What else better to do than sink a couple of tins and jump around from rooftop-to-rooftop? Well sure, probably not doing it inebriated would be a good start if you were attempting such a crazy sport in real life – however now you can grab yourself a copy of Mirrors Edge and seem like you're doing it anyway. Less broken bones that way.

Mirror's Edge is a first-person-perspective Free Running game (a commercialisation of Parkour for you underground types) taken from the sport with the same name that has, over the last few years at least, become more and more popular. This has largely happened due to it's mainstream use in media, films and adverts it seems, but games weren't that far behind. Perhaps most prominent was a title that we played over a year ago called, strangely, Free Running.

The general storyline is that you live in a world which has been dumbed down thanks to an overprotective government (ring any bells?), but some choose to live how they see fit, communicating via Runners. You play one such Runner called Faith who's out to find the person responsible for framing her sister for murder. She can run across walls, disarm S.W.A.T. in a variety of interesting ways and leap from buildings, landing lithely like a cat – if a cat could barrel roll.

Using a console to play a first-person-esque game was virtually a new one for me (I know, I know, computer geek). It was nice to see that generally speaking it worked really well, although I'm not sure about you lot but I still find the accuracy a little... off. Still, making your way around the environment done solely on a controller, using a sometimes slap-dash series of button combinations didn't want me to break out the Pain Hammer and start smashing things violently.

Mirror's Edge's graphics have been styled in a somewhat futuristic fashion, almost as if you were walking around a training simulation, to conform to their overall American Manga stylised look to the the game in game in general. This means for the most part you'll be wondering around a somewhat bland environment, while certain signs and structures have been given a vivid paint job. The most important of these colours, if you see it, is red. This represents your Runner Vision, pointing out important things for you to utilise while running all-over-the-shop.

They won't always appear at first, you might stand in a room for a few seconds before objects fade to red. It gave the impression that they wanted to make sure the flow wasn't broken and that you found your own way, but if you were just standing there like a lemon they'd lead you onto the next part. Trust me, I'm glad they worked this system in as sometimes I couldn't see for the life of me the way to go. Suddenly a bar appears and you realise you have to wall run half way along a wall to jump off and grab hold of a bar protruding from the side of a building and away you go.

While Faith might predominantly be about running away from things, towards things or just for kicks, she can also take on enemies... if only 1 at a time. She has the ability to disarm the cops and guards she meets in the game if you time it right, and to help you with this she can also slow time for a short period. You only really want to take on 1 at a time as while she's fannying around with the animation you can get shot from all sides. It seems wearing kevlar's too constricting for running around in, so you'll die in a couple of shots. While you can take a weapon from an opponent and choose to kill people with it, she'll never pick up clips or only find weapons with a low amount of ammo in. Mainly of course because this is a game about running and not fighting, and while perhaps some of the levels are designed to give that Matrix feel as you run down corridors with glass shattering around you, flying into an opponent to quickly disarm him and shoot another on the other side of the room. It's certainly a great concept in theory.

The slight snag with all of this is the lack of fluidity in combat situations. As far as running away from a group trying to kill you goes the game plays really well, getting the right level of panic to make you take that next 'leap of faith', but when in confined space with only one way to go it can get a bit hit-and-miss. When the game presents these locked down scenarios it can take some time to realise how you're going to survive long enough to get to your objective or take out the threat before you do.

There are some points in the game where running can get a little on the scary side, so you might decide to take people out before hand. One of the key points where this happened for me was when I had to make my way around a section which had a bunch of snipers and reinforcements as well as a big jump at the end. Faith doesn't tend to like anything other than a nice straight, flat surface to grab hold of so you had line it up just right otherwise the daft bint would fall to her doom. Try as I might, running through this section only to take out the last guy to prevent being shot meant a series of mad dashes, trying to stay alive and hopefully aligning myself well enough to make the leap at the end. To be honest, it was easier in the end to kill everyone, line myself up and make a jump. The immersion was lost.

It was just a bit clunky. The game's all about Free Running with other little bits tacked on. Even your abilities to slide along the ground and kick some guy in the balls takes more than one hit. Now, I know the cops are equal opportunities and all that, but employing that many eunuchs? Come on. So yes, give me running around and jumping about, but less of the actual facing people please.

Another thing is that the games pretty short. 9 levels had me playing for around 10 hours with all the experimenting I went for as well. You can spend time after that going back through the levels getting achievements, collectables (groan) or having a go at the time trials where you'll compete online for the best times. Had perhaps, the game be geared towards doing levels in a cooperative fashion it might have retained my attention a bit longer.

Mirror's Edge is a solid concept that has offered up something as large as the Free Running franchise with a refreshing perspective. It's certainly worth playing, but prepare to get frustrated at times.