By John Walker on May 15th, 2008 at 10:17 am.
Gametrailers have posted a superb re-working of the Mirror’s Edge trailer, with detailed analysis of everything within. Pleasingly, it’s all done in a style that suits the trailer. And indeed they too notice that Faith doesn’t appear to have a reflection. Video beneath.
Ooh, very nice.
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Did anyone really not see any of the things they pointed out? (the main exception being the shoes)
I like to think that we’re fairly observant while we’re watching movies about games we know absolutely nothing about.
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It’s clear that you’re best, Dorphat.
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Nicely done.
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Stop treating me like a retard, game trailers.
And omg no reflection: begin “Faith is a vampire” speculation now!
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@ Dorphat
You mean the re-used texture? LOL no, even after watching it nearly 20 times. A truly great vid from GT.
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As awesome as all this is, sadly I don’t like the visual design of Faith, to me she comes across too much like an amalgamation of bits of purported cool of yesteryear. But I’m sure the story could easily make up for that. And at least there’s Spanish foxes to ogle, as Gametrailers points out. And tiramisu. Nommers!
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I’m guessing the lack of aiming reticle is half an indication of ‘realism’ to fit in with the parkour theme, but more importantly an indication that it will probably lead on consoles using an autoaim feature, and perhaps port unhappily to PC from 360/PS3. :(
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Keen. A number of things I didn’t notice. And, just throwing this out there: Mirror’s Edge is actually Half-Life 3, co-developed in secret with Valve; Faith is the great-granddaughter of Gordon and Alyx, who retains the Freeman’s silence and inability to cast a reflection.
Post something dorkier. I dare you.
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Wow, that was nothing but speculation and obvious banalities. Good thing it has good music.
OMG – SHE IS A VAMPIRE!
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Who’s responsible for the music? Reminds me vaguely of French electronica duo Air. It’s really quite nice.
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Some of it was plain to see but nice to see noted and other stuff I saw but hadn’t really registered and/or considered the signifance of.
…
Sorry, what I mean is: Yes, I saw everything the first time. Saying anything else would make me look like an unobservant inbred amongst my important interweb peers. I, in fact, saw things not pointed out in that video and from trailers of the game not yet released.
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Site won’t let me edit my post, but on the subject of a reticle, Wikipedia has this to say:
n order to address the issue of simulation sickness that is concomitant with the freer movement of the camera in first-person view, a small reticle was placed in the centre of the screen, though this is not apparent from the first video released because it was removed from the in-game footage shown. The reticle serves as an aiming point and as a focal point to prevent the player from experiencing dizziness, working in a similar fashion to the dance technique called spotting. Other than this reticle, no HUD exists in the game.
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Reflections are so last gen so they got taken out, after a public outcry/humiliation you’ll be able to pay for an update which adds in the reflections.
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I don’t wish to sound like a cock, but that was such a pointless video. Great, I now know that one wall had “different textures” (hint: I bet they were both part of one, larger texture anyway) and that some minor, blurry text in the background probably meant something.
Woohoo?
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Saflo:
Faith is actually a clone of Chell, hounded by the police in a dystopian future controlled by GlaDOS, In yet-another one of her never-ending attempts to kill herself.
The end song will be sung by Yahtzee.
Good enough for you?
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Yeah, that was pretty dorky.
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I hated that so-called “Trailer Analysis”. Profoundly.
Do I need a psychiatrist ?
The music is great though. I’m particularly fond of post-rock and atmospheric tunes, wonder who made that song.
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I did not realize any of this, especially not the focus effects of vision. World of Parcourness.
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I just feel a bit “meh” about Mirror’s Edge. It looks good, but it’s running under Unreal Engine III which means we can expect tiny, albeit impressive levels.
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Hmm, before people draw too much from the “no reflection” thing, it’s fairly obvious that the vent and buildings behind her aren’t being reflected either, so my guess is that it’s simply computational laziness: generating a generic reflection of a cityscape rather than a specific one (of course, I have no idea really)
I wonder if Vote Callaghan is a transmetropolitan reference?
The depth of field stuff looks pretty cool.
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Level limitations in UE3 aren’t that big a deal – Source has far smaller levels. Thank God Valve has good designers though who can make the most of any space.
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Nicely done, although about the only thing important thing to take from the video is that Mirror’s Edge will feature product placement. Which is disappointing.
@ Albides: It’s not really good form to cite Wikipedia for anything. The original quote, from here, is:
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Mooey, UE3 actually has quite good support for streaming levels – so there’s no real reason to expect that ME will have small levels.
It’s not just Faith that doesn’t have a reflection – the geometry she’s jumping up from isn’t reflected either, so it’s probably just a generic cubemap of a city rather than a true reflection.
edit: bah, that’s what I get for taking the time to watch the video again before commenting!
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They didn’t even point out the big red tower signalling the general direction to go.
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By the time I got to the end of that I was thinking “Jeez, what are they going to point out next? That she has a tattoo?”
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Everytime I see one of these videos pointing out the obvious (whil eat the same time reading FAR TOO MUCH INTO IT) I die a little inside.
Top tip: Faith has no reflection because the engine doesn’t support it. Unreal sucks at rendering to texture so I doubt very much that she is a vampire.
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I thought it was quite amusing, as it was obviously done very much tongue in cheek for the most part.
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Yeah I liked it, showed and explained some stuff I didn’t know. Though what I feel they missed (and so did until watching the trailer for the umpteenth time) is that during the EA logo sequence there are a few drop of what I think is probably blood left behind. Though I’m sure I’m just unobservant and hadn’t noticed it for quite a while because i find it quite obvious now.
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I liked the video – didn’t notice a lot of the things pointed out. But then i did watch it last week while revising so maybe my mind wasn’t on it.
I can’t help but feel that the game won’t be fun to PLAY. Not sure how the control system will work really…
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I was assuming that vote Callaghan was a reference to Jim, thereby also explaining the Jean-Michel-Jarre-remixes-coldplay “mood” music…
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So they can pick up details like this but still manage to confuse different game versions when running comparison videos?
=)
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I was gonna point out the Callaghan reference and point to transmetropoitan, then i realised thats spelled Gary Callahan, my bad.
As to the “faith casts no reflection” bit I think the just havent finished her reflections yet and left it out hoping that no-one would notice.
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There’s nothing that difficult about controlling hte motion you see in the trailer.
Take the slide under a pipe for example. In most games when you crouch you enter a crouching state that slows you down and makes you smaller. here they appear to recognise that if you crouch while running you will conserve momentum and you would have to roll or slide at that lower viewpoint.
The other elements such as climbing or balancing on a beam aren’t new in the slightest. You could mantle in Thief 1 this is just a much better realised version of that. Balancing on beams has been done in every Tony Hawks ever and again isn’t that difficult a feat.
You could do everything in that video using standard FPS controls of being able to move (WASD), Jump (Space) and crouch (Ctrl). With the addition of a sprint button on shift say.
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BIRDS
Thanks, Gametrailers!
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OMG these gaem has tiramisu?! Preorderededed!!!1
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BIRDS
I’m still chuckling.
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I vote vampire.
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It all seemed a bit obvious. “faith sprints”, yeah, really? Thankyou Captain Obvious.
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I second continuity on the reflection thing. Unreal Engine three does support reflections & changing textures (security camera type things, reflection cubemaps etc). So this leads me to suspect that they just haven’t got around to the reflections; or they just weren’t going to do it anyway.
Secondly, i think that the tattoo just spoils the image of it, everything up to that point is good, great even (possibly); then the tattoo comes out and spoils it slightly (incidentally, did anyone notice the tattoo on her right arm?)
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TIRAMISU.
BIRDS.
Zipline goes RED.
I’m honestly laughing my ass off here. Also, vampire.
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This vid depicts how my mind constantly analyzes everything in a weird manner :P I guess that’s what you get for being a perfectionist.
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oh nooo recycling textures! in 2008 game! what a shame!
‘fath casts no reflections’ – its called environment mapping – not a real reflection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_map) The rest is bloody obvious or just speculations.
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They get points deducted for not using the whole “what are birds?” routine though.
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Tiramisu and Birds. Yes, two highly important components that needed to be identified as they surely hold a much deeper purpose within the game. Chucklesomely pointless.
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Could be a good-humoured acknowledgment of the fact that, ‘yes, most of this stuff is obvious’ on Behalf of GT. God damn them for assuming their audience could grasp basic visual irony! On the internet?! Heresy!
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The best thing about the UE3 engine is how well it scales to your specs. So thats what I’m taking from this.
I’m still not sure how optimistic to be about this game.
Could the Tiramisu be a lie?
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Someone also did this with the superb street fighter 4 trailer and got it so wrong it was embarrassing.
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I actually quite enjoy trailer analysis videos tbh. Game Videos did an excellent series of them for each of the GTA IV trailers as they came out. Sure a lot of it was obvious and banal, but when they do these things they do them for everyone, not just the clued in. People need to realize this before they give into the urge to post in high dudgeon about it. Gametrailers themselves is probably a better place to complain to about the 1 minute 30 seconds of meaningful existence they stole from you.
As for the game, it looks pretty interesting. I’m not entirely convinced by the whole on rails feel of the colour scheme (go for the Red Boo, go for the Red!!!). Perhaps it’s actually a reflection of what Faith sees (cybernetic enhancements?), rather than the way things truly are. That could be kind of interesting if it’s the case.
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Am I being stupid to think that disturbing birds might be an issue if they introduced a stealth section in the game, considering that combat is supposed to be secondary? Trying to edge around a building whilst not letting the cops roaming the roof where you are, then, whoops, sudden flock of birds pinpointing your position.
And I know the highlighted red optimal path is contentious, but I think it’s not too bad provided that is just that, an optimal path. As long as you’ve always got the option to go the hard route, I think it’s fine. You could think of it as “easy mode.”
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Good call St John.
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A few people seem to have missed the fact that this is an open world game, so saying level sizes would be an issue just aint true.
@St John: from what they said before, the idea was that it isn’t exactly about ‘stealth’ but about ‘running away’. I think birds would be kinda cool for stealth anyway, trying to avoid groups of em lurking on rooftops etc. Yah I like the red optimum route thing. It doesn’t tell you where to go, but suggests an obvious, and easy way of getting there. S’up to you to find your own way if you want.
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I think the sniper in TF2 and “Soap” McTavish from COD4 are also vampires. You never see their reflections in their rifle scopes. It also explains why you can regenerate your health so quickly in COD4.
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@The Shed:
I was under the impression this was NOT an open world game? Where did I get such lies from?
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From the Q&A on the Mirror’s Edge website, possibly:
@Kadayi, RE: the red path being just being a reflection of what Faith percieves – that’s true afaik. The zipline changing colour would seem to indicate that. Plus, from the eurogamer preview:
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Wrong bloody button. Gah.
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Also on the red highlights thing — supposedly the amount of these decreases as you progress through the game, until eventually the only thing granted the cue is final destination of the level. It’s said it can be also disabled entirely from the start, if the player chooses so.
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“French electronica duo, Air”
“faggot commenting prick, Albides”
It sounds NOTHING like Air, jerk. And just call them “Air” you condescending prick.
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What a delightful looking game. I love the clean aesthetic, and the relaxed look of the combat. It seems to have a great Prince of Persia feel to its movement system.
The most aniticipated game of the year for me.
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So obviously someone at gametrailers knows the source for the music, since they’ve used an extended version of the piece for this.
It would be nice if they’d share that info, I really like it. :(
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Meh.
Wait, was I the only one who watched this thinking this was an actual trailer?
Still, meh.
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And just call them “Air” you condescending prick.
I, for one, didn’t know Air was a French electronica duo and would have been confused by the apparently mis-capitalisation of a noun. I guess that makes him a condescending prick, me an ignorant lumpkin, and you an elitist asshole.
Group hug?
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Sounds like The Album Leaf to me, but that’s just me.
Interesting to read that MTV article- I wasn’t aware that they were simulating eyes (well, so the focal-point part in the trailer indicates). Just how natural the ‘all-body’ simulation feels might be a matter of contention. It will certainly take some time to adapt to.
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@Caaln: God. Damnit. That largely ruins the appeal for me. I swear it was in Edge’s preview special that they talked about it being open-world, so I trusted it entirely… frick. They say it’ll feel open-world though, and if the level design is good enough it really shouldn’t matter.
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the both trailer and commentary are sisters, or brothers$)
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This looks fantastic. I don’t care about sandbox/open-world as much as exhilarating moments…
Bad news though, is that when I got into Duke Nukem 3D, every time I saw a vent cover IRL I wanted to kick it in and jump into the ducts…Now I’m gonna have to avoid tossing myself off of buildings…
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