14 DAY TRIAL // Mirror's Edge is one of the most innovative games that were launched last year. It strayed away from the gritty, realistic and, most of all, gray surroundings from almost every other game that appeared alongside it, e.g. Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, etc, and brought us a city filled with vibrant colors and lush surroundings that stunned us during the first few levels.
The game was a breath of fresh for the whole industry and really left a lot of people amazed with the fluid movements of the title's main character, Faith, a runner who wanted to clear the name of her sister, wrongly accused of murder. Now, it seems that some fans of the PC version of the game did some exploring and found out that with the editing of an input file you could actually play Mirror's Edge using a third-person view. Now you can actually see Faith in front of you rather than experience everything through her eyes.
This is possible due to the fact that the development team at DICE looked at various ways to portray other modes in the game, and worked, albeit for a short while, at making the title support a third-person view. You can tell that they didn't finish it as there is no support for vertical movement of the view you have on Faith, only her head moves, and the fact that most of the movements are very jagged and not as realistic as you see them through her eyes.
In order to enable this third-person mode you must first go to your own “My Documents” folder, where you will find an “EA Games” one, and in it a “Mirror's Edge” folder. Open that one and you will find two new folders. The one you need to open is the “TdGame,” inside of which you open the “Config” one. There are two files there; the one you're interested in is “TDInput,” so open it with your standard Notepad. You will see a lot of code lines, each detailing the function of various keys; scroll down until you find the “Bindings=(Name="F5",Command="quicksave"...” line. Above it, paste the following line of code: Bindings=(Name="F4",Command="FreeFlightCamera",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False) .
Save and close the file and start up Mirror's Edge. Now, if you press F4 you will be able to swap various camera modes, including a free one and one centered on Faith. Although the animations aren't the prettiest thing in the game, it is playable, so, for people who want a new experience after finishing the relatively short 6-hour campaign, you can try and finish it this way.
It was after a debate with my colleagues that we decided that Mirror's Edge would've sold better if this mode was finished and offered in the standard package. Think of it, if you had troubles on some jumps, you could go to the third-person view and jump at the very last second. While the first-person view is more realistic and gives the player the feeling that he is making those acrobatic moves, an over-the-shoulder one would have been great for various fragments of the game.
This brings me to my question, would Mirror's Edge have sold better if the third person view had been included in the retail package? Test out the game in this type of view and leave a comment below.
