FREE THE ART OF MIRRORS EDGE: CATALYST PDF Dice | 200 pages | 09 Jun 2016 | DARK HORSE COMICS | 9781616559113 | English | Milwaukee, United States Book Review: The Art of Mirror's Edge: Catalyst | Parka Blogs It is a reboot of the game that focuses on protagonist Faith Connors. Mirror's Edge Catalyst received mixed reviews from critics upon release, with most reviewers praising the free-running gameplay and visuals, but criticising the story and combat. Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a first-person action- adventure game in which the player takes control of Faith Connors as she progresses through a futuristic city named Glass. Similar to the original Mirror's Edgeplayers traverse the city using aspects of urban exploration and parkour movements to complete missions and evade or fight enemies. Players can also make use of environmental objects such as zip-lines and ledges, and equipment; this includes a MAG Manifold Attachment Gear Rope and a Disruptor [3] to travel across buildings, disable certain systems such as large fans or security cameras and aid Faith during combat. When players mark an objective on their map, Faith's "runner vision" is activated and some scenery items automatically highlight in red. These act as guides to lead players towards their objective. This gives players more freedom in traversal, allowing for the use of multiple paths to reach one's objective. Additionally, items called GridLeaks can be found across the world that can be collected by players. Combat mechanics of the game received an overhaul and a new combat system was developed as traversal is greatly emphasised in the game. Instead, these checkpoint-to-checkpoint paths are set by any player whereby others can race against them at their leisure for faster times. Players are also able to place The Art of Mirrors Edge: Catalyst Emitters for other players to track down, an exploration activity similar to geocaching. The game takes place in the dystopian, futuristic city of Glass, the showcase city of the nation of Cascadia, governed by a totalitarian corporatocracy. Cascadian society is highly stratifiedand the majority of citizens work for the corporations and are connected to the Grid, a massive social surveillance system digitally connecting everything and everyone in cities like Glass. The corporations are secretly preparing to launch a project, called Reflection, to control the populace through the Grid. So-called Runners, freelance messengers skilled at parkourrefuse to be connected to the Grid and live on rooftops, making their living from covert delivery jobs while evading corporate security. The game centers around a Runner named Faith, and her efforts to help other Runners overthrow the corporate government and stop Reflection. Faith Connors is released from prison and meets up with fellow runner Icarus, as well as Runner cabal leader Noah, who raised Faith after the death of her parents. She manages to The Art of Mirrors Edge: Catalyst, intending to use the drive's contents to pay off her debt to Dogen, a black market boss. Noah is angry at Faith for involving herself with Kruger, but tells her that she needs to know what is inside the drive in order to bargain with it. Faith takes the drive to Plastic, a talented hacker, who tells her the drive contains blueprints for a top-secret project known as Reflection. While Icarus and Faith are away, they lead a raid on the Runners' lair and capture or kill everyone present. Faith and Icarus, having nowhere to go, turn to Rebecca Thane, leader of Black November, a militant resistance movement bent on destroying the Conglomerate by force. The rebels set up an ambush to capture a high-ranking K-Sec commander, whom they intend to trade for their own captured soldiers. The mission is a success and it turns out that the captured officer is Isabel Kruger, daughter and personal bodyguard of Gabriel Kruger. Faith asks Plastic to infiltrate K-Sec servers and gather information about Isabel, who turns out to be Caitlyn "Cat" Connors, Faith's own sister, who was assumed dead. Gabriel Kruger took her in as his adoptive daughter, telling her that Faith was killed along with the rest of her family. Faith races back to the subterranean Black November HQ where Thane is preparing to execute Isabel in order to send her father a message. Even though Isabel doesn't seem to remember who Faith is, Faith convinces Thane to save her. Isabel lets on to Faith that Noah might still be alive, held in a compound called Kingdom. Upon reaching it, Faith rescues a group of Reflection scientists who were detained by K-Sec for "asking too many questions. Aline also The Art of Mirrors Edge: Catalyst that Faith's own mother Erika invented the algorithm that would later allow Reflection to be realised. Faith finds Noah who is being experimented on with prototype Reflection nanites, but is too late to prevent his death. Icarus and the rebels are injected with The Art of Mirrors Edge: Catalyst nanites. Faith continues to have flashbacks of Gabriel Kruger killing her parents who wanted out of the Reflection project. As Faith and Cat were escaping, a gas grenade was tossed, causing Cat to choke and lose consciousness. Faith was forced to abandon her. Plastic and Aline work together to engineer a virus to disable Reflection once and for all. In order to do this they need Gabriel Kruger's ID, which Faith secures by breaking into his private apartment. From there she witnesses a massive explosion at The Shard, the tallest building in all of Glass. Faith still needs to go on top of The Shard, which contains the broadcast antenna but is now unstable, to activate the virus. At the top she is confronted by Gabriel who defends his decision to launch Reflection, saying the nanites are a cure designed to keep Isabel's chronic lung condition at bay, and that the project is about survival The Art of Mirrors Edge: Catalyst than control. They are joined by Isabel who attempts to stop the virus but is too late. They fight on the helipad, and Isabel accuses Faith of leaving her behind to die, while Faith attempts to remind The Art of Mirrors Edge: Catalyst of who she really is. Gabriel Kruger appears on a helicopter and begs a hesitating Isabel to come with him. The Shard starts to crumble and Gabriel flies out of the tumbling helicopter. Faith slides to the edge of the helipad but is caught by The Art of Mirrors Edge: Catalyst. Gabriel is heard calling out for his daughter to save him, and Isabel explains to Faith that she "has to" and runs off in his direction. However, as the helicopter rises again and flies away, only Isabel is standing in it, with Gabriel nowhere to be seen. In the aftermath, it is reported on the news that Isabel will now supersede her missing father as Kruger Security CEO. While there was no uprising in the population, Faith did successfully disable the Reflection launch, thus keeping people safe from Conglomerate control. However, at a later date Sara Jansson stated that the game was not seen as either a reboot or a prequel. The Art of Mirrors Edge: Catalyst runner vision in Catalyst can recalculate the path for players towards their objectives or waypoints. The game was featured at E3 for a second time in Juneand prototype gameplay was briefly shown. Mirror's Edge Catalyst has more varied gameplay for Faith and Runners, where they serve a greater purpose than in the first game. The title Mirror's Edge Catalyst was formally announced in June prior to E3 ; DICE product manager Sara Jansson affirmed that the game is not a sequel but would delve into more of Faith's past while expanding on the original game's first-person perspective experience. On September 30,it was announced that the The Art of Mirrors Edge: Catalyst composer for the original Mirror's EdgeSolar Fields would again compose for Catalyst. On October 29,it was announced that the game had been delayed until May 24, to allow additional development time and for DICE to refine the traversal gameplay. It included a figurine of Faith, a steel book, a lithograph, temporary tattoos, and a storage box. The game was the second best-selling retail game in the UK in its first week of release, only behind Overwatch. According to review aggregation The Art of Mirrors Edge: Catalyst MetacriticMirror's Edge Catalyst received "mixed or average" reviews from critics. Chris Carter from Destructoid gave the game a positive review, commending the focus on open world gameplay, saying that the game "nails" exploration and parkour movement. He felt that because the gameplay was fun overall, players could spend an endless amount of time roaming the game world. Carter also called the overall visuals "beautiful" and felt that the design The Art of Mirrors Edge: Catalyst the environments help create a world that is full of life. Carter disliked the story, however, for being predictable and featuring unlikeable supporting characters but said it was forgivable because players are able to ignore it and focus on the gameplay aspects. While citing the movement system as a positive and the combat mechanics as a negative, Spencer Campbell concluded his review for Electronic Gaming Monthly with: " Mirror's Edge Catalyst has a strong core built by its movement system, but when it comes time to do anything else than run from point A to point B, you'll probably be more inclined to run away. Game Informer ' s Ben Reeves summarised his review with: "The original Mirror's Edge is an overlooked gem from last generation, but even diehard fans will have trouble finding the diamonds in this rough.