Mirror's Edge

Mirror's Edge was an interesting design for a game that didn't really fullfill its expectation. However one of the cool things about the first person action game was its more surreal time trial levels that were released as downloadable content after the main game shipped to stores. Now a few enterprising folks at the Beyond Unreal forums have figured out a way to create a Mirror's Edge level editor.

Basically the procedure is coping a few Unreal Tournament 3 editor files into Mirror's Edge which is obviously not approved by either Epic Games nor the game's developer Digital Illusions. The move does seem to work well enough that a few new Mirror's Edge levels had been made. However messing with game files is always a risk so don't blame us if your game is broken afterwards.

Thank you to all the participants who made the Mirror's Edge Giveaway a success. 10 winners were selected at random to receive a retail boxed copy of Mirror's Edge for the PC, which includes a bonus soundtrack CD.

The winners are: Justin Duke from Ft. Mitchell, KY; Tommy Rutledge from Temple, TX; Peter Mann from Tacoma, WA; Terry Olaes from Keller, TX; Josh Buonocore from Winter Spring, FL; Michael Harling from Summerville, SC; Matthew Lyon from Worcester, MA; Eric Grygier from Newark, DE; Any Schott from Dearborn, MI and Paul Goodrich from Pleasanton, CA.

Congratulatons to all the winners and a big thanks to EA for providing the prizes.

Check out the Mirror's Edge downloads

Around the time that the console versions of Mirror's Edge were released back in November, Borne Games launched a Flash-based 2D version of the free-running themed action game (with the full support of EA and Digital Illusions). It was just a one-level demo but there was the promise of more to come. That promise is now closer to reality as Borne Games has now launched a more fully featured version of their Flash game.

Technically Mirror's Edge 2D is still in beta but there are a number of new levels as well as time trials you can play with in the game, along with leaderboard support. More features are promised including support for videos, downloads and more. They are also planning to hold some kind of contest with an ASUS gaming laptop as its prize.

The new time trials map pack for Mirror's Edge is now available on all platforms and adds several all-new levels to the game. As demonstrated by this trailer, it leaves the city behind for more abstract challenges.

Download Mirror's Edge DLC Launch Trailer (73 MB)
Check out all Mirror's Edge downloads

If you are a PC owner of Mirror's Edge and have been wondering where the announced Time Trial level pack can be downloaded, we have some help for you. While it took going into the game's official message board to find a helpful link, the level pack for the Digital Illusions-EA first person action game is now available via the EA Store.

As previously announced this map pack contains a number of very surreal looking levels to put Faith through her very nimble paces. The level pack costs $9.95 to download and purchase. There's no word yet if Steam owners of the game will be able to access this level pack.

Just a quick reminder that today is the last day to submit an entry for a random drawing. 10 winners will be selected to receive a free retail boxed copy of Mirror's Edge for the PC. Deadline for entries is 11:59PM tonight. To enter, leave a comment on the contest page. Only one entry allowed per contestant. Check the contest page for full rules. Have fun and good luck!

Mirror's Edge GiveawayCheck out Mirror's Edge downloads

[Update]: This contest has ended. Thanks to all participants for making it a success, and winners will be announced soon.

In preparation of the Time Trials DLC expected to release this month, EA generously provided Big Download 10 boxed retail copies of Mirror's Edge for the PC to give away to our readers. Entering is easy. Just leave a comment on this post to be entered into a random drawing. Contest ends on February 18, and ten lucky winners will be free-running across the city.

* To enter, post a comment on this contest page.
* The comment must be left before 11:59 pm Eastern Time on February 18.
* You may enter only once.
* Ten winners will be selected in a random drawing.
* Winners will receive a boxed retail copy of the PC version of Mirror's Edge (valued at $49.99).
* Click Here for complete Official Rules. You must be a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec) who is 18 years or older to enter this contest.

Thanks to EA for the donation of the prizes.

On Monday we posted up a feature showing off a number of notable games that have been turned into comics by various publishers. Today we have the second and final part of our feature that takes a look at even more comics that are based on either current or upcoming games.

Many of these comics have been released recently by Wildstorm, the division of DC Comics that's also responsible for the art direction of the upcoming MMO DC Universe Online. They also have several comics in the works and rumors are they will be doing even more games-to-comic adaptations.

Click on the image above to continue reading From Games to Comics: Part 2

Digital Illusions made a design choice to make their recent action game Mirror's Edge a first-person game, But in the PC version of the title there does exist a way to experience the game in a third person viewpoint, a perspective that maybe should have been tried in the first place.

The hack to enable the feature comes from the message boards of the fan site On-Mirror's-Edge. If you want the exact procedure for it we got it right here:

go to "DocumentsEA GamesMirror's EdgeTdGameConfig"

open the file "TDInput" with notepad.

add this line to the "bindings" list:
Bindings=(Name="F4",Command="FreeFlightCamera",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)

press F4 a few times. first you get the free cam (noclip) and later the third person cam.

The Youtube video above gives some idea of what the game will look like with the hack enabled. It's not perfect (you can't move the camera up or down, there are clipping issues and the animations of the legs don't look right) but if you have played the game and not been happy with its first person perspective this might be an improvement.

[Via Shacknews]

People who have been waiting for the Time Trial DLC for Digital Illusions' recent first person action game Mirror's Edge will have to wait a bit longer. Big Download has learned via a spokesperson for the game's publisher Electronic Arts that the Time Trial level pack, originally scheduled to be released on Thursday, has been delayed.

According to the statement from the EA spokesperson we contacted, "To offer a completely smooth experience for players, DICE announced today that the DLC map pack for Mirror's Edge on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC will be delayed until February. However, the free exclusive map for PlayStation 3 players will be available to download on January 29 as previously announced. " PC owners of the game will still spend $10 to get the level pack when it is finally released.

Mirror's Edge falls victim to its own themes and sense of style. On the surface, we see a beautiful city, remarkably clean and blinding white to contrast the bright colored stripes brought in by "runner's vision." Yet, the further you get into the game, the more its ugliness shows. With the mouse and keyboard controls, coupled with the exclusive Nvidia PhysX capabilities, the PC version is the best release by far compared to the console version that came out last fall. However, having the best version of a game that's deeply flawed to start with probably doesn't mean much to most people.

As promised by Valve team members in emails to gamers earlier this week, the first major patch release for their hit zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead has now been released and is available via Valve's Steam service. For those of you who happen to own an Xbox 360 version of the game a patch for that port is still in the works.

The Steam web site has a list of all of the changes and bug fixes in this release. Some of the fixes include dealing with several map exploits, improving load times, dealing with several issues in the Versus gameplay mode and changes and fixes for each of the four boss zombie types. Again this is mainly a bug fix patch; the first content update for Left 4 Dead is still in the works. And for those of you who have been waiting for this news, the PC version of Digital Illusions' first person action game Mirror's Edge is also now available to download via Steam.

This small patch for the PC version of Mirror's Edge fixes some issues with the PhysX capabilities.

Download Mirror's Edge v1.01 Patch (19 MB)
Check out all Mirror's Edge downloads

Today Electronic Arts annoounced that the long awaited PC version of Mirror's Edge has finally shipped to stores. The free-running near-future action game from developer Digital Illusions doesn't have any new content from the November console versions but does contain enhanced physics effects if you have an appropriate Nvidia video card.

However, PC fans will be able to download the upcoming Time Trial map pack along with their console counterparts on the same day. EA revealed that the map pack will be made available on January 29. PC owners of the game will have to shell out $10 for the map pack if they didn't pre-order the game from EA (which included downloading the map pack as a freebie).

Christmas is now over and we are now just a few days away from the start of 2009. As with the beginning of any new year there is a feeling of excitement of what the next 365 days will bring. For the PC game industry the new year is already looking very bright with a ton of highly anticipated game titles due to be released in the next 12 months.

Big Download has looked into our crystal ball (ok, it's actually a Bioshock bobble head doll) for all of the games we hope to be playing in 2009. The result is a multi-part preview we will be running in the last days before 2008 is over with that will give you some idea of what to expect. Keep in mind that our preview is not meant to be totally comphensive as there are a number of games our there that have yet to be announced. Also, release dates for games can and do change so many of the titles in our feature might not make 2009 (in fact we have put in some games that we know won't be released this year)

We even have some exclusive new screenshots to some of the games we are featuring in our preview article. One such shot is above from the upcoming Raven Software-id Software-Activision shooter Wolfenstein. For our first part of our 2009 PC game preview we take a look at a number of upcoming action and first person shooter titles. Stay tuned on Saturday as we will preview even more action games in the works.

Update: The second part of our action-FPS preview is now live

Click on the image above to continue reading our 2009 PC game preview on action and FPS titles