Mirror's Edge

Well, I just beat Mirror's Edge and I find that there is a lot to say about such a short game. The game stars a character named Faith whose name represents the main theme of the game, not in story mode so much as in production. I think that all of the actions EA took were based on faith, and lack there of.
First of all, the game is a great idea, let the player control a person with supernatural abilities as she runs, jumps, climbs and punches her way through a major metropolis. The character is an expert at Parkour, "[A]n activity with the aim of moving from one point to another as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body."(From Wikipedia) and move from one point to another she does. The big step of faith EA took here was that they took a well known form of gaming, platforming, and made it something unique, which was really well implemented, and presented an overall enjoyable experience.
But EA wasn't quite ready to make something entirely unique just yet, I imagine that they couldn't visualize a target audience who would buy a first person platformer, so they added combat into the mix, believing that this would broaden the audience and bring in more sales numbers, showing a lack of faith in their own idea. The problem here was that the combat was very poorly implemented, there were very few options of attack, and the player was at a huge disadvantage beginning combat with their bare hands. The player had to first disarm an opponent, a difficult task when being shot in the face with an assault rifle.
Then taking some faith away from the combat, slow-mo was implemented to make disarm moves easier, to a point where if the player could not disarm their opponent in the time gratuitous time that the slow motion allotted, there must be something severely wrong with their mental capacities. This lack in their combat system, as well as lack in their players was evident, and I for one was a little offended that such a large company would make a product intentionally dumbed down to serve a broader audience.
To save you the time, Mirror's Edge had fun moments, but was not worth playing.


Playlist: WC3, Counter-Strike Source, Bejeweled