the privilege until you have reached the next chapter. Whatever you’re using as an excuse to procrastinate could be instead used as a reward.

Many of us have a reasonably formidable pile of shame. That means that there will be games in your pile of shame that belong there for a very good reason, such as being so terrible that they don’t deserve to be finished. These can be ignored in favour of the other, less horrifically bad, games.

After all, why should you focus on a game that you despise when there is something that you might potentially love sitting right next to it? It doesn’t make much sense to put time towards something you hate. Not unless you’re as stubborn as I am, then it makes perfect sense (at the time).

Odds are there isn’t just one game worthy of your attention. Most of us will have several games to try and choose from, all of them perfectly valid choices.

Learning to juggle multiple games can definitely work in your favour. There are times in almost every game where things start to drag, where the game simply becomes less fun. In the past, that may have been reason to abandon a game, adding it to your pile of shame. If you’re constantly switching between several games, you can tag out a game that is frustrating you for one that is not. Then when that game starts to frustrate you, tag the first game back in.

I’ve been alternating between Darksiders, Trauma Center: Second Opinion and Starcraft 2 over the last week  Once the difficulty and imprecise controls of Trauma Center frustrate me, I switch to Darksiders. After I grow weary of the dark gritty dark darkness of Darksiders, Starcraft 2 comes in to provide reinforcement. Then when I become fed up with my incompetence at Starcraft 2, Trauma Center comes back to save the day. It’s a beautiful cycle.

Another strategy that I’ve employed so far, to what could be considered success, is to try and marathon through a game. Simply sitting down, shutting up and beating that thing in one go.

When done as a solo venture, this works much in the same way that piercing your ear with a thumbtack works. The job gets done but it’s messy and there are far better ways to do it.

Aside from the obvious drawbacks that come with sitting by yourself for hours on end, those frustrating moments that all games have are amplified by the fact that you’re committed to not going anywhere until you are done.

If you insist on marathoning a game, try to wrangle a friend into it.

Unlike the solo attempt, co-operative marathons are one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I’ve ever had the pleasure of going through. Everything that makes a solo gaming marathon go poorly doesn’t seem to be as bad when you’ve got a good co-op partner by your side. It could have something to do with the power of friendship or some other nonsense.

There is also the possibility of things going completely haywire and a great friendship will be ruined. If that happens, I take no responsibility for daring to suggest that you try a co-op gaming marathon.

Playing with friends isn’t just limited to co-operative marathons. Singing the praises or venting your frustrations about a game you’ve been playing is rather enjoyable but often requires someone who has also played that game. This experience can be somewhat engineered by making an effort to play the same game (or games) as others.

Taking a look through the piles of shame that people have listed so far, there are a few titles that I saw mentioned with alarming frequency. They were: Infamous, Bioshock, Darksiders and Batman: Arkham Asylum. This knowledge may help you optimise potential venting and/or praising.

If these methods can’t motivate you, why not a simpler motivation? Having one less game in your pile of shame. That is what we’re striving to do, reduce our pile of shame. Maybe these methods will help you do that, maybe you’ve got your own little tricks.

However you approach this month, try to enjoy yourself. This doesn’t have to be a chore.

Thanks to Kotaku.com.au for the Shameless Gaming Month banner.

Shameless Gaming: Uncharted 2 Marathon

The first weekend of Shameless Gaming month is over. Looking at Twitter, it seems like a few people have managed to clear a some games from their pile of shame already. Well done.

As I mentioned in my last post, I planned to use Friday night to ignore the possibility of having a social life and instead try to beat Uncharted 2 in one marathon gaming session.

Just before 8pm, I settled in for a night of epic gaming.

I’ve played several games through in marathon sessions in the past. Both Gears of War games have been played through co-operatively in one sitting, as has Halo Reach and Army of Two.

More recently I also played Homefront in one night and have started to release several Let’s Play videos of that experience.

It seems that the masses that decided that I should play Uncharted 2 were on to something.

I had played it a little when I first bought it, making it through two or three of the early chapters before putting it aside for no apparent reason, but I had not reached the point where I was convinced that this was a brilliant game.

That was a mistake.

First and foremost, Uncharted 2 is a visually stunning game. Easily one of the best looking titles I have played in recent memory.

Being pretty isn’t enough to make something a good game. The animation during the cutscenes is well above average, adding an extra level to the writing and voice acting that is also well above average.

Sure, the story devolves into the expected Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones style madness but it is entertaining.

There is one problem that I did find with Uncharted 2, one that caused a lot of grief throughout the night.

That problem is the lack of damage that guns do and the amount of health that the enemies seem to have. You are forced to focus on taking headshots in order to avoid having to empty multiple clips into the mooks that swarm you, which can be difficult if you aren’t a fan of the Dual Shock controller (or if you’ve exhausted your supply of foul tasting energy drinks and dawn is approaching).

It is particularly troublesome in the late game when there are some beastly enemies that you have to face off against.

The enemies known as Guardians are the worst offenders and as I entered into the later chapters where they are plentiful, there were a few segments that simply were not fun.

Screw those guys.

Overall though, it is incredibly easy to see why Uncharted 2 had so much praise heaped upon it when it came out. The shooting sections play well, using the familiar third-person, cover-based style gameplay that we’ve come to know and love over the years. The platforming sections are similarly well-executed and overall the level design is fantastic.

Had I actually played it earlier, I would have struggled to think of anything more deserving of a game of the year award.

Now, I mentioned that I was going to try to complete this game in a single marathon gaming session. That didn’t exactly go as planned.

After 24 hours of being awake and more than ten hours of twiddling my thumbsticks, my PS3 froze.

I was simply too tired to deal with that. Instead of restarting the machine and finishing the game, I went to bed to recuperate.

On Saturday afternoon, I fired up my untrustworthy old PS3 and discovered I was fortunate enough not to lose any data. Not only that, I was very close to the end of the game, only a cutscene and a brief firefight away from the final boss.

While I may not have been successful at trying to finish the game in one night to kick off Shameless Gaming month, I have successfully removed Uncharted 2 from my pile of shame and thoroughly enjoyed the process.

You can see my end of game stats here: [1] [2] [3] [4].

I particularly like that I spent 58 minutes standing still.

All in all, I don’t recommend that anyone else attempt to do what I did. There are much better ways to enjoy Uncharted 2. If this is still on your pile of shame, I strongly recommend that you try to find one of those better ways to enjoy Uncharted 2, as this is a game that deserves to be finished.

The Shameless Gaming Begins

Today is Friday. There are songs dedicated to this fact. Today is also the first day of the month of Shameless Gaming.

To kick the month off, let’s have a look at how I shall try to approach this month long gaming marathon.

By my (probably erroneous) count, there are twenty-five games in my pile of shame. They range from Sonic and the Secret Rings to Valkryia Chronicles to Lego: Batman. Some may consider that an excessive amount of unfinished games, others might think that it is a insignificant mound compared to their colossal collection.

Really, that’s not the point. It isn’t the size of your pile of shame that matter but what you do with it. More specifically, what you manage to remove from it.

Having fun is optional, although recommended.

Completing all twenty-five games in a month may take a better man than me, especially if I plan on still having a job at the end of the month.

Being more ambitious than I probably have any right to be, there are five games that I will focus on playing first before moving on to the rest of my pile of shame.

The first of these is Uncharted 2: Amongst Thieves (PS3). I said that I would kick this month off by playing a game from start to finish in a single marathon session and sought the opinion of the masses. The masses decreed that I play Uncharted 2.

So tonight, I shall attempt to make myself both very comfortable and very caffeinated, so that I can see if this game could possibly as good as the reviews suggest.

Also, it’s an excuse to say “Dude Raider” many times, who can pass up on that?

Next on the list is Darksiders (360), a game that seems to be an amalgamation of Legend of Zelda, God of War, Prince of Persia and every other Action/Adventure title of note from recent memory. It even has a Navi-esque character played by Mark Hamill. How could it possibly not be awesome?

To try and get a head start on this month, I started playing Darksiders earlier this week. It isn’t cheating because the rules for the Shameless Gaming month are deliberately ill-defined.

Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty (PC/Mac) is also one of the games that I have been playing recently. Someone, somewhere linked my to Husky’s YouTube channel and from there it became inevitable that I would play this. After about a week, the inevitable happened and I found a copy of Starcraft 2 in my possession.

Shortly after reviewing Trauma Center: Under the Knife, I stumbled across a used copy of Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Wii) just lying there begging to be purchased. This was one of the games I was eagerly awaiting before the release of the Wii. Shiny new motion sensing technology being showcased in a remake of one of my favourite games? How could I not buy it immediately?

Well, the answer is simple. It took too bloody long to be released in Australia. By the time it reached our fair shores, I had lost interest in the Wii and simply wasn’t interested in playing doctor. Time to correct that mistake.

The final title that I have decided to focus on is Dead Space (360). There isn’t any particular reason this game is getting more attention than others in my pile of shame, I just want to play it.

That’s the level of reasoning actually required to make this sort of decision.

Now that you know some of the games that I’ll be playing, feel free to let the world know of what games you’ll be playing in the comments.

Shameless Gaming Month

We’ve all got one. Some of ours are rather small, others rather large and imposing. It’s just the natural order of things and we should all be ashamed of it. I’m talking about the collection of games we all own that exist solely to gather dust on our shelves.

This collection is known as the Pile of Shame.

No matter how hard we try, new games will come out before we’ve finished all of our old ones and resisting the urge to purchase shiny new toys is hard.

The end result? An ever growing pile of shame. Games that have never been completed, or possibly even played, for any number of reasons ranging from disinterest to alien invasions to the distractions of real life.

Maybe not so much the alien invasions.

This pile of shame grows with every new must have release that we plan on playing later, every sale where there are many cheap games that have always looked interesting but not quite interesting enough to pay full price for.

Sure, every once in a while we might pluck a game from our shelf and remove it from the pile of shame, but that happens a lot less often than a game being added to it.

Something must be done about this problem that plagues our community.

Fortunately, July provides us with a month where the supply of new games runs short and the end of financial year sales have ended. That also means that we have a month where we can sit down and make a molehill out of the mountain that is our pile of shame.

There aren’t any particular rules to this endeavour, but the general idea is reasonably simple: play as many games to completion as you can in the month of July.

For the sake of simplicity, completing a game means playing it until you are satisfied that you’re done. That might mean getting a platinum trophy or 1000 gamerscore for it, playing out the single player campaign through to the end credits or simply playing the game up until the point that you want to hurl that disc into the centre of the sun never to be thought of again.

Let us know what games are in your pile of shame and what you’re trying to play as the month progresses. If many people are playing the same game, we can form something not entirely unlike a book club where we can discuss the fun being had by all and sundry.

I plan on playing at least one game from start to finish in a single sitting and record a Let’s Play of it as I go. This has been done before with, the fortunately very brief, Homefront and you can see just how well that went over here.

Unlike Homefront, I hope to play a game that I will enjoy this time. Taking a glance at my pile of shame, the candidates for this night of madness are: Dead Space, Darksiders, Trauma Center: Second Opinion and Uncharted 2. As you can see, these games are all over eight hours long, so I will be in for a long night whatever game I play.

That is what must be done in order to eradicate a pile of shame.

By the end of July, some of us will hopefully uncover a hidden gem in our game collection. Others might find out that the hype behind a certain title was more than a little unfounded. Whatever we discover, our piles of shame should hopefully be considerably smaller which should, at the very least, represent less wasted money.

So claim the comfortable seat directly in front of the television, put aside your life for a month and play some video games.

Let’s do this thing.

Retrospective Review: Mirror’s Edge

The developers behind the enduring Battlefield series, DICE, released a game in 2008 that was a little bit different than their usual fare. That game was Mirror’s Edge.

Although it uses a first person perspective with guns, Mirror’s Edge is not a first person shooter. It’s a first person platformer.

Being in first person perspective means that Mirror’s Edge handles things slightly different than Mario or Sonic games.  Instead of jumping along floating platforms and Goomba stomping enemies, you perform parkour maneuvers such as wall-running and sprinting along crane arms high above the city.

Sprinting along crane arms is something missing from many games, much to their detriment because it’s pretty damned awesome.

The controls for Mirror’s Edge are relatively simple. The bulk of the action is handled by the up action button (LB on 360 and L1 on PS3) and the down action button (LT on 360 and L2 on PS3), which do actions such as climb up from a ledge or drop down from a ledge based on what obstacle you are currently tackling and how much momentum you have.

That’s the trick with Mirror’s Edge, momentum. By maintaining an uninterrupted flow as you course you way through the obstacles, you will find that things are much easier when you tackle them at pace.

This can be a little finicky, especially if you struggle to master the movement and fail to maintain momentum. The emphasis on momentum and the use of context sensitive controls can sometimes mean that things don’t go as planned. For example: instead of wall-running, you might end up vaulting over a railing. This may then lead to you becoming a smear on the pavement below, something that you should strive to avoid.

This can be the cause of quite a bit of frustration. Frustration that can be made even worse by some unforgiving platforming and the degree of precision required to maintain that precious momentum. There were often times where I found the game a little too difficult because of this.

It is entirely possible to master the movement in Mirror’s Edge and complete some remarkable feats of virtual parkour; you just need to be a better player than I am.

Mirror’s Edge takes place in a fascist future where communication is so tightly controlled that if people want to share information without Big Brother’s watchful eye turning to them, they have to employ the use of some high-risk parkour enthusiasts known as runners. As you can guess, the protagonist Faith just happens to be one of these runners. Her name is also subjected to several puns.

Early into the game, Faith’s sister is framed for the murder of a mayoral candidate. This is the driving force behind the plot and the explanation for why Faith is being chased for the majority of the game.

Many people will just leave the plot at that, I know that when I first played this game I pretty much ignored the plot after that point. After all, you have all the explanation you need for what’s happening; you’re being chased, so run. Run as fast as you can.

There are actually elements here for a really good story; I would even argue that the story in Mirror’s Edge is better than that of most video games these days. At least, the elements are all there for Mirror’s Edge to have one of the best stories in recent memory except that for some reason they aren’t tied together in a way that really works.

Whilst Mirror’s Edge runs on the Unreal Engine that powers many other current generation games, DICE went in a slightly different direction with the art direction. Instead of the more typical landscapes with murky browns and greens, Mirror’s Edge has a refreshing use of clean, bold colours. It almost looks like an IKEA catalogue come to life.

It may not sound like much, but the result is truly breathtaking.

Not only are the visual design decisions in this game simply amazing, but they are tied very neatly into the gameplay. Objects that you can interact with are highlighted in red. This is explained in game as runner vision and serves as a great way to draw the focus of the players to guide them through the levels.

In addition to the use of colours, the use of the first person perspective is handled in a truly fantastic way. Instead of feeling like a disembodied head with a weapon dangling in front of it, Mirror’s Edge makes it feel like you are controlling real person.

This is achieved primarily by manipulating the camera focus. After taking a heavy blow, the screen will be slightly out of focus for a moment to heighten the impact. When running at full speed, the edge of the screen will blur slightly. When you pull yourself up from a ledge, there will be a very brief moment of adjustment where the focus shifts from the wall that was directly in front of you to the cityscape that has now been revealed. These are all very subtle little tricks that really let you feel immersed in the experience.

In addition to the use of camera focus, immersion is heightened by a bevy of small tricks that only become noticeable when they aren’t there. The sound of Faith’s footsteps pounding on the pavement, her heavy breathing as she exhausts herself by sprinting through the city and the slight swaying of the camera all make it feel like you are this parkour master blitzing your way through the city.

This is how first person perspective should be handled.

While there are many visual aspects of Mirror’s Edge that are brilliant, there is one major visual element that was handled extremely poorly. Instead of making use of the impressive images generated by the game’s engine, cutscenes are presented in a very poorly animated Flash cartoon. This really cheapens the feeling of the game by yanking you out of the otherwise immersive experience.

If you needed a reason to ignore the plot, it would be because you can skip these cheap animations and get back to the beauty of the game itself.

During less frantic sections of the game, the music will be quiet and relaxing. A simple, stripped back electronic track that adds a nice sense of atmosphere. Then when the action picks up, so does the music, transforming from calm and relaxing to fast-paced and energetic, in a way that really pushes you to pick up the pace.

One area that I found a little annoying at times was the level design. Although you are often given clear visual cues and the levels themselves are fairly linear with many objects scattered about that offered slightly different paths, there are parts where the goal you are running towards is unclear or the path you must take is simply too difficult.

It wasn’t until near the end of the game when I realised that the levels causing the most frustration were the indoor levels and the more enjoyable levels were out in the open, running across the rooftops.

Suddenly, it made a lot more sense. Faith is a runner. Her place is up on the rooftops, running freely. When she is indoors, the lack of escape routes makes her feel trapped. It’s a claustrophobic sensation that really reinforces who the character is. This realisation made me really appreciate the effort that went into the level design in Mirror’s Edge. Right up until the point where I reached another section that frustrated the hell out of me and realised that even if there is a perfectly rational reason for it, it still made the game less enjoyable.

Another problematic aspect of Mirror’s Edge came from the combat sections of the game. Although the vast majority of the time playing will be spent running, there will be times where you are confronted by armoured foes wielding weapons. At first, this isn’t a problem; you can simply run past them. In fact, running away seems like the best option as Faith is ill-equipped to deal with burly police officers.

When you do come face to face with an enemy, it’s likely that you will have some difficulty. Quite simple because the game is not designed to be combat focused. The end result is that combat is incredibly awkward. You can try and bludgeon the cops with your fists, but that is far worse option than attempting to disarm your opponents.

Disarming can be done by attacking enemies from behind or by counterattacking them when their weapon turns red. This causes an impressive looking animation, the enemy lying prone on the floor and a gun now firmly in Faith’s hands. Taking down enemies is a much simpler task when you’ve got access to a gun. Although many weapons will have an impact on your ability to run, meaning that you will be forced to discard them very quickly.

When I first played this game, I decided to try and get the Test of Faith achievement, which requires that you don’t shoot a single gun throughout the game. That was a mistake on my part. Unless you know exactly where to run to in order to avoid combat the entire game, you will be shot to shreds and will desperately wish for a way to return the favour.

In addition to the campaign, there are also speed run and time trial modes, with online leaderboards. The speed run mode is exactly what it says on the tin, a mode for speed running through the levels.

But it is in the time trial mode where the game truly shines.

In the time trial mode, you run through the levels from the campaign. Instead of getting from point A to point B and dealing with tedious things like being shot at, you have to make your way through a series of checkpoints scattered throughout the level. This means that you get to make use of the many obstacles scattered about the level in quite a few fun and innovative ways in an attempt to beat the clock.

It’s hard and the times required to earn the highest ratings require a frantic pace, but that only makes it more satisfying when you finally pull off the perfect series of maneuvers to reach the goal in record time.

There are downloadable levels available for time trial mode, which look even more visually stunning than the campaign mode. Unfortunately, I have not tried these out yet and I doubt that I will have a chance to any time soon.

The main reason why I won’t be playing the downloadable levels in the near future is because Mirror’s Edge suffers from what I like to call Assassin’s Creed Syndrome. You see, sometimes a game can start out being fantastic, everything is fresh and exciting, the gameplay really grabs your attention and entertains you in ways that you didn’t think were possible. Then as you progress, the polish starts to wear off just a little and the experience is, well, somewhat lacklustre. That’s Assassin’s Creed Syndrome.

This doesn’t mean that Mirror’s Edge is a bad game, in fact it’s a damned good game, but after a certain point it just became less fun to play.

My reasoning for this phenomenon is that when you first play the game, it’s a shiny new toy. The developers really aren’t pulling any punches when it comes to delivering great gaming and you’re experiencing something new and exciting. Then as the game wears on, there’s simply less great material for the developers to deliver and the experience suffers..

You end up judging the later levels by the expectations that were set at the beginning and whilst they are still very good, they feel subpar. It results in a feeling that you’ve just played a game that could have been great but ended up feeling disappointing.

Fortunately, Assassin’s Creed Syndrome is a very subjective experience and it is entirely possible that you won’t encounter it. Meaning that all you will have left is a great, albeit challenging, game that feels like a breath of fresh air after playing yet another first person shooter.

 

For this review I played the Xbox 360 version of Mirror’s Edge, completing the majority of the campaign on Normal difficulty and several levels of the Time Trial mode. Prior to this, I completed the game on Normal difficulty and earned the Test of Faith achievement (requiring completion of the game without the use of weapons) shortly after the game was released in late 2008.

Special thanks to Adam in the comments for pointing out some much needed revisions to the original version of this review.

The Adventures of Buttercup, Part 18: Lava Is Not Your Friend

Ready to dish out a hefty amount of punishment to anything that dares stumble across her path, Buttercup steps through the doorway to a narrow passage of stairs. A miner foolishly tries to ambush Buttercup as she makes her way up but she is able to simply step out of the way of the attack and counter with a blast of magic. Another miner tries to ambush her soon afterwards, it is just as unsuccessful in its attempts to kill Buttercup as his friends.

In a room just off to the side, Buttercup finds a pick axe. As tempted as she is to embed the tip of the pick into the skull of the next enemy she sees, magic is just more effective for death and destruction, so she puts it aside for now. Maybe it can be used to wreak havoc some other time.

After the multiple failed ambushes and the collection of a shiny, new weapon, Buttercup makes her way to the top of the stairs to find herself in front of a bridge that leads to the Fat Minister that was standing so high and mighty above her before. Trying to cross the bridge doesn’t go as smoothly as Buttercup would like. The construction crew clearly forgot to include proper supports and the whole thing collapses underneath Buttercup, causing her to tumble in a very unroyal fashion.

Her tumbling results in some minor bruising and also lands Buttercup in the middle of some more miners. They’re quickly killed before Buttercup starts to wander around looking for another way up. She sees a bridge at the other end of the room, so she runs over to it and then all the way back so that she ends up underneath the rickety wooden platform that the Fat Minister is standing on.

The cheerfully chubby bastard is still out of range of Buttercup’s spells, so she can only try to fend off his bolts of fire with her Adjudicator’s shield. Amazing as the healing properties of the large chunk of wood are, the shield does not seem readily capable of stopping fire from burning Buttercup. This is something Buttercup should have remembered from her last encounter with a Fat Minister, yet she still tried in vain to stop the attacks. Maybe she’ll remember next time. Most likely not.

As she cowers behind her useless shield, Buttercup notices that there’s a lever tucked away, underneath the Fat Minister’s platform. She goes over and gives it a quick tug, causing a large gate to open near the Fat Minister. It seems like she has to go that way, so she heads back up the narrow stairway, this time without any ambushes thanks to the death of all of her would-be ambushers.

It seems that the broken bridge was not the only way to move forwards, there’s also a very solid looking piece of floor just behind Buttercup. So she takes advantage of the firm footing and finds that it actually leads to the newly opened gate. Well, that was definitely a useful discovery, although it was only made useful thanks to Buttercup’s somewhat foolhardy attempt to cross a bridge without first checking to see if it complied with the local construction codes.

Going towards the gate, Buttercup finally finds herself able to aim precisely at the Fat Minister that has been so tantalisingly out of reach for what feels like an age. Taking advantage of her new position, Buttercup is easily able to kill him by dodging the fire he sent in her direction and then sending back a little magic of her own.

With that sorted out, Buttercup is free to advance through the gate and finally see what lies ahead in the Stonefang Tunnel. Except that pesky Fat Minister managed to find one last way to annoy Buttercup, it just had to leave an item behind as it died and it just had to leave it lying there on the platform it had been taunting Buttercup from. The platform that Buttercup couldn’t reach before as the bridge leading to it had broken.

Fortunately, there is still one support beam left from the bridge. Buttercup slowly makes her way across the beam, ending with a perfect dismount. The item left behind by the Fat Minister is a Crescent Axe and a few pieces of grass. The grass is at least a little helpful as it can heal Buttercup, the axe is only really useful right now as a trophy to celebrate the death of a hated foe.

Through the gate, there is a fog door that leads deeper into a cavernous room full of machinery and other such things you would expect to find in a mine. Something that you might not expect to see in a typical mine is the salamander hanging out on the wall. It’s kind of cute, but anything unfamiliar is a threat to Buttercup especially in this environment. So Buttercup takes no chances and kills the salamander before it even realises that she was nearby.

The cavernous room does not contain anything of interest other than the still smoking corpse of the salamander, so Buttercup keeps moving deeper into the mine. Soon enough, she stumbles across a circular room with a pool of lava below it and a plague of salamanders clinging to the walls. In a rare fit of charity, Buttercup cures the room of its plague before continuing her journey.

A little deeper into the mine are some stairs heading down to another pool of lava. Resting on the lava is a mysterious item that was no doubt left there by some foolish adventurer that went for a swim into the lava. Buttercup must have this item.

The Water Veil spell reduces damage taken from fire by covering the caster in a veil of water, exactly as the name implies. Lava is hot and therefore indistinguishable from fire. If Buttercup were to cast Water Veil on herself, she should be able to briefly step on to the lava and claim the item for herself. The logic is flawless, so Buttercup executes her cunning plan.

Death Count: 21

Maybe Buttercup should try learning some form of magical telekinesis. That might have helped a little more than Water Veil, which did nothing to stop her from immediately sinking into the lava.

Time for Buttercup to recover her corpse from the lava, at least what is left of it.

Buttercup runs back into the mine and lays waste to the miners. Sadly, none of them were singing the “hi ho” song. If they were, Buttercup may have been kind to them, possibly even letting live for a few minutes longer than she originally planned. This is the sort of things the monsters in Boletaria should consider. If they came up with more ingenious ways to try and stay alive than simply attacking anyone who comes near them, they could enjoy a few more precious moments of life.

Clearing her path of the rest of the monsters that have reappeared, including the Fat Ministers and silly ambushing miners, is an incredibly easy feat. It’s such an easy feat that while Buttercup is killing some more miners she notices some dead horses lying on the ground and muses for a while about how the hell they ended up here, all the time still flinging magic casually at the creatures around her. Buttercup cannot think of a satisfactory reason for the horse corpses to be where they are, so gives up her musing and returns to the lava where her corpse lies.

Amazingly enough, Buttercup is able to retrieve her body and the souls that she had collected so far. Somehow the lava didn’t destroy them, which doesn’t make too much sense. Then again, Buttercup’s understanding of what makes sense is in serious doubts after she tried to walk on lava with little more protection that a spell that coated her in water.

In a passageway just ahead are some miners standing around holding some glowing hot swords. Buttercup is almost tempted to try dipping her own sword into the lava to achieve the same effect, but thankfully thinks better of it. Instead she casts a single Soul Ray at the group and because the miners are all conveniently standing in a row, the penetrative powers of the potent spell mean that they all fall to the ground. Their deaths seem to cool their weapons, but Buttercup is cautious and gingerly steps over them.

To her left is a fog door but the passageway that Buttercup has found herself in continues, so she decides to see where it leads. It doesn’t take very long before Buttercup finds her path blocked by an abandoned cart. Her path is very quickly unblocked by a miner smashing the cart with a swing of his sledgehammer. The miner’s work is now clearly done, so Buttercup kills him and continues on her merry way.

The passageway opens up to reveal a stunning view of the surrounding landscape. It would be considered breathtaking, but Buttercup is currently in her soul form and it isn’t exactly clear if she has any breath for the view of the landscape to take. Despite the appearance of the Black Phantom and the other annoyances, coming to the Stonefang Tunnel was definitely a good idea. This is far better than the bloody blood swamp in the Tower of Latria.

Not only is there a great view up here, there is also a path leading to the deactivated elevator near the archstone. There’s also a crank here, which Buttercup turns and the elevator starts to move again.

This seems like a perfect opportunity to return to the Nexus. So Buttercup takes the opportunity and uses the Evacuate miracle.

The Adventures of Buttercup, Part 17: The Phantom Menace

Back in the Nexus, Buttercup decides that that Gloom Armour just isn’t working for her. Sure, it’s protective in a rather snug and clanky sort of way but the weight and less than flattering design means that Buttercup would just prefer to be back in the Black Leather Armour she was wearing before. Buttercup puts on a quick show for the occupants of the Nexus as she changes back into her more comfortable armour. Then she has a quick chat with the Maiden in Black to bolster her magic abilities a little.

Returning to the Tower of Latria and dealing with the horrors there doesn’t seem like a very appealing option right now. Now when there are other archstones can take her many other less terrifying places. Taking a look at all the options, Buttercup decides not to bother with any of the places she’s already ventured to. Returning to the Boletarian Palace and Shrine of Storms can wait for later. That means there are only really two options, she can head to the Valley of Defilement, which sounds almost as unpleasant as the Tower of Latria. That only leaves Stonefang tTunnel.

Buttercup approaches the Archstone of the Burrow King and is taken to the base of some stairs at the base of a stone fort on the side of a mountain. Buttercup climbs to the top of the stairs and finds a filthy man sitting outside of a hut. On the inside of the hut is an elevator that doesn’t seem to feel like moving at the moment, so Buttercup has a quick chat with the filthy man. He has items and is willing to part with them in exchange for some souls. Buttercup has very few souls to part with at the moment and the items the filthy man is offering simply are not worth buying.

Leaving the man to wallow in his filth, Buttercup spies a Crystal Gecko off to the side that she quickly skewers with her sword.

With the demise of the Crystal Gecko, Buttercup notices a glowing blue aura next to the filthy man. It appears that a fellow adventurer wishes to join Buttercup on her journeys for a little while as a Blue Phantom. This seems like a neat idea, a friend could be helpful. Buttercup decides not to bother, it would be a little cruel to have someone accompany Buttercup at the moment. They’d get pretty sick of her dilly dallying.

The option to summon the Blue Phantom disappears and a message appears in front of Buttercup: “A Black Phantom has invaded your world”. Great, just great. Someone is actively trying to hunt down Buttercup for sport. Is it too late to get that Blue Phantom?

Finding the Black Phantom didn’t take long, he was right behind Buttercup. The Black Phantom stands there with a giant sword resting on his shoulder. This does not look like it will end well, so Buttercup tries to take the initiative and casts Soul Ray at it. She does a hefty chunk of damage, which causes the Black Phantom to start to flee.

Buttercup gives chase, casting magic as she runs after him. Most of the spells miss, although a few manage to home in and the invading hero is quickly nearing death. The phantom ducks around a corner and starts to pray for a miracle. Let the poor fool pray, he’s going to die soon. As the phantom prays, a sphere of blue light surrounds him. That can’t be good for Buttercup, not good at all.

The Black Phantom clearly has a plan here, so Buttercup tries to finish him off with one last casting of Soul Ray before it can start attacking with that very dangerous looking sword that it is lugging about. The spell hits but is not fatal. One more spell should do the trick, or it would if Buttercup’s magic didn’t suddenly stop working. The miracle the Black Phantom cast must have done something to stop magic from working anymore.

Now the phantom takes a moment to heal itself and then begins to swing its sword about. That really hurt. Buttercup feels pretty poorly after just a single swipe of the phantom’s blade, so she tries to run away. It doesn’t work, the phantom has her trapped and continues to swing away with its sword. Buttercup tries to cast one last spell to save herself, as she readies her wand and takes aim, the Black Phantom swings his giant sword one last time and manages to knock Buttercup off of the fort to her death.

Death Count: 20

Well, that was just perfect, Buttercup is back in her spirit form. Black Phantoms are almost as bad as the horrors in the Tower of Latria. The main difference seems to be that instead of being soul-destroying horrors, they’re gigantic bastards. Neither of these things are amongst Buttercup’s favourite things, although right now she’s struggling to decide which she hates more.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what Buttercup hates more, her death has caused the Black Phantom to return to its own world and she’s a long way away from the horrors of the Tower of Latria. For now, she is safe. Well, somewhat safe. As safe as it is possible to be outside of the Nexus, which isn’t safe in the slightest.

Buttercup retrieves her corpse and near where she had her little duel with the Black Phantom, there is a walkway with some large boulders occasionally dropping down on it. At the end of the walkway is a tower, which seems to be the source of the falling boulders. As Buttercup gets closer, it becomes apparent that the boulders are not so much falling as being flung with great force towards her. The creatures flinging the stones are beyond the reach of Buttercup’s spells, so she puts her head down and runs past the falling stones into the safety of the tower.

The tower appears to be some sort of warehouse, with miscellaneous mining equipment scattered throughout. Off to her right is door leading outside to another inactive elevator. That doesn’t seem like a good way to go forward, so she heads off deeper into the building. There are some miners clawing at patches of dirt. It would be rude to interrupt their work, but Buttercup is a princess. A princess that is in a very bad mood after having her day ruined by a Black Phantom. The miners die very quickly and without any resistance.

It seems like this tower was the entrance to a mine in the mountain. At least, that’s what Buttercup assumes based on the presence of miners and mining equipment. Who knows, it might actually be a carnival funhouse. It might be, but it probably isn’t.

Delving deeper into the mine, Buttercup finds herself in a large room with many miners scattered about. She takes very little time in disposing of them and collecting the various ores that they had been excavating from the earth.

Suddenly a group of dogs burst out from behind some crates. Buttercup is too annoyed by her recent death to be surprised and fends off their attacks with her shield. After the initial burst, the dogs start to retreat and Buttercup decides that now is the perfect opportunity for a counter attack.

With the dogs put to sleep, Buttercup discovers that the crates they were hiding behind were also blocking the entrance to another room. Taking a quick peek inside reveals a Fat Minister, standing there by his lonesome having a bit of a chuckle to himself. The Fat Minister stops laughing and sends a bolt of fire towards Buttercup. She raises her shield and tries to block the attack, but it appears that the Adjudicator’s Shield does not protect against fire. This would have been much more useful for Buttercup to discover beforehand but it is too late for anything to be done about it now. The fire takes a hefty chunk of Buttercup’s life.

More importantly, it only serves to make Buttercup even less pleased about her current lot in life.

Buttercup will not stand for this any longer. The Fat Minister continues to cast spells at her, but Buttercup simply makes use of the doorway to avoid the attacks whilst casting her own magic to kill the minister. It’s super effective.

Through the doorway, Buttercup discovers that the room the Fat Minister was in contained quite a few ores. Somehow, Buttercup gets the impression that after she finishes her journey through these mines, she is going to be incredibly well stocked in the ores.

Just past a door leading out of this room, Buttercup can see a miner waiting with pickaxe in hand. Clearly this guy is going to try and ambush her. He should probably reconsider that, as the princess is still in a pretty bad mood. The miner isn’t given much chance to reconsider ambushing Buttercup, she unleashes magical fury on him moments after working out his little plan.

Ambushing Buttercup right now really is a bad idea. Anyone who tries it is going to feel her wrath and the likelihood of her wrath subsiding any time soon is rather minimal.