#living vicariously thru a vibeo game protagonist that can run for more than 4 seconds without getting winded

[gubbles-owo]

Been poking the PS3 more recently, playing some titles from a generation I never felt much connected to. Revisited Mirror's Edge after... probably over a decade? And while definitely not without its flaws and sore spots, it is sooo so fucking cool. Sometimes the collision does some wonky things that quite literally throw you off; combat encounters can be a repetitive slog of dying to a rain of bullets over and over again, trying to figure out how the hell to cut through them all; the animation of the cutscenes can feel a bit stilted and stiff, and whatever story that is present is rather light. But man, the raw sense of flow you can settle into when it all clicks... running against a wall and kicking off it to reach a ledge, vaulting up and dodging incoming fire and, hell, even clocking a fucko in the face and stealing their gun (when that actually works) to take out all their other shitfriends, just to chuck it to the side and dash away across a rooftop... god. I know the shaking and rolling first person cam ain't everyone's favorite-- understandable with motion sickness and all that-- but I love it all so much. When you land on the ground and tuck into a roll to break the fall, the whole fucking camera tumbles to follow suit. Really helps give weight to your actions and accentuates your carried momentum. It wouldn't be the same without it. And everything from the cutscenes to the environments to the music carry this through-line of sharp minimalism, stark yet vibrant. Very different than many of the games and experiences that were coming out at the time. idk, call me old or uninformed, but I feel like this sort of thing just doesn't happen anymore. At least, not in the AAA space. I dunno much about the follow-up, Catalyst, other than that its reception was... not super great. Perhaps I'll look into it at some point, but for now I wanna try my hand at beating the (in-game) speedrun times and finding all the hidden cases. Cleared the story in a day but I crave more lol