Tom Farrer: One of the producers of Mirror's Edge has it in his contract that he's only allowed to be photographed in black and white.

It's only 10 a.m. in New York in the CG offices. But in Stockholm, Sweden, the location of the DICE offices, it's late. "It's end of the day here," says Producer Tom Farrer, with noticeable weariness in his voice.

Farrer and his team at DICE, creators of the Battlefield franchise along with one of 2008's most original IPs, are understandably exhausted. They've been busy trying to digest all of those Mirror's Edge reviews -- some naughty; some nice -- that have come out in recent weeks. (our review of Mirror's Edge was one of the nice ones.)

"We knew that it was the kind of game that would polarize people. But we were suprised by the extent of that polarization."

Rating both very high and very low scores (CG's Gus Mastrapa gave it a "Try It"), few games this year polarized critics to the degree that Mirror's Edge did. We asked Farrer to talk about the game's critical and commercial reception (Side note: It's not selling well), and whether or not there will be a Mirror's Edge 2 (It was originally planned as a trilogy; the curse of Advent Rising strikes again?) in the not-so-distant future.

Crispy Gamer: For the record, I really loved Mirror's Edge. It's in my top 10 for the year. No game looked like it; no game played like it, and for those reasons, it became one of my favorite titles of 2008. But not every critic agrees with me.

Tom Farrer: [Laughs] No, they certainly don't.

Crispy Gamer: So how do you feel about the critical reception so far?

Farrer: We knew that it was the kind of game that would polarize people. But we were surprised by the extent of that polarization. We saw 90-out-of-100 scores, 10 out of 10s, along with 5s and 6s out of 10s. That was a surprise to us, how differently people perceived and experienced the game.

"That said, overall, myself and the team are proud of what we've done. Plus, we have a holiday party next week, so I'm looking forward to that."

Crispy Gamer: Commercially, the game also isn't selling especially well. How do the mixed reviews and the soft sales figures affect you?

Farrer: [Quiet for a moment] I'd be lying if I said we weren't a bit disappointed in the way the sales are going. We still have to wait out the holiday season, and see how the just-announced downloadable content will impact sales. But it has been disappointing for the guys.

That said, overall, myself and the team are proud of what we've done. Plus, we have a holiday party next week, so I'm looking forward to that.

Crispy Gamer: How closely do you look at the reviews? Did anyone write anything that made you say, "Ah, you know what? This person is right."

Farrer: Some of it is justified. Some of it is useful to us. Yes, we've been going over the positive points that were brought up [in reviews]; but we pay even closer attention to the negative things people have said.

Crispy Gamer: If you could go back and change one thing about the game at this point, what would it be?

Farrer: I have to pick one thing?

Crispy Gamer: OK, you can pick two.

Farrer: [Laughs] I think I'd probably put lot more of an emphasis on player assistance. A lot of people complained about missing jumps and having to retry to things again and again.

"It's interesting watching people play Mirror's Edge, watching journalists play. Some really get it straightaway, and don't struggle much with the controls and the timing of the jumps -- whereas others really have a hard time of it."

Crispy Gamer: You mean a more in-depth tutorial?

Farrer: No, I mean like varying difficulty levels, where on the easiest level, you don't have to be as precise with your jumps, resulting in less trial-and-error. You know, [something] not unlike the aim-assist feature found in first-person shooters. So many of the complaints we got were centered on the trial-and-error aspect of the game -- missing [a jump] that you feel you should have made.

I also think we should have looked at the way we constructed some of the spaces. In retrospect, we should have given more of an overview of a space, to help players along.

Crispy Gamer: I got stuck two or three times while playing the game. I felt frustrated, but I put the controller down, walked away, and came back later and figured things out. I didn't mind the frustration. It's something I've talked about with Shigeru Miyamoto; the fact that developers now are very reluctant to frustrate a gamer. I am, admittedly, an older gamer, but one of the things that I admired about Mirror's Edge was that it wasn't afraid to frustrate me.

Farrer: I agree. I really like old 2-D shooters, where you got three lives, and that's all you were getting. I'm a fan of that kind of thing, actually.

It's interesting watching people play Mirror's Edge, watching journalists play. Some really get it straightaway, and don't struggle much with the controls and the timing of the jumps, whereas others really have a hard time of it.

Crispy Gamer: Do you feel like you didn't coddle gamers enough in Mirror's Edge?

Farrer: I'll say this: At the end of the day, you still want to have your game enjoyed by as many people as possible. I don't see a problem with helping people who are having problems with it, ? la the jump-assist thing we discussed earlier. Remember how in God of War, if you were struggling, you'd get a prompt asking whether or not you wanted the difficulty level dropped a bit?

Crispy Gamer: I always hated that about God of War.

Farrer: [Laughs] It is a bit insulting, yes. It's like saying, "Hey, you're quite terrible at this game."

Crispy Gamer: Another gripe from lots of journalists is that the combat in the game is kind of dodgy. Talk about that for a bit. [Warning: Minor spoilers ahead.]

"Looking back, we probably placed too much emphasis on the whole you-should-never-use-a-gun thing. "

Farrer: I think we probably placed too much emphasis on the whole you-should-never-use-a-gun thing. There's the "Test of Faith" Achievement in the game, where you get points for going through the entire game without shooting any of the soldiers. I think it was a mistake to include that Achievement. What happened was, a lot of people immediately tried to do that -- tried to go through the entire game without shooting anyone. A lot of people went for that immediately, thinking that was how the game was supposed to be played.

But pulling off that Achievement is very, very difficult. If that's how you were trying to play the game, without ever using a gun, of course you're going to find the combat off. It takes time to master combat. And I don't feel there was enough of a combat tutorial at the beginning, teaching gamers the different combinations available to them. For example, a lot of people don't know that the jump-kick does much more damage if you run into a soldier while you're running at top speed. Momentum plays a big part in the combat, but of course you don't realize that until much later on in the game.

Crispy Gamer: The fight with Celeste was a total pain in the ass, but once I'd defeated her, I felt a nice sense of accomplishment. Yet the game never follows up with another fight like this, and eventually, it ends on such a soft note. What's the thinking behind this?

Farrer: [At] the end of the game, there was a more involved encounter originally. But when we tested it, we realized that it was quite a combat-heavy level. The lobby, the rooftops, the server room -- it's constant combat throughout. We worried that it was too much. The level was already so combat-heavy that after you got through, we felt you should have a smoother path to the ending.

And you know what? Much like the game itself, the ending also seems to polarize people. I've read comments on YouTube where people say, "Wow, that was amazing!" Then other people feel not so enthusiastic about it, to put it mildly. [Laughs]

Crispy Gamer: The cityscape in the game is truly impressive. Which city, or cities, influenced its creation the most?

"We wanted to make a game that when you see a screenshot of it, you instantly know was game it is."

Farrer: There were a bunch of different places. Initially, we were looking at doing a real city. But once we started exploring that idea, we got turned off pretty quick. We wanted to do a city like NYC, but there were so many things about it that sucked. It has great height, but this rubbish, boring grid system. Then we went to Tokyo and took a bunch of reference photos. Tokyo had a more organic street structure, and lots of tall buildings that were close together, along with lots of color. The goal was to go for an East-meets-West feel.

Other influences: Singapore was very, very clean, and very modern; Dubai also has a modern, clean cityscape; and, oddly enough, we looked at whitewashed Greecian villas.

Crispy Gamer: One of the aspects of the game that I really appreciated is that it doesn't look at all like any other game on the market. The aesthetic is entirely its own. Did you ever consider doing the game, you know, "in color"?

Farrer: In the earliest stages of the game, we did have more color. We had the same look that the final game has, including the bright, primary colors, but the setting itself was more realistic. A rooftop, for example, would look like a rooftop. We had more grays and browns mixed in with the bright splashes of color.

It all looked really, really nice. But we didn't like it. It just didn't look different enough to us. Similar to what you just said, it just looked much too similar to other things we'd seen; it looked too much like other games out there. It didn't quite capture the cleanness, the freshness that we wanted.

We went back to the drawing board. Our art director tried painting everything white and baked light into it. That was the first time he came out and said, "How about something like this?" And we had it. We wanted to make a game that when you see a screenshot of it, you instantly know what game it is.

Crispy Gamer: And you did. Obviously you guys are too busy making games to have time to play them, but have you seen Valve's Portal?

Farrer: We have. We're really big fans of Portal.

Crispy Gamer: Part of Mirror's Edge's appeal is the fact that it feels a bit like Portal to me.

Farrer: That's good to hear, but honestly, we'd already been in development, and built quite a bit of our game, before Portal came out. So I wouldn't say it was an influence for us. I'd say that Prince of Persia is a bigger influence. That was quite a game.

But speaking of Portal, there's a Portal mod out now where someone has recreated the entire first level of Mirror's Edge in Portal. You can actually play through the first level of Mirror's Edge using the portal gun. We really got a kick out of that.

"Prince of Persia was a big influence. That was quite a game."

Crispy Gamer: Critics also seemed peeved about the discrepancy between the look of the gameplay and anime aesthetic of the cut scenes. Explain.

Farrer: The whole idea behind the animated cut scenes was that we felt we needed to go in a more interesting visual direction. So we felt the more anime look of the cut scenes would be a nice complement to the more standard look of the gameplay. We wanted to bring Faith to life in the third-person, and make her feel like she was part of her own, cool world. Maybe the style switch is too dramatic at times; in some places and in some scenes, it works better than in others. But in hindsight, I still think they look pretty cool.


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Crispy Gamer: Finally: Anything you'd like to say to those critics who weren't so kind to Mirror's Edge?

Farrer: Well, you either like something or you don't. There's been a lot of talk going on in our industry and in the media about the lack of support that exists for innovation. But that aside, it's about whether you had fun or not; if not, then you give the game a bad score.

Honestly, the only thing that disappointed me, irrespective of scores at the end of any reviews, is that many reviewers didn't really recognize the unique art direction, the game's sense of movement and momentum; you know, some of the things that are special, and are important. That bothered me the most.

Crispy Gamer: So, Mirror's Edge 2? Yes? No? Maybe?


Farrer: We'll see. Keep your fingers crossed, mate.