Sometimes you’ve just got to have

2009 saw many of us lose hours to two running games. The first was the original Mirror’s Edge, in which you guided free-runner Faith as she bounded across beautiful cityscapes on the PS3 and XBox 360. The second was Canabalt, a wonderfully simple platformer that only required you to keep running and jumping for as long as you could physically keep up the pace.

In bringing Mirror’s Edge to the iPad, EA takes everything that made the original so great — the vertigo-inducing ballet of leaps, slides and flips as Faith races across rooftops, cranes and ledges — and simplifies it until it becomes the same compulsive speed-run that makes Canabalt so addictive and such a huge hit.

You command Faith’s entire repertoire with just one finger. A swipe starts you running, a swipe in the opposite direction sends you doubling-back; flick up to jump, flick down to roll gracefully as you land. Similar actions will have you wall-running, swinging from flagpoles, disarming or knocking down gun-toting hench-men or zip-lining from skyscraper to skyscraper while a helicopter sprays machine-gun bullets in your direction. Quite why you’re being fired upon, as you race over rooftops or through underground lairs, is the subject of an involved, and largely needless storyline; all you really need to remember is to run, and keep running.That said, the plot is only a short one and you’ll be lucky to get two hours of gameplay out of the story mode before it’s over. Luckily, the speed-runs will have you revisiting your favourite levels again and again, as you frustratingly chase the red shadow runner of your former run to shave precious seconds from your best time.

Rating 4 Star