I loved Mirror’s Edge. Not because it was perfect, but because it had great potential. The first-person perspective with the reasonably intuitive controls combined with being able to see your (Faith’s) body and legs (fairly unique for a first-person game) and hear your (her) breathing as you run added to a truly immersive experience; it even gave some people motion sickness, apparently.

There were two major problems with Mirror’s Edge (IMO, of course). Here’s how I would go about fixing them were I designing the sequel (I’m not, of course, and it’s not confirmed, AFAIK, that there’s even going to be a sequel)

The first was the story, it felt tacked on and didn’t really fit with or explain the gameplay; it felt tacked on because it was, the writer wasn’t brought in until the game was almost finished, and it shows.

Solving this problem is as simple as involving the writers early in the development process. Basing level designs on what the writer says, etc. This isn’t really that hard to solve, really.

The second problem was the combat. It was broken in at least two areas: first, it was never very clear when you were supposed to fight and when you were supposed to run; second, the combat felt clunky apart from the QTE-style disarm techniques.

This problem I would solve like this: make all combat optional. Give the player incentives to both fight or run. Fight or Flight. The incentives would be RPG-style skill points. I’d have 2 separate trees: one for running and one for fighting. Completing fighting or running objectives would give points towards their respective skills.

For example,

Running skills would be granted for things like

• The  player completes the level under a certain time limit
• The player completes the level without killing any enemies
• The player reaches certain optional, hard-to-access areas

Fighting skills would be granted for things like

• The player defeats all (or a certain number of) enemies in a level
• The player defeats all enemies in a certain area under a time limit
• The player defeats a certain number of enemies without taking damage

These elements, if added to the existing Mirror’s Edge game would not significantly change the gameplay for the combat (though I’d hope the combat would be improved) or running sections, just give the player a choice as to which option to take. Player choice makes games more immersive, even when it’s not explicit (ala Deus Ex). Done poorly, however, choice can also make the game less immersive, so this would need to be properly tested with real players.

I am fully aware that no one, especially not EA/DICE game designers, is probably going to read this, but I can’t sleep, I’m bored, and it’s nearly 2AM. So nyeh.