Mirror’s Edge has been one of the most highly anticipated games this season. It takes the tried and true elements of the first-person perspective, mixed with an artistic style and frantic gameplay to make a unique type of game. But is this game worth shelling out the $60?

[Note: The version I'm referencing for this review is the Xbox 360]

Anyone who has played the demo knows that the controls are pretty simple on this one: left button to jump, left trigger to duck or slide, right button to turn 180 degrees, right trigger to attack. The face buttons are Y to disarm, A to activate, B to direct you to where you’re supposed to be going, and X for slow-motion mode.

The game begins with the training and Prologue chapter that were included in the game demo. Having played the demo myself, I got through these levels fairly easily and quickly. I was pretty excited to start the real game and get running.

My excitement, however, was quickly extinguished after trying to plow through the first level. The game’s “runner vision,” which turns key objects red as you approach them, was not quite as helpful as it should be. Often times objects wouldn’t turn red unless you were right next to them, or sometimes the objects that were red were well out of your reach and it was a matter of trial and error trying to reach them.

In fact, that’s a pretty good term for my entire first playthrough of the game. Trial and error.

Oftentimes, the game would direct you (through the use of the B button) into a room where there seemed to be no immediate way out. If the game gave you time to explore the level and find your way, this wouldn’t be an issue. However, most of the times when the route was unclear, there were five or six hostiles shooting at you. This caused me to run around frantically, jumping and trying to grab walls for a minute or so, before Faith became riddled with bullets and fell down dead. Frustrating at the first occurrence, it became almost unbearable the third or fourth time. I frequently found myself being shot dead or jumping aimlessly off of buildings while trying to find the correct direction to go.

Most of the level design is pretty good. My one pet peeve with this game was the number of levels that had the mechanic of “press a button on this side of the room, then quickly run to the other side to get through a door.” It wasn’t fun in the Legend of Zelda dungeons, and it’s not fun in this game either.

Another poor level design choice has to do with the range of places Faith can access. Sometimes a place that looks close enough to reach will be completely inaccessible, and you’ll end up falling to your death several times before realizing that it’s not the way you’re supposed to go. Other times, the most obvious route seems like an impossible length to jump, but you still make it across somehow. Hooray physics!

The plot of the game is almost good. It’s relayed to the player in a series of cutscenes between each level, and sometimes in small bits during the gameplay. There is not enough depth in the somewhat predictable plot for you to really care too much about the characters — when I faced some of the enemies in the game, I wasn’t quite sure I was fighting them. This game frustrated me so much that I didn’t even blame one of the evil characters for repeatedly throwing me off a building.

Part of this frustration also comes from the controls. They’re not terribly broken, but they sometimes felt inconsistent. For many of the moves in the game, you need extremely precise timing, making the whole “falling to your death” scenario all the more frequent. Many times when attempting to do a wall run, I ended up simply jumping next to the wall. Some of the bad guys were next to impossible to disarm, even with the use of the slow motion function. One of the “boss battles” requires you to disarm an enemy, and after dying about six or seven times after failed disarming attempts, I simply mashed Y repeatedly. This method worked on the first try.

All in all, my first playthrough of the game was slow and almost torturous. I had to put down the game several times out of sheer frustration. I actually went to YouTube and searched for videos of people going through some of the levels because I was so completely lost.

After everything I’ve said, you might be thinking that this game is a big pile of crap and not worth buying. Yet this isn’t entirely true. The game becomes enjoyable after the first playthrough, since this unlocks the speed run mode of the game.

Once you’ve played a level thoroughly, speed running through it is a lot of fun. Getting the familiarity of the level in order to successfully speed run a level is tough but ultimately rewarding. Knowing exactly where to go enables you to keep up the flow of movement that was originally intended. Pulling off some of the moves in the game feels satisfying instead of frustrating and reminds you of the reason you bought the game in the first place. And in this case, it really saves the game from being bad.

Another element that adds to the replay value of the game is the three runner bags scattered around each level. I know I died several times in pursuit of these bags, but I didn’t mind as much because once I get them, I keep them (even if I died immediately afterward).

The bottom line here is that if you can suffer through six to ten hours of fumbling your way through story mode, you’ll end up with a decent game on your hands. However, my personal advice would be to either rent this one or wait until the price drops a little.