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Mirror's Edge: Catalyst - new previews/videos - Closed Beta begins April 22-26th

ezekial45

Banned
The Closed Beta for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst will begin on April 22nd. It will last for five days, ending on April 26th. Closed Beta participants will be able to try out several of the main missions in Faith’s story, Side Missions, other optional content, and the Social Play features Mirror’s Edge Catalyst has to offer. If you have been selected for the Closed Beta and you are a Frontrunner, you will receive an email with your code on April 22nd. Others who made it into the Closed Beta will receive their code on April 23rd.

http://www.mirrorsedge.com/frontrunner

I'll update the OP periodically.
Videos:
Opening Mission Gameplay (No Commentary)
Exploration Gameplay (No Commentary)
IGN playthrough
DICE explains Social Play

Impressions:
Eurogamer
Gamespot
Polygon
 

Theorry

Member
I suppose that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Like with its predecessor, freerunning in Catalyst is entrancing and, when in flawless free-flow, quite irresistible. From the three hours of the beta build that I played, much of the game strikes me as a second attempt at the original. Its world and objectives and gameplay loops are so familiar that one might mistake this for a next-gen remaster. And while I agree that sequels should usually try to be distinct, in this case some familiarity is welcomed. Developer DICE knows what you want; everything you loved about the original, minus the frustrations. Just how far the studio has gone in achieving that goal will become clear in a matter of weeks. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is due to ship on May 24 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. A closed beta for the game will be deployed on April 22.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/wh...dge-catalys/1100-6438838/?ftag=GSS-05-10aaa0b

In the video above, we play through the very beginning of the game, as protagonist Faith is released from prison. Then we jump ahead to one of the final missions available in the closed beta. Two or three hours into Catalyst, Faith finds herself on a dangerous mission to sneak into a major corporation's headquarters, and she's shocked by what she discovers there.

http://www.polygon.com/2016/4/14/11...t=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

By comparison, the map in Mirror's Edge Catalyst seems positively spartan. You've got missions, dashes and beats (time trials), user generated time trials, a few mandatory collectibles and... that's about it, to be honest. You can construct time trials of your own by setting a starting marker, then dropping checkpoints as you go. It's fairly intuitive, but you can test your run and tweak it as necessary before publishing. These runs will be filtered based on how well other players receive them, with more popular runs rising to the top; you can also generate a link to your course and share it with others via Catalyst's planned companion app. How popular these time trials will prove over time remains to be seen, but for the most part they integrate with the rest of the stuff on the map fairly seamlessly.

Granted I was playing a closed beta and more things may be added for the full release but, for the time being, the City of Glass is impressively free of clutter. It may not be Novigrad, but it's absolutely the right open world for a game like Mirror's Edge Catalyst.

If you want to know a bit more about what it's like to play Mirror's Edge Catalyst and what the story is like, give the video below a watch. Beware, it contains spoilers for the first few hours of the game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...rors-edge-catalyst-is-barebones-in-a-good-way

Gameplay from JackFrags.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FSrXGCsr2o

Outside Xbox

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HdxT_MlmUU

Mirror's Edge Catalyst Developer Diary - Social Play

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm0H-v3P0Zw
 

Varth

Member
Heh. Once in a while I still ask JackFrags if his EA videos are under Ronku rules. Never get an answer, strangely.
 

Nemesis_

Member
I am still not convinced this is releasing in May. I just have such an inkling it's going to get pushed back.
 

Trago

Member
Caught bits and pieces. Looking real good. Combat seems to flow better.

That corner pole turn has me shook. I'm bound to fuck that up lol.
 
Looks like Mirror's Edge 2 which makes me the happiest person. I tried to skip all the cutscenes to avoid spoilorz, but am sold on the movement and general level atmosphere. Hooray!
 

spineduke

Unconfirmed Member
what;s with the takedowns in 3rd person? pretty jarring

besides that - seems like the game we know and love.

edit: well...that's a lot of combat.
 

_woLf

Member
They're making it sound like not everyone who signed up for the beta is getting in....that's a bit concerning. I wonder what their criteria is.
 

diablos991

Can’t stump the diablos
what you're describing is shitty writing

show, don't tell

I doubt EA is targeting the most sophisticated of linguistic connoisseurs here. They need to appeal to the masses for a mass marketed game.

I prefer it this way as I don't want to spend all day in cutscenes; let me get into that gameplay and explain stuff with some dialogue along the way.

This doesn't sound any worse than any other AAA title I have seen recently.
 

oti

Banned
I am still not convinced this is releasing in May. I just have such an inkling it's going to get pushed back.

I hardly ever buy games day 1 but I just have to do it for Uncharted and Mirror's Edge. Wish it wouldn't be in the same month though.
 

takoyaki

Member
Game looks great, I like the way they've included multiplayer (reminds me of the ME1 DLC races) and the open world might just work for ME. My only complaint from the footage would be the red line that always shows you were to go next (can't remember it being that obvious in the first game), but I'm sure it can be turned off or toggled in the final game.
 

Fret

Member
I doubt EA is targeting the most sophisticated of linguistic connoisseurs here. They need to appeal to the masses for a mass marketed game.

I prefer it this way as I don't want to spend all day in cutscenes; let me get into that gameplay and explain stuff with some dialogue along the way.

This doesn't sound any worse than any other AAA title I have seen recently.

you dont need to be a "linguistic connoisseur" to appreciate decent writing lmao. many mass marketed games have good writing, that's just a bad excuse.

to me, the dialogue is annoying and if they're going for a more story heavy experience then at the very least it better be decently written, otherwise, the story is literally a waste of everyones time.
 

Drewfonse

Member
As a huge fan of the first, I don't know why I'm not more hyped for this. Maybe it's the open world design. I have begun to loathe the open world tropes. 0/5 of this, 3/11 of that. Ugh. Game looks pretty, and I'll certainly buy it and ignore most of the checklist crap, but I wonder how good the core, story driven stuff will be. We will see.
 
It definitely looks interesting.

But I can't help but wonder if it would be better in 3rd person.

FPS (or FPM?) melee fighting has always been wonky and it still looks wonky in these previews.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Liking a lot of what I see here though the combat still looks rather clunky like the original game. The one thing I'm not a fan of is how the player sometimes interacts or rather lack there of with the environment around them. For example it just looks odd when Faith comes down from a huge flying leap, lands on the edge of a platform with nearly 50 percent of her "body" not on the platform when she lands and instead of falling over from the momentum and the bad landing, she just does her canned reaction and keeps going as if nothing was amiss.

Its nit picking but it looks really awkward and kind of makes me wish they had a Euphoria type animation system for this game where even small motions and reactions are taken into a count. I'd even enjoy the Uncharted dragging her hand along nearby walls and railings and such.
 

GavinUK86

Member
Holy shit that looks incredible. Climbing and rolling is faster and combat is super quick and impactful. Looks like everything I want from another Mirror's Edge game. Definitely turning off the runner hologram thing though, that's horrible. Making poles and walls red is enough to see where you need to go.

The person playing in the IGN video isn't very good, seems to be all over the place. I don't think the IGN video has been recorded properly because the framerate is all over the shop and the sides of the HUD are cut off. Also just noticed a lot of glitches in it, like the first takedown of the guard, the intro video doesn't play properly and it doesn't trigger the takedown just stops.

The Polygon one is much better.
 
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