It's weird the games you get hooked on. For all the Triple-A releases over the past 12 months or so, the three games I've probably played more than any other are all iOS games: Monster Dash, its follow-up Jetpack Joyride, and QuizUp, a competitive trivia game which features user-submitted questions on just about any topic you can imagine.
Want to prove that you know more about phobias than someone in Western Samoa? Get QuizUp.
Currently, I'm inappropriately addicted to Shovel Knight on the PS4 (which has its fans, I know), and another iOS game, Iron Ball, that I'm forced to concede probably isn't very good at all, but I refuse to stop playing it.
It's fair to say that none of these games have pierced the undies of wider public consciousness, but finding affection for otherwise unloved, or overlooked games, is a habit I've had for a while.
Bugaboo the Flea, a terrible, terrible game, was nonetheless one of my favourite ZX Spectrum releases (mostly, I admit, for the opening flying-through-space sequence, during which I used to push my face against the TV and pretend I really was flying through space). I stubbornly refuse to admit that LucasArts' 1997 first-person shooter Outlaws was anything other than groundbreaking - despite it being little more than a footnote in gaming history - and I have a bizarre soft spot (it's just behind my left ear) for Time Commando, a weird and ungainly, mid-90s PC, PlayStation and Saturn beat 'em up that is unlikely to be anybody else's favourite game.
Want to prove that you know more about phobias than someone in Western Samoa? Get QuizUp.
Currently, I'm inappropriately addicted to Shovel Knight on the PS4 (which has its fans, I know), and another iOS game, Iron Ball, that I'm forced to concede probably isn't very good at all, but I refuse to stop playing it.
It's fair to say that none of these games have pierced the undies of wider public consciousness, but finding affection for otherwise unloved, or overlooked games, is a habit I've had for a while.
Bugaboo the Flea, a terrible, terrible game, was nonetheless one of my favourite ZX Spectrum releases (mostly, I admit, for the opening flying-through-space sequence, during which I used to push my face against the TV and pretend I really was flying through space). I stubbornly refuse to admit that LucasArts' 1997 first-person shooter Outlaws was anything other than groundbreaking - despite it being little more than a footnote in gaming history - and I have a bizarre soft spot (it's just behind my left ear) for Time Commando, a weird and ungainly, mid-90s PC, PlayStation and Saturn beat 'em up that is unlikely to be anybody else's favourite game.
EDGY AND ALTERNATIVE
Don't get me wrong: this isn't some wilful attempt to be edgy and alternative - like one of those people we've all been stuck with at a party who will only namecheck bands you've never heard of, in the mistaken belief it makes them more interesting and original.
"Ya, you need to get the new one by Bartholomew's Ruff - it's like The Fall left their instruments out in the rain, and Sparks drove over them in a VW camper van."
These are games I have a genuine, if mistaken, affection for - like loving a dog that's been abandoned by its mother (and, in the case of some of these games, chewed its own foot off into the bargain). But there's one game among the unloved that I clutch closer to my hairy bosom than them all: Mirror's Edge.
Ok. Woah. Hold on there. Yes, I know... it could be argued that Mirror's Edge is different to all of the above games, in that it was a big-budget release from Electronic Arts. And you'd be right about that. But it also somehow failed to ignite passions, or arouse the charts, despite garnering reasonable (if not spectacular) review scores. Somehow, Mirror's Edge failed completely to engage with customers - selling a few million copies... which might sound like a lot if you're the bassist in Bartholomew's Ruff, but the overall total was significantly lower than EA predicted. They'd been expecting a smash.
And with good reason.
Don't get me wrong: this isn't some wilful attempt to be edgy and alternative - like one of those people we've all been stuck with at a party who will only namecheck bands you've never heard of, in the mistaken belief it makes them more interesting and original.
"Ya, you need to get the new one by Bartholomew's Ruff - it's like The Fall left their instruments out in the rain, and Sparks drove over them in a VW camper van."
These are games I have a genuine, if mistaken, affection for - like loving a dog that's been abandoned by its mother (and, in the case of some of these games, chewed its own foot off into the bargain). But there's one game among the unloved that I clutch closer to my hairy bosom than them all: Mirror's Edge.
Ok. Woah. Hold on there. Yes, I know... it could be argued that Mirror's Edge is different to all of the above games, in that it was a big-budget release from Electronic Arts. And you'd be right about that. But it also somehow failed to ignite passions, or arouse the charts, despite garnering reasonable (if not spectacular) review scores. Somehow, Mirror's Edge failed completely to engage with customers - selling a few million copies... which might sound like a lot if you're the bassist in Bartholomew's Ruff, but the overall total was significantly lower than EA predicted. They'd been expecting a smash.
And with good reason.
PLEASE... WHAT IS THAT GOOD REASON?
If you haven't played it, Mirror's Edge was - until fairly recently, when the significantly less-lovely Dying Light came out - the first, first-person, parkour game, probably. There was a bit of combat in there, but the thrust of the game was the running and the jumping, and the climbing up walls, and scampering along pipes.
Maybe my perception is wrong, but the sense I get from people's reaction to Mirror's Edge is one of pure apathy. Nobody loves it, but nobody really hates it either. And I don't get that. I mean, I can understand somebody not wanting to play Time Commando - it's like not wanting to sit next to somebody on a bus who's twitching, drooling, and mewling (the old "TDM" as it's commonly known).
But Mirror's Edge? C'mon!
For a start it's absolutely beautiful to look at - it hasn't aged a day, since it was released in 2008. Stylised, minimalist, and so bloody clever in the way it guides you via the means of subtle colour cues. Plus it sounds great - the soundtrack is sublime and restrained, as light and spacious as the environment you're exploring.
And, of course, there was the gameplay: the way the game used momentum and gravity, it connected you to the world. As a result, it's one of the few times I've ever had vertigo playing a game - Odin alone knows what it'd be like playing it with an Oculus Rift.
If you haven't played it, Mirror's Edge was - until fairly recently, when the significantly less-lovely Dying Light came out - the first, first-person, parkour game, probably. There was a bit of combat in there, but the thrust of the game was the running and the jumping, and the climbing up walls, and scampering along pipes.
Maybe my perception is wrong, but the sense I get from people's reaction to Mirror's Edge is one of pure apathy. Nobody loves it, but nobody really hates it either. And I don't get that. I mean, I can understand somebody not wanting to play Time Commando - it's like not wanting to sit next to somebody on a bus who's twitching, drooling, and mewling (the old "TDM" as it's commonly known).
But Mirror's Edge? C'mon!
For a start it's absolutely beautiful to look at - it hasn't aged a day, since it was released in 2008. Stylised, minimalist, and so bloody clever in the way it guides you via the means of subtle colour cues. Plus it sounds great - the soundtrack is sublime and restrained, as light and spacious as the environment you're exploring.
And, of course, there was the gameplay: the way the game used momentum and gravity, it connected you to the world. As a result, it's one of the few times I've ever had vertigo playing a game - Odin alone knows what it'd be like playing it with an Oculus Rift.
SLIGHTLY GREAT
Unlike many games, Mirror's Edge was a pure and singular artistic statement - the story was slight, and let the game breathe. There were themes of freedom and liberty, but they played out in the background.
Curiously, I recently learned that the story was originally planned to be more complex. The game's writer, Rhianna Pratchett, told Newsarama of her frustration at edits made to the script: "We ended up cutting out a lot of in-game dialogue to try and better match the pacing. I think Mirror’s Edge was one of those games which would have benefited from narrative being thought of a lot earlier in the project."
Consequently, a few reviews at the time of release criticised the story for being slight, but - for me - that's missing the point. The story was, like the aesthetics, like the game world, empty... and all the more eerie, unique and mysterious because of it. Or something. I dunno. In some respects I'm scrabbling around for exactly what it was that I loved - and continue to love - about the game. It's chemical. It just got me.
Part of it, maybe, is that it just got me at the right time. I first played it on Christmas Day 2008, at the end of what could arguably rank as 12 of the worst months of my life. That year was like drinking a yard of sewage, and finding a £5 note at the bottom.
It took a while to turn the ship around, and correct the course, but I remember sitting there playing Mirror's Edge feeling optimistic, and happy with the world, for the first time in a very, very long while. It was ointment on a nasty graze that had been proving difficult to heal.
Electronic Arts has just revealed that the long-rumoured Mirror's Edge 2 is in development, and currently scheduled for a release in early 2016. I just hope they manage to retain some of that artistry - accidental though a lot of it might have been - and don't try to court a bigger audience by shoot 'em up-ing the gameplay, or losing the uniqueness and empty space that I fell for, and so needed to get wonderfully lost in.
Suffice to say, there's not another game on the horizon that I'm looking forward to more. It's personal.
Unlike many games, Mirror's Edge was a pure and singular artistic statement - the story was slight, and let the game breathe. There were themes of freedom and liberty, but they played out in the background.
Curiously, I recently learned that the story was originally planned to be more complex. The game's writer, Rhianna Pratchett, told Newsarama of her frustration at edits made to the script: "We ended up cutting out a lot of in-game dialogue to try and better match the pacing. I think Mirror’s Edge was one of those games which would have benefited from narrative being thought of a lot earlier in the project."
Consequently, a few reviews at the time of release criticised the story for being slight, but - for me - that's missing the point. The story was, like the aesthetics, like the game world, empty... and all the more eerie, unique and mysterious because of it. Or something. I dunno. In some respects I'm scrabbling around for exactly what it was that I loved - and continue to love - about the game. It's chemical. It just got me.
Part of it, maybe, is that it just got me at the right time. I first played it on Christmas Day 2008, at the end of what could arguably rank as 12 of the worst months of my life. That year was like drinking a yard of sewage, and finding a £5 note at the bottom.
It took a while to turn the ship around, and correct the course, but I remember sitting there playing Mirror's Edge feeling optimistic, and happy with the world, for the first time in a very, very long while. It was ointment on a nasty graze that had been proving difficult to heal.
Electronic Arts has just revealed that the long-rumoured Mirror's Edge 2 is in development, and currently scheduled for a release in early 2016. I just hope they manage to retain some of that artistry - accidental though a lot of it might have been - and don't try to court a bigger audience by shoot 'em up-ing the gameplay, or losing the uniqueness and empty space that I fell for, and so needed to get wonderfully lost in.
Suffice to say, there's not another game on the horizon that I'm looking forward to more. It's personal.
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