Mirror's Edge

Decided today would be a good Lazy Sunday, so I played through Mirror's Edge, a very recent release. A little note up front: skip the second paragraph if video game mechanics bore the hell out of you. Onward! The Wikipedia entry gives the lowdown; basically, it's a game based around parkour (or parcours, if you prefer non-bastardized French, although the French parkour Wikipedia entry also uses the k, so I'll throw my hands up in defeat on that one). It's all about being a courier for dissidents and rebels in an unnamed, dystopic near-future Matrix-y metropolis where surveillance is omnipresent. A hot, lithe Asian-American (or American-accented) courier--standard nerd fare, of course.

Fun game--plenty of wall-jumping, sliding, ziplining, drainpipe shimmying, and regular old climbing. Combat is mainly melee as you start with no weapon (all possible weapons are present-day guns), and though you can pick them up from downed enemies, you can't pick up or carry ammo and your speed and acrobatic skills are hampered significantly while toting a gun. Additionally, except for two or three set-piece encounters in the game, it's quite possible to play without fighting at all--you're mainly running to or from something, and you're so fragile that attempting to dispatch more than one enemy at a time is near suicidal.

As for the plot, again, standard "f*** the system!" Matrix-ish nerd stuff. Your normally independent character, Faith, doesn't start out overtly ideological, though--while she has no love for the Man, she's resigned to his existence, and she's mainly out to make a buck, at least until sister and good-girl cop Kate is framed for a crusading politician's death. Then it's all-out to save Kate, and though some ideological backstory is filled in (we discover that the sisters' mother died in one of the riots against encroaching Orwellization "18 years ago"), the game ends with the sisters reunited atop the towering skyscraper that serves as the Mayor's office/residence. No change in the System (though the city's main surveillance servers are toast, collateral damage from Faith's rampage to rescue Kate), nor any sign of the Mayor himself.

Although I enjoyed myself, the story seemed to have quite a bit of wasted potential. I know, I shouldn't expect anything grand from a video game plot, but it played like the game developers themselves had held that mindset while making the thing. "Don't mess around with story, keep it tight, simple, and mainly as a vehicle to show off the sweet mechanics we have here." Something like that.

At one point, Faith reminisces about the "November Riots" in which her mother perished, musing "They said it [the increased surveillance and authoritarianism] was for the greater good. But 'good' and 'right' are two different things." That's the extent of the political philosophy we get.

Perhaps a good thing, too, because what the hell? If you take issue with something, obviously it's not "good" to you. You cannot split "good" and "right"--they really are the same thing. What you think is, "No, it's not for the greater good--it may enhance security and stability for everyone in the short term, but in the long term it will inevitably be abused, so no, it's not 'good.'" This is assuming, of course, that Faith was casting "good" as "security, stability"and "right" as "principles of civil rights"--given the context of the statement, I'm almost positive she was.

What a discredit she does to her own side! Dick Cheney couldn't have asked for a better strawman...er, strawwoman? We do not have laws guaranteeing civil rights and privacy simply because it's the "right" and principled, though annoyingly self-handicapping, thing to do. We have them because they ensure our long-term security and stability far better than any ham-fisted crackdowns could.

How much trouble would it have been to put words like those into Faith's digital mouth? Then again, perhaps they were going for realism--what would an intelligent, principled member of the opposition be doing jumping off of rooftops, dodging bullets, and shimmying up drainpipes for cash? They are implied to be the (paying) clients Faith serves. Yet increased intelligence and critical thinking are never anything but positives as far as the protagonist/player character is concerned. After all, who wants an unquestioning lunk for an avatar? There are games which specialize in that, but Mirror's Edge does not advertise itself as one of those.

Again, though, imagine what a joyous surprise it would have been had Faith been actually thinking as well as running that whole time. Perhaps we could have learned more about the sinister Orwellian measures so constantly alluded to. Perhaps they were sincerely felt to be justified at the time of their enaction, in the face of serious threats to the people of Unnamed City? What is the world outside City like? What is the purpose of a city government, anyway--to ensure maximum security, stability, and prosperity? Chinese-style market authoritarianism? Most of the city signs are Firefly-style bilingual English/Chinese, too, which sets up another great aspect to explore...if the game devs had bothered to put in the effort. Instead, it's just more surface nerd-appeal--no background on it, and all dialogue is in American- or British-accented English. Mostly American.

Imagine if they had bothered to put someone on this, if only for background--no change needed to actual gameplay, just a bit more dialogue to record for background newscasts, a bit more art for newspaper headlines and open emails on computers. A few more and more intelligent musings for Faith. Perhaps the outside world really is dangerous enough to warrant such measures--perhaps she's conflicted about her role? Perhaps she might even come to sympathize with her pursuers--or perhaps the whole city plunges into riots again with the shutdown of the surveillance and security apparatus, a la late 2003 Iraq, and she comes to question her actions? I know, Dick Cheney eat your heart out, but I'm not sympathizing with this "emergency authoritarian" view. I simply wish some effort had been made to inject some real-world grey into the black and white of Faith's world, make her a critically thinking individual. Coincidentally (or not?), it is literally quite beautifully monochromatic, if you look at screenshots.

A damn fun ride, but it could have been so much more...