Running, faster, panting, footsteps on the clean white rooftops of a world much like George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Run, jump, slide, jump, run, jump, 180, climb.

Mirror's Edge follows a free-runner, Faith, in a world where all lines of communication are controlled by the government. She acts as a messenger delivering various bits of intel to various locations or clients.

If you deeply care about the story, you're in for a rough ride, but if you're in it for the heart-pounding (when you get it right) stringing together of various jumps, slides, etc... then this is for you. The story is generic and all the cutscenes are flash animations which I didn't know how to respond to; yes they were artistic, but it couldn't be too hard to use ingame engine assets? On the flip side however at the end of the game there is a final cutscene which is not flash and it is obvious that flash was the way to go for the Swedish developer, DICE.

The control scheme is simple, only requiring the use of LB and LT for most of the 'puzzles', and the use of Y and RT for combat. I will just touch on the combat briefly as it does contain First Person Shooter aspects, but the game almost encourages you to not use these guns (apart from in a mission relatively near the end when you need to snipe a van's engine), as guns will slow you down and not allow you to run, jump, etc... It even rewards you for not shooting any enemies with the Test of Faith achievement, worth 80G...

There is no online mode to speak of but there is a time trial and speedrun mode which will leave you infuriated, trying to shave the final few seconds of your run. The downside to this is that EA require you to sign up for an EA account to access leaderboards, but that only takes a few seconds and can be done through the Xbox itself.

Mirror's Edge is a fine game with a superb soundtrack and innovative gameplay. This game is hard to recommend for full price £39.99, but most shops and online retailers will sell it for £14.99 - £24.99 and at these prices it is definitely worth it.