In one of my many never-to-be-realized daydreams, I start training really hard, hours a day, and become a parkour expert. I run around Southwest Florida rooftops, leaping from building roof to palm tree, doing flips and skipping up walls, defying gravity.
The truth is, I never quite make it to the running, let alone all the jumping and grabbing and sliding. This lack of follow-through on my part is of course why we have video games. And while running, jumping, and generally defying gravity in interesting ways have been a staple of great games since Super Mario Brothers, Mirror's Edge is the first video game to focus entirely on the parkour (or free running) experience from a first person perspective. And if you love, or even just kind of like games, then it's a game you have to play. But there are some caveats…
This article appears in Jan 21-27, 2009.