A long-suffering rethinking of the brightest game of 2008. With parkour, open world and totalitarianism, where, unfortunately, only the first point works properly.

To understand how Catalyst relates to the original Mirror’s Edge, it’s enough to know one thing: the game starts not with the events of the previous part, but with a third-party comic drawn before the release of Catalyst. On the last page of the comic, Faith goes to jail; comes out at the beginning of the game. Once free, the girl faces a debt to an influential crime boss, a frustrated relationship with her mentor, whose name for some reason is Noah, and a showdown with impudent brats. While Faith was shaking the two-wheeler, the place of the talented runner was taken by a young man named Icarus. Apparently, in order to distance itself as much as possible from the original, in this universe Sister Faith is considered dead, but she will definitely appear, surrounded by all the special effects of Indian cinema.

Tracer problems

That the Catalyst status would be “everything is complicated” was clear a long time ago - from the moment it became known about the introduction of an open world. The solution, despite all the scenario permutations, is central: Big city potentially killed more than one good game. Catalyst cannot cope with the fallen freedom, although it would seem: all around the skyscrapers are scratching the sun, and Faith can run along the walls and board three-meter fences. What else is needed?

On the second or third playthrough, it turns out that normal secondary missions are needed. The game map instantly bristles with multi-colored icons, but it’s better not to touch them - all sorts of “bring the letter at speed” and “defuse the tower” quickly get boring. It feels like someone from Ubisoft has entrenched itself in DICE. There are also scenario tasks from the secondary block, but even here the problem is ordinary courier orders. At some point, for example, they offer to find out the fate of the dead pigeons. Thanks, but another time. The story missions are a little more fun - there are a lot of chases, acrobatic sketches on the spire of a skyscraper and dates with police helicopters.

For completing additional tasks, experience points are awarded - this is how customers and bosses pay Faith. Points need to be pumped into runner skills - and this is another dubious innovation that DICE should have exclusively sent to Battlefield 1.

At first, the girl doesn’t even know how to push off reverse side from the fence or run, like in The Matrix, from wall to wall without touching the floor. The remaining skills are more related to combat and all sorts of tinsel, but without the first two you simply will not be able to complete the game. It is obvious what needs to be developed first.

Run, Faith, run

Despite a number of problems, sometimes Catalyst produces the same parkour that was intoxicating in the first part. The player still feels like Faith: her every breath, jump and step echoes across that part of the screen. We take a running start, and the eye automatically searches for options: climb the pipe, push off from the ledge, run along the wall, take the stairs by storm, and then plop down from a ten-meter height, effectively grouping yourself. Mirror's Edge still remains the only game where parkour is not reduced to a single button or acrobatic elements. Running on rooftops is not only a means, but also a philosophy.

However, all this works only when the timer is ticking, and the tasks still contain the same courier directives. In story missions the pace is choppy. Or everything is very complicated and you need to storm the same wall ten times. Or, on the contrary, a helicopter buzzes very easily and is on its tail - then Faith easily skips through the physical obstacle course. In the first case, the game resembles Prince of Persia from the first person, and in the second, everything is done on autopilot. What kind of parkour is this?

When no one interferes, there is only a pile of glass and concrete ahead, and the enemies are the passing of time, Catalyst reveals itself. Timings even in minor "messenger" missions are tight, so you need to improvise - first and last "thank you" for open world. Look for detours, gracefully use the urban landscape and shorten the route where no one has thought of yet. A perfect execution is rewarded with an ecstatic feeling when, half a second before failure, Faith lights the final marker. Yes! Probably, real tracers feel something similar when they are running and the city for them is not a bunch of buildings, but a testing ground for testing themselves.

Grayness and pain

But this is an insignificant and, apparently, accidental part of the game. The rest of the time you will be spitting: from idiotic videos, wooden replicas, stupidly set missions, unreasonably healthy distances between tasks. Because of the fights, there are even more of them, and they are completely unbearable. Now Faith does not pick up a weapon, but she is able to hit her with a turntable: she can spin combos and smash enemies into the railings. A real combat system, and in any other game it would look appropriate... but not here - we would like to be in the sky, and not beating up special forces wrapped in armor.

The sky, by the way, is not like that - and this is the final crack in the foundation of the collapsed house of our hopes. The first Mirror's Edge suffered from a comparable list of illnesses, but was monstrously, forbiddenly beautiful: the landscapes made your head spin. It was cyberpunk in a surgical room - fascinating sterility, spilled in the middle of a gallery of Asian skyscrapers. The city from Catalyst could become a mirror image of Singapore in 50 years - an ordinary metropolis of the future with tons of advertising, glass, gray and, of course, dirt. Eight years ago, a random walk in the subway was breathtaking. Now even the view from the top of the central high-rise is not impressive. Something is lost.

In Mirror's Edge Catalyst, almost everything is done worse than in the first part - even the script, which is not so easy. But this is the second game, give or take, where parkour is as real as possible, allowing you to dissolve for a few minutes in this endless stream of glass roofs, ventilation, fire escapes and neon signs. Feel the flow, dive into a narcotic run. And then it’s painful to emerge because you didn’t have time to press L1 and your forehead hit the cardboard wall.

Advantages:

parkour still works sometimes;
secondary missions with a timer really reveal the essence of the game;
albeit greatly impoverished, but recognizable artistic design.

Flaws:

the open world is not at the box office: Additional tasks boring, and running aimlessly across the rooftops gets boring;
ragged rhythm in story missions;
a banal plot with wooden characters;
fights - there are more of them than necessary;
Crappy graphics on consoles and just mediocre on PC.

...and, of course, we make crazy jumps. With them there is noticeably less pain than before: the chance of flying past the desired ledge has decreased, and usually it is not mechanical flaws that lead to errors, but one’s own clumsiness. At worst, it constantly saves your progress and just about anything returns you to the still lukewarm “checkpoint”. And the degree of insanity in jumping has dropped: if “vertically” there are incredible falls (the authors especially like to throw us onto yellow awnings from a monstrous height), then the length of the flight is more or less adequate. Situations where it is unclear whether Faith will reach the edge of the roof or collapse onto the sidewalk, and, accordingly, the guessing game “this is where I should go or not,” are almost reduced to a minimum.

However, the abysses themselves have not become smaller. On the contrary, some of them even require special device- a magnetic “cat”, which allows you to soar high in certain places or fly over an obstacle, as if on a bungee. As a bonus, you can use a cable to break out flimsy plywood blocking the path and lower inaccessible ladders.

At the same time, it is important to constantly maintain a high pace - “concentration” is awarded for it. In the original, the focused Miss Connors could not only jump further and run faster, but also snatch a weapon from an opponent's hands in slow-mo or perform complex maneuvers. Faith from slowing down time and selecting “trunks” is not capable of spectacular screen distortion on high speed also disappeared. But, having focused, the girl endures injuries more easily (or even avoids them altogether) and moves faster.

Catch Me If You Can

And this will not be superfluous: at first, the heroine, released from prison (to find out what the sentence was for, we are sent to the Exordium comic book), feels at ease in the City of Mirrors, but after a few hours the situation becomes tense. Faith comes into contact with the Runners - illegal couriers and burglars who are quietly rebelling against corporate power - and takes on a mission that turns her into an enemy of the security company KrugerSec. After this, the guards pour out onto the roofs of the skyscrapers where our routes lie, and drones begin to fly everywhere and cameras beep, whose close attention guarantees trouble. And in some places they set up turrets that shoot the heroine in the blink of an eye.

It’s better not to let things get to the point of getting to know your opponents closely: in the early stages, even a couple of enemies with machine guns spoil the blood, and when they are helped by guards with batons and shocking devices, there’s no time for jokes. In response, the girl can only stun them with a “distorter” and run away... or give them a good beating.

The combat system is entirely built on movement and hand-to-hand combat - it’s now impossible to take away the “gun” from an opponent and riddle everyone, biometric blocking, you know. Faith beats the Krugersek men with acceleration, showers them with powerful and weak blows, makes sweeps, pushes them against each other, jumps on them from a height, pushes them off cliffs - but does it in an extremely monotonous manner. There is a desperate lack of spectacular combinations and connections, spectacular animations and non-standard situations. Only occasionally is it really interesting to fight - when you meet opponents of equal skill.

The rest of the time, battles turn into a routine, to which, if you get used to it, you no longer feel any problems, because the AI is straightforward and does not surprise you with unexpected tricks. We alternate types of attacks, keep someone between ourselves and the shooter, use a “distorter” (among other things, it also blows up cameras) - the recipe for success sounds more complicated than it works in practice.

A whiter shade of pale

As a last resort, you can almost always simply run away, since the city is huge, open and full of ledges, parapets, ventilation shafts and premises. The Krugersek men, of course, don’t stand still either, climbing up after us, but Faith is much faster and more agile, and it won’t be difficult to break away. The exception is episodes where a drone is involved in the chase, indicating our location to the guards. It is very difficult to escape from the radius of his vision, and the most reasonable solution is to run into one of the special shelters where they are not allowed to go.

The refuges are the bases and apartments of the Runners, scattered throughout the districts. In addition to saving our skins, they are needed for quick movement, because the territory, on the one hand, is vast, and on the other, dense and branchy, so traveling to the opposite end takes a lot of time.

Although sometimes a walk should not be neglected. Various activities are scattered along the route and to the side of it: high-speed races along checkpoints, delivering packages, hacking digital screens, assignments from colleagues (for example, finding missing pigeons with beacons or infiltrating a technical complex to unlock instant passage to the desired area) . Originality and variety are not their thing, but each brings experience for “leveling up”: expanding the arsenal of movements, improving “concentration”, increasing damage. However, there is no urgent need to accumulate points: at critical important skills resources will be given out in any case, and you can easily do without most of the rest.

There are still documents and audio diaries everywhere, trying to shed light on the structure of the City of Mirrors and the state of Cascadia, the structure of power, and the relationships of citizens. However, it is not so easy to create a complete picture: much is obvious to the characters, but unclear to the user, who is forced to read explanations on the Internet or explore every nook and cranny for scraps of information. And not that it's worth it... even if the story captivates you, you're unlikely to truly feel like you're a part of it.

Firstly, the plot contains too many events (and not very interesting ones), the screenwriter rushes from the fifth to the tenth and has absolutely no idea what to tell: a techno-thriller, a family drama, an action movie, something else, or all at once? More than once, it completely trivializes the original - you will come across many familiar names and allusions to those events with all that it implies. And the story missions themselves often play out familiar situations, and there are only crumbs of memorable moments. Only two tasks come to mind with the most spectacular destruction of skyscrapers.

The second reason is that the City of Mirrors itself does little to immerse itself in a dystopian atmosphere. The elegant visual style is too bright and distracts from heavy thoughts, the sluggish soundtrack flies past the ears, the few citizens do not look unhappy or oppressed at all, and freedom of movement clearly prevents the authors from emphasizing the supposed close attention of Big Corporate Brother to people's lives.

Ultimately, it works solely on polished parkour mechanics and intricate challenges that any player can come up with while walking across the rooftops and immediately throw it out for everyone to see. Everything else, despite the right ideas, was implemented without spark, routine and ordinary. How long will your enthusiasm survive in a dead city?

There are dozens of adventure games similar to . There are session shooters that resemble . A - although it is exceptional, it is still a role-playing action game. We gave all the “tens” in 2016 so far to games that perfect the mechanics and ideas of their predecessors and build on them with our own. Anyway.

U Mirror's Edge: Catalyst there are no predecessors, except for herself Mirror's Edge 2008. This is still a game like no other. It seems that this is the whole problem.

Walk

No miracle happened. Perhaps the whole point is that Mirror’s Edge is unique and there is simply nothing to build on. Where else can you find a first-person action game where the main thing is precision movements and parkour? Maybe DICE didn’t have time to polish the game (development went on for about six years and didn’t go very smoothly), ran into the engine’s capabilities and remade everything at the last moment.

Never mind. Catalyst turned out completely different from what we wanted.

There were only two complaints about the first Mirror's Edge: a thin plot with potentially interesting world and the dominance of missions indoors and underground, while the main feature of the game is running across rooftops.

Catalyst solved these two problems. The plot here has no sharp turns, is stable, linear, and moderately beautiful. Thanks to the pleasant characters and well-written dialogues. The only pity is that there is too little information in the main storyline, and the storylines of many characters lead nowhere - wait for the continuation, yeah, another eight years. As usual, the characters and the game world are revealed in side quests and entries scattered throughout the City of Mirrors.


The plot will take you to a museum contemporary art, and the heroes will reasonably remark: “There is no logic here.” Here we understand that in fact the “suprematist” design of the City of Mirrors is a symbol of something more bad than good.

But the world of Catalyst is far from, for example, remember me. There are no truly unique concepts here, everything is standard for cyberpunk dystopias: the city is ruled by Conglomerate families, people’s lives are gray and expressionless, free-thinking is punished, and the authorities want to enslave people’s minds at all costs and turn citizens into obedient sheep. However, nothing new.

As usual in dystopias, someone definitely wants to blow everything up. In Catalyst, they are Black November, whose methods seem to please no one but themselves.

The second problem has been dealt with radically: Catalyst has a completely open world and a bunch (really a bunch!) of side quests. All of them, as a rule, are reasonably dedicated to running from one point to another. The plot, of course, will take you into the laboratory, and underground, and into ventilation - but this is not scary, because 90% of the game takes place in the fresh air.

However, the City of Mirrors is depressingly empty: it feels like if you get to the city limits, you will run into a painted horizon. But that's how it should be. This city is, first of all, a training ground where you will hone your skills, look for new loopholes and moves. Is not Assassin's Creed.

Over time, the city map is filled with icons that make your eyes run wild.

It is better to immediately switch the “running” vision to classic mode or turn it off, otherwise there will be fewer reasons to look for new moves. In classic mode, some objects are highlighted in red: this is how the game tells you the optimal path. However, this path is usually not the fastest.

A cable has appeared, with which in certain places you can cling to cameras or flying drones. It doesn’t bring anything interesting to the mechanics, but it does add entertainment.

And thanks to user-generated content, the open world of the game shows new facets. The whole city is your testing ground. At any moment, you can build your own route, which will then end up in the worlds of your friends and just random people: you place checkpoints, and you’re done. Found a hard to reach place? Okay, let this be the final point of your personal route. Just run it beautifully and quickly so as not to embarrass yourself, and then let people suffer trying to beat your result.

I completed this route in about three minutes, but it took half an hour to complete it decently.

There are no miracles

The main thing in Mirror’s Edge is constant movement, a feeling of freedom and... spiritual purity, or something. When you catch the flow, run across crystal-clear roofs, slide over glossy surfaces and grab sharp ledges without losing pace, you are euphoric. A field of tension is created around you, which can kill if anyone touches it, but inside there is a triumph of calm. There is you, there is a whole city whose roofs need to be conquered, and there is a stream that you find yourself in when you do everything right.

The feeling of euphoria is also enhanced by the magnificent soundtrack from Solar Fields, who wrote the music for the first part. The main musical theme, of course, is no longer the same (and Lisa Miskowski is no longer on vocals), but the usual background ambient does its job: the feeling from Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst cannot be confused with anything else.

At night, the Yakor district blossoms, but it also oppresses. The closest reference point in terms of sensations is the first Deus Ex. At one of the plot points you descend from the rooftops to the ground, and then the heaviness intensifies a hundredfold.

Tactilely, the game is great: as in the first part, you feel every step, but now sounds are added to this. The soles of the sneakers squeak when running on glossy surfaces, gurgle richly when moving through water, and make a slight thud when falling from a height, while your ears whistle from the speed.

Essentially a key scene from The Walk, only, uh, a little higher up.

Fight scenes are also woven into the single flow of movement, but not nearly as organically as before. You can’t shoot at all (which is obviously good), but sometimes you really want to: learning to fight normally and not lose speed is very difficult.

The combat system is specific: there are strong and weak attacks, changing depending on the circumstances: a kick in a tackle, a rebound from a wall, from the air... There are many options, but opponents do not stand still, and you can only gain a foothold on a specific opponent for a few seconds , thereby bypassing the target from the flank.

And the opponents are as stupid as possible. A KrugerSec operative can run behind you and stop, spinning in place. He can suddenly climb onto a ledge, and then jump off it no less suddenly, ruining all your plans. Or just run into a wall and stare at it until you kick him in the ass. With all this, they hit (if they hit) damn hard.


Leveling up may seem a little useless, but after the first serious skirmish with KrugerSec, you will suddenly change your mind. It’s better to spend a couple of hours on additional tasks, develop new combat capabilities and strengthen your “running” form with graphene (yes) fibers right away.

So it is better to avoid fights if possible. The only pity is that it doesn’t always work out: from time to time the game deliberately forces you into arenas with crowds of opponents who must be defeated. Take care of your gamepads, friends, don't throw them at the TV. This is hellish torture.


Design.


Design!

But the main problem games are not this at all (stupid operatives can be survived), but something that will be with you the entire game. Poor technical implementation of the visuals spoils the excellent work of artistic designers and architects. I played on PS4, but on PC there are also problems, just on a smaller scale. It’s better not to remember the version for Xbox One at all.

Optimization of the game stars from the sky is not enough. But on a computer like the one in the screenshot, it will definitely work perfectly.

Reflective glossy surfaces look great. The interiors and exteriors are beyond praise. It's still the most stylish game ever. If you're into interior design and modern architecture... or just got a ton of money somewhere to completely remodel your home, pay attention to Catalyst.

And the advanced parkour system became an adornment of projects of any genre and direction, from action films in the scenery of the Second World War to harsh survival in a zombie environment.

But it was Mirror’s Edge back in 2008 that better than others revealed the theme of obstacle racing at great heights, giving us new sensations from the gameplay. Did its relaunch manage to surprise the player, already spoiled by this kind of “freedom,” for the second time? The answer is in our review of Mirror's Edge: Catalyst.

- We all fell for the first time...
film "The Matrix" (1999)

What's on Pulse?

How much freedom are you willing to give up for comfortable life? This slogan inspired the developers in the first part, but due to the mediocre script, to which Rihanna Pratchett had a hand, the story of Mirror's Edge slipped into an ordinary family melodrama with a bunch of logical mistakes, and the hegemony of corporations and the problems of society in the dystopian city remained behind the scenes .

The project was saved by an unusual approach to the gameplay. Running on the roofs of skyscrapers, pushing off the walls and balancing on thin beams at great heights, turned out to be an interesting activity, at least because previously only two-dimensional arcades offered something similar. Well, the first-person view, combined with the amazing style and money of Electronic Arts, greatly changed the perception of games of this genre.

These angles are what Mirror's Edge is all about. It's a pity, in new game A significant part of the time is devoted to indoor running.

The sequel, subtitled Catalyst, is intended to develop the ideas of its predecessor, but from a plot point of view it is a reboot. The only things that have remained unchanged are the main character Faith of Asian appearance and the location of the action - the City of Mirrors, where everything is made of plastic and glass, the population is divided by wealth, and power belongs to corporate houses united in the ruling elite called the Conglomerate.

Residents of the metropolis are under constant supervision. Cameras and drones scan for suspicious individuals, and all messages on the network are carefully filtered to maintain security. The problem with access to private information in this world is partly solved by runners - fearless couriers who can secretly deliver messages from hand to hand, which often brings trouble to security companies.

Runners are connected to the Pulse, their own network through which their actions are coordinated. This also explains the highlighting of important objects in red.

Faith Connors came to the runners as a child when her parents died during the riots, and the head of the future messenger network, Noah, not only taught the girl the art of parkour, but also became a second father to her. Our heroine quickly became one of the best, her speed and reflexes were legendary, but along with her skills, her rebellious temperament progressed, which often ended in problems.

One day, a rebel accidentally ruined a deal with a local crime boss, and the owner of the reputation of a person with whom it is not customary to argue demanded that she work off the losses. The orders of the master of the underworld were associated with increased risk and moral dilemmas. One of these cases ended in failure for Faith: while saving her friend, she fell into the hands of law enforcement agencies.

They tried to make the scenery varied, but only externally. The architecture of the levels is such that you will constantly alternate the same techniques.

The narrative begins from the moment when the heroine is released after a year of imprisonment. Don't be surprised if you don't see the events described above in the game: DICE followed Blizzard's lead and told the backstory of Catalyst in the Mirror's Edge Exordium comic (if only it was free, like the Overwatch sketches, but...). Moreover, the plot turned out to be even more interesting and dramatic than what awaits you in the future.

Upon her release, Faith returned to her courier craft, but on her first foray she was unlucky enough to steal information about a certain secret project of the Reflection corporations, which would not mind grabbing everything from the king of criminals to members of the radical resistance from Black November. The runners, who have remained neutral until now, now have to decide which side they are on.

Faith often experiences memories from her childhood. Closer to the end, you will understand that they are not here for the sake of beauty.

However, no one is interested in your opinion: the game is completely linear, and in the moments when you are not running from one point to another, you can only watch the movie. Even the ending does not suggest any forks, although a choice arises there. The creators abandoned cartoons between missions; from now on, all scenes are played directly on the Frostbite engine.

The story itself in Catalyst is clearly not in key roles: there is too little information about the world around us to seriously think about the problems of this society. If in Remember Me we saw with our own eyes what abuse of power and the achievements of science can lead to, then here Faith, in principle, knows nothing about life in total control in order to have the right to condemn someone.

The presence of a character does not mean that he is needed or useful for the story. Local copycat Delsin Rowe is a soapy prime example of this.

There are obvious problems with revealing characters. The conflict between Faith and the self-confident newcomer to the couriers, Icarus, simply evaporates closer to the middle of the campaign; Celeste, who appeared in the comics, does not appear in the events of Catalyst. The main antagonist even throws out passages like “you don’t understand anything,” and it looks as if the developers themselves did not find an explanation for him, and were not trying to create intrigue.

All this leaves a very blurry impression. The enslavement of the world by corporations is a fertile topic for thought, but the very principles of building a hierarchy in this universe are mentioned, if at all, in passing, and answers to many questions have to be sought not in the game, but somewhere on the official website. If this is the message that those running see only the tip of the iceberg because they lead the lifestyle of hermits and are not given the opportunity to see the big picture, then it is an interesting find, but the game itself does not even try to suggest this idea.

Parkour is freedom

The game has not lost its signature features. In Mirror's Edge, you'll find yourself immersed in an obstacle course, sometimes racing against the clock, sometimes with security agents in pursuit. List basic techniques the same: run along the wall, tackle, jump with repulsion from the surface; The only significant innovation is the rebound from the wall followed by a reversal.

The problem is that almost all of this was already in the first part, which surprised us with its novelty. There is nothing in Catalyst that would justify more than seven years of waiting: the changes presented in the game are enough for a weighty addition. And considering that parkour in games has long ceased to be exotic, does DICE even have any aces left up its sleeve?

The brevity of the campaign is compensated by a bunch of events on the map, where, however, there is nothing interesting.

The flagship of the innovations was to be the appearance of a completely open world. However, “completely open” is more of a figure of speech: Faith has only the roofs of the City of Mirrors at her disposal, and the transitions between districts and blocks are designed in such a way that you will run along one corridor dozens of times, since the game will leave you no alternatives.

The variety outside of missions involves finding all sorts of caches with secret bags and audio recordings, as well as collecting collection items, from documents and security chips to flickering yellow orbs (don't ask what they are). And although some intelligence data supplements the knowledge of the universe, it is very difficult to call this activity wildly exciting.

The caches are marked with the game logo icon. They are also given out by a sound signal.

The list of optional entertainment does not end there. Eliminate a security headquarters, deliver a fragile package, complete a route with three stars, beating a friend in the high score table: nothing that could not be done outside the free play mode (the same time trials were in the first part). There are also side quests from story characters, but other than “give/bring” they don’t stand out in any way.

DICE didn’t forget about the classics: towers. To unlock the fast passage to the shelter, Faith will have to hack network nodes, namely, climb massive blocks, bypassing lasers to avoid alarms, in order to get to the control terminal. It's a consolation that there are only four such puzzles, and in the story we are faced with only one of them.

Navigation through levels has been simplified by adding highlighting of the optimal route. Fortunately, this miracle can be turned off by returning to the usual vision of a running person.

The social component, which Electronic Arts loves to push so exclusively everywhere, has expanded. You can plot your own race route on the map and publish it for other players. There is a collection of beacons placed by those running from all over the planet in hard to reach places. Participating in this activity, as you might have guessed, will earn you a few units of “nothing.”

As you progress through the story and collect all sorts of junk, you unlock Runner Packs, which include frames, icons, and tags that you can use to decorate your profile, which is only visible to others when viewing leaderboards. Definitely necessary thing in a game about parkour, worthy of a rating of ten “nothing” out of ten.

Pull up using a magnetic cable. How did you imagine parkour?

What there are no questions about is the scenery. The City of Mirrors is a real museum of minimalism, but even with such a concentration of white and transparent, it is easy to catch a good angle with picturesque views, although the local landscapes will not be strikingly different from each other.

The technical part is worse. Externally, the game looks nice, there are no problems with optimization either, but the textures at high settings sometimes float so that you can’t even make out the inscriptions on the banners, and the faces of the secondary characters are frankly deprived of polygons. There is also a problem with image flickering in SLI mode, which is relevant for many games on Frostbite.

Live, die, and again...

A significant drawback of the first part was the presence of shootouts, when Faith could disarm the guard and play a little Battlefield. Even if the “gunshot” part of Mirror’s Edge was not forced, the clashes with enemies were in any case quite annoying, slowing down the pace of the game, and the shooting mechanics were designed in such a way that they would satisfy only connoisseurs of specific genres of porn.

Catalyst partly solved this problem. The girl can no longer snatch the gun from the dumbfounded operative (we are talking about biometric locks on weapons, and not what you thought), but the skirmishes themselves have not disappeared: we are still raided, and, what is sadder, now we are not out of trouble save your legs.

In a nutshell about a realistic physics engine.

In the understanding that it is not always possible to escape from pursuit, because sometimes the game sets unambiguous tasks: to kill everyone. And even if you are told to hold out, this also most often implies the elimination of most of the opponents - sitting in the ventilation, waiting for the train you need to leave, will not work here, nor will relying on stealth: the guards have ears like bats.

But as a means of fighting, Faith’s legs are good. Run along the wall and hit him in the face with a swing, push off from the railing and break in with a blow from above, make a dash to the side and hit the back of the head, push one into another or into a piece of furniture - there are many options, but most likely you will use one, since all types of enemies vulnerable to any technique and differ only in the length of their health bar.

Looking at the security officers, I just want to ask: guy, where is your guide dog?

As she gains experience, the heroine learns new techniques (yes, leveling has been added to this game): both combat ones, like a stun or a quick move behind the back, and parkour ones, like a double wall run and an extended tackle, as well as the aforementioned quick turn. There are also passive skills that improve stamina, but they are of little use: the last health cube that is restored “lives” for a long time.

The principle of concentration has changed. Previously, a series of techniques increased running speed and the length of jumps, but now a scale filled to the maximum only protects from bullets. Considering that you will not always be in contact with the enemy, there is little point in monitoring the status of the indicator. To the list of dubious acquisitions, I’ll add a cable that allows you to pull yourself up onto ledges and break fragile barriers: all this does not improve the parkour system, but only disrupts the dynamics of the game.

It is impossible to completely ignore pumping. One day the game will not let you continue until you learn the required skill.

Conflicts with guards also occur outside of missions. Usually they are either guarding the object, or getting to the bottom of some poor guy. In some cases, after our intervention, the alarm goes off, and Faith can only run away from the scanners according to a principle similar to GTA V. Death from bullets or capricious gravity is not really penalized in any way: if this task is not timed and the siren does not sound, you will be revived at the place of your fall.

Difficulties in battle rarely arise, since enemies do not know how to dodge attacks in their direction, and the girl, in principle, does not miss: all her attacks are automatically corrected, just press the button in time. As elsewhere, the opponents are trying to take it in numbers, but their number is strictly metered: reinforcements will not come until you have killed most of those who have already arrived.

Conclusion

I would like to compare the game with its main character. She looks pretty and attractive, but when you get to know her better, you realize that you wouldn’t live with someone like her: she’s too boring, a relationship with her will quickly reach a dead end, and only warm memories from many years ago will remain. At the same time, there are no prerequisites for the fact that she will be transformed in the future: she can no longer be conquered by novelty, and she has nothing else.

Catalyst's bet on numbers didn't work, but not just because everyone was tired of sandboxes with towers. It’s just that in other games the same two-button parkour serves as an addition to something more, but here there is nothing at all except running. There is also no feeling of adrenaline: in Mirror’s Edge there are fewer truly spectacular fragments, and the emphasis has shifted from high-speed descents to a leisurely ascent.

Verdict: There is a time for everything, and the golden age of Mirror's Edge is far behind us. The series will only be saved from oblivion by a sharp change in priorities, for example, going into virtual reality.

Rating: 6.1 (“Not bad”).

Vitaly Krasnovid aka Disintegration

Mirror's Edge: Catalyst - Performance Testing
Summary testing of fourteen video cards and twelve processors in a pair of resolutions and two operating modes.

Discussion of the game at the conference site.

A long-suffering rethinking of the brightest game of 2008. With parkour, open world and totalitarianism, where, unfortunately, only the first point works properly.

Tracer problems

That the Catalyst status would be “everything is complicated” was clear a long time ago - from the moment it became known about the introduction of an open world. The solution, despite all the scenario changes, is central: the big city has ruined more than one potentially good game. Catalyst cannot cope with the fallen freedom, although it would seem: all around the skyscrapers are scratching the sun, and Faith can run along the walls and board three-meter fences. What else is needed?

At first, the girl doesn’t even know how to push off in the opposite direction from the fence or run, like in “The Matrix,” from wall to wall without touching the floor. The remaining skills are more related to combat and all sorts of tinsel, but without the first two you simply will not be able to complete the game. It is obvious what needs to be developed first.

Run, Faith, run

When no one interferes, there is only a pile of glass and concrete ahead, and the enemies are the passing of time, Catalyst reveals itself. Timings even in minor “messenger” missions are tight, so you need to improvise - the first and last “thank you” for the open world. Look for detours, gracefully use the urban landscape and shorten the route where no one has thought of yet. A perfect execution is rewarded with an ecstatic feeling when, half a second before failure, Faith lights the final marker. Yes! Probably, real tracers feel something similar when they are running and the city for them is not a bunch of buildings, but a testing ground for testing themselves.

Grayness and pain

The sky, by the way, is not like that - and this is the final crack in the foundation of the collapsed house of our hopes. The first Mirror's Edge suffered from a comparable list of illnesses, but was monstrously, forbiddenly beautiful: the landscapes made your head spin. It was cyberpunk in a surgical room - fascinating sterility, spilled in the middle of a gallery of Asian skyscrapers. The city from Catalyst could become a mirror image of Singapore in 50 years - an ordinary metropolis of the future with tons of advertising, glass, gray color and, of course, dirt. Eight years ago, a random walk in the subway was breathtaking. Now even the view from the top of the central high-rise is not impressive. Something is lost.

Advantages:

parkour still works sometimes;
secondary missions with a timer really reveal the essence of the game;
albeit greatly impoverished, but recognizable artistic design.

Flaws:

the open world is not great: the additional tasks are boring, and running aimlessly across the rooftops gets boring;
ragged rhythm in story missions;
a banal plot with wooden characters;
fights - there are more of them than necessary;
Crappy graphics on consoles and just mediocre on PC.