I really wanted Mirror's Edge to be my next favorite game. It started out so well. The only issue was that it was a little too challenging for my taste. But no game is perfect, right?

I found out at the end of chapter four that Mirror's Edge was just too difficult for me. The end no longer justified the means - I was attempting jumps over twenty times and turning off the game out of frustration. And I wasn't even to the fifth chapter. I read through the rest of the chapter on a walkthrough and found that I would not only have to jump onto a moving train - I'd have to dodge cement columns and jump onto other moving trains. The thrill of a challenge was gone. I lost hope.

I talked with my friends, wondering if I was just an inferior gamer and if I was really missing something. One of my friends finished the game, carefully explaining that there was little reward in the story or the gameplay. Enemies became nearly impossible to avoid, and the unpolished combat system became crippling. The game was tedious and expected the near impossible, requiring more luck than skill.

I was hesitant to give up on Mirror's Edge, but, after hearing my friend's bleak report regarding the rest of the game, I lost all motivation to continue. Mirror's Edge had so much potential with the sleek aesthetic, fantastic parkour mechanics, and solid opening level design. It's unfortunate that the attempt to make it more difficult seems unbalanced, perhaps by developers and testers too familiar with their game to see the unrealistic expectations on the player. If the entire game had been scaled to match the levels from the beginning chapters, it may have been a fun experience. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to give up on Mirror's Edge, as it is simply too difficult.  

I was really excited to check out Hotel Dusk. After watching a friend play it, I was intrigued by the art style. The box described the game as an "interactive mystery novel" and, unfortunately, they take the "novel" part quite seriously.

As an avid RPG fan, I'm no stranger to large blocks of text and dialogue. In fact, narrative is one of my favorite parts of RPGs. However, narrative at the expense of gameplay throws a game far out of balance. Hotel Dusk does just that. The game is weighed down by long conversations that offer only a few choices with seemingly little influence on the world. Most of the gameplay involved clicking through rooms, tedious searching of rooms, and looking for the person that would start my next lengthy dialogue.

On the rare occassion when I got to solve a puzzle, I often had trouble recognizing the situation. I often had to look online for help, as I was completely stuck. How was I to know that a utility closet which was locked the last four times I checked suddenly opened? And how was I supposed to know that there was a tool in that closet that I could use to cut off a length of a coat hanger firmly rooted to my closet? And then I was magically supposed to assume that I could use this to unlock a briefcase. The puzzles are mostly like the one I described - intensely elaborate and complicated. The people around were clueless to my problems and failed to offer any hints. Puzzle solving became a tedious endeavor in which I had to search through every room in the hotel again, engage each person in repetitive dialogues, and wonder why the logical answers never seem to be the right ones.

I really wanted to like this game, as it had a gorgeous art style and an interesting premise. However, this game is much more a novel than a game, and a boring novel at that. If solving mysteries in real life is this tedious, then perhaps it's good I'm not a detective.