Running to win

This past weekend gamers got a good look at Mirror’s Edge Catalyst through the closed beta which offered up a sizable portion of the open world, a few story missions, side missions and the new social play features.

The game once again puts you in the shoes of Faith, a runner who delivers and at times steals information. Parkour is the name of the game as you leap across rooftops, wall run along massive buildings and perform some wicked takedowns on unfortunate guards .

The game’s first person view definitely adds to the whole parkour experience, complete with the feeling of nauseousness and slight headache from repeated falls. While most of the mechanics work quite well there are minor animation and collision detection bugs that make some challenges a frustrating ordeal.

While the story in the beta didn’t reveal much, I spent most of my time roaming the map, completing side missions and checking out the social play features. The side missions involve time trials, timed deliveries and combat sequences to clear out certain hubs but it’s the social play that really adds value. Players can actually create their own speed runs and challenge other players on an online leaderboard. Some of the tracks are quite challenging while others downright sadistic.

In terms of performance, it barely dropped frames on the PC however the console versions haven’t performed as well, hopefully that will be corrected before launch. The game has been delayed and will launch on June 9 for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in Europe and Asia.