Mirror’s Edge

I am very picky about art. An artwork must engage me emotionally. I can’t stand these modern kinds of art only targeted to your intellect, but producing no feelings. And a great artwork must fully own me; if it is sad, I must cry, if it is funny, I must laugh so much I can’t breath, if it is thrilling I must have cold sweat and trembling hands.

Combining these high expectations with my perfectionistic wish to consume only the great art, it is no wonder that I would rarely enjoy (and go see) artworks currently popular in the press. I might find something great once in a year, often even more rarely.

When I say art, I mean books, movies, music, pictures, live performances, and any special kinds of modern art. And computer games. Games are mostly sport and hobby, but some of them are also art.

Great art can be “immersed” into, kind of daydreaming about the virtual world created by the artwork, and this helps to endure life. Computer games are by design perfect means for such escapism. In fact, reportages about WoW show how some specifically designed games can pose a real threat to ordered and healthy lifestyle. Besides, being a software developer myself, I can better than many others see how games are just meaningless crunchers of tons of bits and bytes.

So, hopefully, you’re impressed enough to hear me calling Mirror’s Edge the great art I was playing in in the last couple of months. At the time being I have finished the full game four times (on easy level, or hard level, without killing anyone, and with killing everyone), and also qualified in all speed runs, and earned tri-star rating on each time trial.

Yes, this took a lot of time — time I’d rather invested in a more reasonable things. But may be it has saved me from cracking up? And anyways, this wasn’t something I could control. And it still isn’t. I’m already waiting for the second game, which, unfortunately, seems to be delayed for unspecified time. And I’m extremely envious of the game creators; it was a once-in-a-lifetime-experience for them, and I also hope to become such professionally successful in my carreer.

If you don’t plan to play this game, this video will give you some impression about it. If you do plan to play, look at the following.

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