The PS3 demo presented to us allowed players to sprint through an extended version of the level featured in the first gameplay trailer. Starting on the roof tops of a suspiciously clean and crisp city, it was hard not to be impressed with the game's simple, but refined art direction. What the sterile city rooftops lacked in organic life was made up by polished architectural design that was enhanced with Faith's "Runner's Vision." Used as a way to direct the player through each level, this special ability causes specific objects to be highlighted with a construction orange glow when within grasp. This clearly presents easy to read signals to the player that these objects can be used to grapple, hang on or use as a launching pad for a massive leap. Larger "iconic" orange objects are positioned through out the level as well to guide the player from one area to another. With gameplay focused on speed and finding the most efficient route to the next point, this color scheme was extremely useful to find my bearing after each tumble or roll.

Moving through the environment as Faith was extremely easy once I got used to the basics on the first couple of jumps. One of the more intuitive design choices seen in this demo was the controls. Making use of my own instinctive reactions to making long jumps and reaching for an edge just a few inches away, most of the player actions were mapped to the L and R shoulder buttons. In order to give the player the best possible picture of their speed, stride, and momentum the game lets the player glance down at their feet with ease. Aside from fixing a "first person" pet peeve of mine, this I felt that this kept Faith very connected to her surroundings while allowing me to time jumps just right so I wouldn't take too many 40 story concrete face plants. Another tool that Faith can use to time her jumps is "Reaction Time." When active, times slows and colors begin to wash out, letting Faith reach just a little bit farther or surprise enemies in combat.

After clearing the first few jumps, I encountered my first enemy patrolling the roofs. It's at this point that EA producer Aaron Kruse pointed out to me that Faith is not a traditional superhero and that the only thing that separates her from life and death are a couple of bullets. There was a Halo-like regenerative health system present, but players that stop behind cover and wait for their health to refill are in for a surprise when their foes follow them around the corner and pump them full of bullets. The best strategy was to just keep running.

Faith was able to disarm any of the opponents that I encountered in the demo, allowing me to take them out and steal their weapon with a single button press. As much as these weapons came in handy, they also carried a subtle disadvantage. The weight and size of these weapons can dramatically alter Faith's running and jumping abilities, slowing her down at best and causing her to nosedive off the side of a building at worst. This is easily remedied by throwing the gun off to the side whenever it's not convenient to carry a firearm.

While running, jumping, and climbing came to me naturally, the game's combat did not. Mr. Krause reminded me once again that Faith is not a super soldier like Master Chief, but an athletic courier. The game's story dictates that Faith cannot be physically well equipped for gunplay in order to emphasize her strengths with physical maneuvers. That all sounds well and good on paper, but I think that most players are going to come away from the game thinking that the aiming controls for guns are unintentionally broken. With the controls for gunplay as they are right now, I wished that Faith had a McGuyver-esque ethical code that kept her from even thinking about touching a gun, just so that it wasn't even an option for her. Seeing my frustration with this aspect, Mr. Krause told me that not only was it possible to go through the entire game without killing a single enemy, that the development team was planning on offering achievements and trophies for those unwilling to deal with Faith's lack of shooting proficiency. Luckily, melee combat was as accessible and serviceable as it needed to be, minimizing this element as much as possible.

Between the strict health system and the number of building to building leaps of faith, anyone playing Mirror's Edge should expect to die and die a lot. This is obviously something that development team must have spotted early on in play tests because any time I died I simply respawned a jump or two behind my fatal mistake. After I encountered a few deaths within a minute or two, I half-jokingly suggested that they need to offer an achievement similar to N+'s infamous "Practice Makes Perfect" achievement for dying over 1000 times. Even people with no skills deserve a little something special for their determination, right?

One of the things most apparent to me as I traversed the rooftops was the number of paths Faith could take on her way to her destinations. The environments felt wide enough to allow the player to really tackle the level their way. This openness is well designed and should offer adventurous players many ways to explore the levels in speed run modes that planned for the games release. Turning the game into something closer to a racing game's "ghost mode," I'm sure that leaderboard-obsessed players will have many ways to shave a few seconds off their times.

I was told that when DICE first started preproduction on Mirror's Edge they actively set out to make a game using a first person perspective that wouldn't play like a FPS. More akin to a "first person adventure" game like Metroid Prime, the game succeeds in creating a unique experience built on the foundations of one of the most prominent genres today. From refreshingly vivid imagery to a hypnotic soundtrack and filled with edge-your-seat "will she make it?" moments, Mirror's Edge has rightfully earned its status as one of the most anticipated titles coming to PS3, Xbox 360 and PCs later this year.