Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

Mirrors+Edge+Catalyst

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, a game by DICE software, was released June 7, 2016. Catalyst is the second game in the Mirror’s Edge series, but is actually the reboot that nobody wanted. EA, the owners of the DICE, have ruined another series, as it is known to do. EA sadly doesn’t know how to stop making games with overly repetitive gameplay and lazy storytelling. Sadly, to the dismay of Mirror’s Edge fans, this game has those exact problems.

The story is extremely confusing and unsatisfactory. Instead of explaining all the missed details in the actual game, DICE and EA decided the best way to tell the story was in a comic book that costs extra. In the story, you play a Chinese courier named Faith. At the start the game, she’s in prison. You never figure out why, except for when someone tells you that “you messed up, and got caught” and nothing else. Without spoiling the story, every single character makes no sense. They spout nonsense you know nothing about and never explain it.

Free Roaming the city in Catalyst is never gratifying or fun, although this was the main promise of the game. At best, it gives you some time in between the endless timed races you go through, which are also the only side missions in the entire game. There are only certain places that enemies spawn, and once you attack them at their spawn points they don’t come back. Although the most exciting part about the game is being chased, it is incredibly hard to find people to chase you.

The one thing Mirror’s Edge Catalyst excels at is its beautiful graphics. From the first cutscene you can tell they put a lot of attention on the intricate detail of the textures. The city is absolutely beautiful, day and night. Faith’s animation is great from her first-person perspective, and in the third-person cutscenes. The other non-playable characters look very refined too.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst was, sadly another misfire by EA. They rebooted the series and may have ruined the games forever. The graphics of the game were tremendous, but couldn’t hold up the game by itself. Catalyst really didn’t live up to the previous game’s high quality. I wouldn’t recommend playing this game, even with its $30 price tag.