Oh man, original Mirror's Edge... The game I felt in love with immediately back in the day. Everything about it is perfect - the unique and innovative gameplay, the immersion, the graphics, the art style, the soundtrack.

Such simple concept as "running" becomes nuanced and intricate the more you play the game. The player is not limited by arbitrary RPG elements, health bars, flying numbers over the UI or any other cancer elements of the modern games. There is just the view from your eyes, a few control buttons and the environment to traverse. The simplicity is refreshing, but it's also just a surface. There is a surprising depth in how you can use your surroundings to move around. By playing the game you will become more proficient and skilled in the running, getting experience without any experience points. That is such immersive aspect of the game that rarely any other game can deliver nowadays.

While the story is rather short, the levels are very well designed. The "runners vision" highlights pipes and springboards that you can use to casually run through, but there is always a shorter, more efficient and smarter way to cut the distance. Finding surprising paths and tricks you can do to beat time trials is akin solving the puzzle and is quite satisfying. The same goes for enemies, you can disarm them and start shooting from the SMG; you can run over the wall and smack the police in the face; or you can ignore the threat completely and do a (more challenging) no-harm walkthrough where you have to be fast - and smart on your pathing - to avoid the bullets.

Technically, the game stands out even today. Art direction, well baked lightning and colourful pallet make it hard to resist the desire to make screenshots of the city as you run. The PhysX is underrated and sadly forgotten technology that adds oomph to the scenes and makes the surroundings feel more alive. The shattering glass, transparent polyester materials that break from the bullets, the smoke from the pipes and particles of dust in the air that react to your movement ... it's not ray tracing, but it's better than some default Unreal Engine 4 effect that fades out from the screen in 1 second. And it's in 2008 game. Playing it now in high resolution with 144 FPS is just marvellous.

The soundtrack is a masterpiece from Solar Fields, it accompanies the game greatly and is one of those soundtracks that is great as a standalone album separate from the game. It adds that futuristic feeling in the calm puzzle scenes, as well as pumps up the drive when you are being chased.

With regards for the reboot (Mirror's Edge: Catalyst from 2017) - the first Mirror's Edge is not better or worse. It's just a different game, original implementation of the concept. Catalyst greatly improves fluidity of the movement, has fantastic graphics and soundtrack too, a big open world city that becomes your playground to explore, so I highly recommend it as well. Nevertheless, original Mirror's Edge stands on its own - one of the most unique and fun games ever released... Still alive.