History VideoGame / MirrorsEdge

** It is justified in at least 85% of cases. Merc is saying that he is pointing Faith through locations without people. And if you look at levels separately:
*** In first part of game, Faith is trying to get info from mostly office buildings, and logicaly breaks in at evening to minimalise withnesess.
*** When is Faith eavesdroping on conspirators, they logicaly meet at places where they woudnt be seen, mostly the building sites after the Workers are finished.
*** The Metro station she is escaping through is also under construction and te trains are actually full of people.
*** And there are also several cases of traps.
** However is need to say it still highly impropable that Faith woudlnt meet ANYONE except story characters and mooks.

** [[WordOfGod The creators]] cared so much about how they went out of their way to make her design attractive but not {{Stripperific}}, that when someone released a Photoshopped image, they expressed considerable disappointment that their athletic heroine had been transformed into "twelve-year-old with a boob job."

* ClimacticElevatorRide: Reaching the final levels objective an elevator ride shows how the player raises beyond all the rest of the citys rooftops where the player has been running all game long.

* DoesNotLikeGuns: Faith, and if you never use any of the guns are dropped, you earn an Achievement.

* ShoutOut: Faith scrambling up, along then off a crane doesn't recall a certain scene in a movie perhaps? No? [[CasinoRoyale Here's a hint.]]

* FragileSpeedster: Faith simply can't take on more than one or two Blues head on before getting shot to hell. This is not a problem since she can frequently zoom right past them. If you compare speed runs on YouTube, you'll actually find runs where some enemies fail to appear entirely - normally they are set to intercept Faith, but the player is so far ahead that they can only break down the door and yell "Freeze!" at an empty room. Buh-bye!

* PlatformGame: Well, duh. The developer was trying to innovate by making it first-person, though this led to several people, including [[ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]], complaining that you wouldn't be able to see the character's feet before jumping. Y'know, [[RealityIsUnrealistic like in real life]]. On the other hand, [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality in real life, you have a pretty good kinesthetic sense of where your feet are]].

* AllThereInTheManual: The main issue with the story is that it is never properly explained within the game. You get more background from the Trailers than you do from the game.

* AWinnerIsYou: After [[spoiler: clearing the final level and saving Kate (again), they just hug without a word, the camera pans out to show most of the city, and the credits roll. The ''only'' epilogue we get is during the credits, in the form of a brief news soundclip suggesting that Faith and Kate have eluded the police once again, which is hardly a surprise given the many daring escapes Faith pulled off in the story.]]

* [[spoiler:BigBadFriend: The Parkour Assassin turns out to be Faith's best friend Celeste, who realizes the Runners are about to be exterminated, and agrees to help the bad guys to save her own sorry ass.]]

** And how fast is she? Faith in a full sprint can maintain a speed of 26 km/hr(16.2 mph). Usain Bolt clocks in at a 37 km/h and that is in a 100 meter dash. Faith literally runs long distances at this speed. The average speed for the top Olympic Marathon runner was 20 km/hr. Yes, Faith could probably outrun most Olympic athletes, male or female.
* FollowTheLeader: This game inspired First Person Shooters to emphasize movement. Games like {{Brink}} and the sequel to {{Prey}} quickly referenced this game as inspiration.
* FollowThePlottedLine: Only a few missions actually show you the destination early on. Just following the paths on the roofs still magically gets you there.

* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: In the iPhone/iPad version, where Callaghan is female.
* GoombaStomp: Just landing on people isn't necessarily deadly, but it can be turned into one of the faster and safer one-hit takedowns in the game... [[DifficultButAwesome if you can pull it off]]. Pulling it off also nets the [[CosmeticAward achievement]] [[SuperMarioBros "It's-A Me!"]].
* HeWhoMustNotBeSeen: The BigBad, [[spoiler:Mayor Callaghan]], is mentioned but never actually appears in the game.

** There are however spots where an obviously non-fatal drop will still cause death. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XopNFEJCfsk Example. ]]

* [[{{ItsPersonal}} It's Personal]]: Faith happily zips past the cops, and the police department don't dispatch a small platoon to deal with one runner. That is, [[spoiler:until they take her sister]].

* LeParkour: The entire premise of the game. Well, an unbelievably over-the-top and virtually ''suicidal'' form of parkour, anyway.

* MixAndMatch: {{FPS}}/{{PlatformGame}}.

* NotTheFallThatKillsYou: Averted. You can roll or crouch to avoid damage from ''sensible'' jumps, but more than that and you're going splat. And you get a couple of seconds to meditate on your failure.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Lieutenant Miller.

** They couldn't help including just one, though - the very tricky PacifistRun achievement is called "Test of Faith".

* SuperWindowJump: Runners, like [[Webcomic/OrderOfTheStick Dashing Swordsmen]], learn how to leap through plate glass without being cut.

* TimeTrial: An entire game mode.
* TitleDrop: In the intro movie: ''"We call ourselves Runners. We exist on the edge between the gloss and the reality; the Mirror's Edge."'' In this case, it seems to be not so much shoehorning the phrase in, but explaining it, which is kind of a nice change from the norm.
* TrainEscape: ''Subway'' trains.

An [[IOSGames iPhone/iPad]] remake was released in 2010. The gameplay was changed to a 2D ''{{Canabalt}}''-style platformer, and the plot involves Mayor Callaghan's attempt to turn the public against the police so she[[hottip:*:She was male in the original game, but either the creators accidentally changed her gender or [[{{Transsexual}} she changed it herself]] can replace them with her private military, something that was only hinted at in the original game.

** And how fast is she? Faith in a full sprint can maintain a speed of 26 km/hr(16.2 mph). Usain Bolt clocks in at a 37 km/h and that is in a 100 meter dash. Faith literally runs long distances at this speed.

* XTremeSportXcusePlot: The whole "dystopian future" plot is basically just an excuse for lots of awesome [[LeParkour Parkour]] action.

* SpeedyTechnoRemake: There are ''ten'' remixes of "Still Alive" available on iTunes, 4 of which come packaged with the original on a separate CD in the PC version.

* PrivateMilitaryContractors: If you look closely, you'll notice the more heavily-armed [[{{Mooks}} "Blues"]] in the game wear black PK uniforms instead of the blue CPF uniforms worn by the city police. Faith herself somehow misses this little detail until a CPF character points it out to her in the very last level. Turns out they're all security forces of Pirandello/Krueger, a PMC that turns out to be one of your main enemies.

* RareGuns: The [=NeoStead=] 2000 and the G36C.

** PsychoForHire: [[spoiler:Jackknife]]. [[TheUntwist Saw that comming from miles away]].

** PunchClockHero: Ropeburn was hired by Pope to protect him from the mayors lackeys.

** OnlyInItForTheMoney: [[spoiler: It pays better than an illegal courier service and the cops don't shot at you.]]

* GoombaStomp: Just landing on people isn't necessarily deadly, but it can be turned into one of the faster and safer one-hit takedowns in the game... [[AwesomeButImpractical if you can pull it off]]. Pulling it off also nets the [[CosmeticAward achievement]] [[SuperMarioBros "It's-A Me!"]].

* ConvenientlyEmptyBuilding: The game takes place in the height of summer, so it's not immediately apparent that many of the levels take place during very early morning or late evening when most people would still be sleeping or have finished work several hours ago. The mall is closed for some reasons (though there are comercials in the game claiming it's open 24/7) and another level is a construction site. However, it's all deliberate, as the complete desolation in the middle of a major city is a large part of the games dystopian theme.