Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst Review (Xbox One, PS4, PC)

This years E3 has now come to an epic end, and it’s been one of the biggest for some time. Whilst there is a lot to look forward to (fairly soon), there’s still plenty to play to keep us going till then. Recently I picked up Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst for the PS4, remembering the first one and it’s fresh take on a first person game.

EA decided on a reboot of the original, making use of the next gen abilities and retelling the story of our runner, Faith. It starts off with one of many flashbacks, that tell her story from when she was a child and the events that lead to her present life, the Parkour pro attempting to overthrow a conglomerate of corporations that run the City of Glass.

The game starts off strong, showing you the ropes and what your purpose is, in this totalitarian city. Unlike it’s 2008 predecessor, there’s a lot more to explore and even a progression tree to help you master the roof tops. Most of these skills are ones that you’d ideally expect to have from the get go, like a simple roll after jumping off a ledge, or a quick 180 turn.

In terms of exploration, you’re free to run around the city from the skyline, with multiple missions to choose from. The main story can be completed in around 8 – 10 hours, and the side missions will push that to around 15 -20 hours depending on your play style. The main storyline has a fairly good variety of tasks to complete, but they usually consist of following your tracker to the next objective. The side missions however, are made up of your basic fetch and delivery, usually whilst under a time limit.

Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst is visually stunning and gives the feeling of a sterile world, where imperfections in it’s architecture and people, are dealt with in unforgiving ways by Kruger Security (KrugerSec, KSec). Fighting back against KSec proves to be a realistic task in it’s self, putting you up against sometimes just a couple of guards, and other times slightly more than can be managed. You have 2 main attacks which are kicking and punching – these can be mixed up with wall runs, sliding on the floor etc. The best solution I found was to kick them off near an edge, as punching the guards would take twice as long and usually end in your death, before theirs.

Although the game improves on many aspects from it’s 2008 parent, it unfortunately repeats many mistakes; with the occasional glitch here, a random ladder or pipe that’s required to be traversed, ultimately slowing you down when the game encourages you to build up momentum. The main story, and characters you come across, are not particularly unique or likeable, and I never felt concern or excitement if one of them got hurt or if they wanted me to carry out a task.

Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst offers a few new ideas and a small open world to explore, which is an improvement on the original, but I found after a few hours into the game I started to become frustrated and not fully engaged in the story. For some, this may be a game to experience once the price has gone down, but for others, the changes in a story and mini world to explore, will give a few extra hours of adrenaline fuelled gaming…until the next big release.

SNIKT!

Battlefront 3 Fan Remake May Get A Steam Release

A long time ago in a gaming universe far far away, many a gamer awaited the inevitable announcement of Star Wars: Battlefront 3. We eagerly anticipated more destruction in the original trilogy universe as well as in the Clone Wars, massive space battles, and phenomenal heroes leading the way. Since the first Battlefront, the games had only improved and we had hope that those improvements would continue.

Sadly, Lucas Arts disappeared and the world never saw Battlefront 3. Electronic Arts and DICE eventually created a new addition to the series; called Star Wars Battlefront, it provided gamers with the opportunity to embark upon action-packed adventures in the many Star Wars locales from the original trilogy and fight his or her way to victory amidst dynamic battlefields. Star Wars Battlefront received moderately good reviews with reviewers praising it as a fun romp but noting that it lacked substance and became repetitive over time.

To my surprise, a mod team that turned into a fully staffed and capable development studio known as Frontwire Studios has been working on their own version of Battlefront 3. Originally slated as a CryEngine mod, Frontwire has dedicated a massive number of hours to the recreation of this unreleased title and announced that Steam, Valve‘s own digital video game and movie distribution software, will publish and make their fan remake of Battlefront 3 available to everyone FOR FREE. Called Galaxy in Turmoil, it looks like a very intriguing idea that could potentially take off! Here’s a quote from Tony Romanelli’s (Frontwire’s President) own announcement:

It is with great pleasure that as of today I am able to officially announce that Frontwire Studios has officially signed a distribution deal with Steam/Valve for the game Galaxy in Turmoil. After ongoing discussion between Valve Representatives and myself, Valve/Steam has agreed to ship Galaxy in Turmoil to it’s millions of users for FREE.

A lot of questions arise from an announcement like this: Can Valve really do this with an IP as big as Star Wars? What about Disney? Or Electronic Arts? What will they do? All of these have validity and honestly, no one really knows. The chances that any of these companies would put a Cease and Desist order on Frontwire probably remain slim, especially because the company plans on releasing Galaxy in Turmoil for free. I would love to see this game made public on a platform such as Steam! As of yet, Valve hasn’t released a statement. Hopefully, all of Frontwire’s hard work will pay off.

Pre-Alpha models and textures. It’s a great start!

In the meantime, head over to their official site to check out more of the game’s content and keep your eyes open for the potential release.

Happy gaming!

-Valiant