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Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before. Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a game of high ambition that is capable of awe-inspiring moments, and one that's all too often undone by a series of suspect design decisions and some truly atrocious combat. It's almost as if, in returning to the much-loved but flawed 2008 original, developer DICE chose to stick a little too closely to an original recipe that called for two parts awesome washed out by two parts awful, introducing some new, even bigger problems all of its own in this troubled open world reboot. Much has changed for this new Mirror's Edge, but some things stay the same. Faith Connors continues to be one of gaming's great character designs still left in search of a half-decent story: this time out she's a runner fresh out of a detention centre - or 'juvie' as it is in Catalyst's awkward script - and getting reacquainted with the network of runners who stalk the city's skyline in what clumsily ends up an origins tale for future games in the series. Whether they come to pass likely depends on the success of Catalyst, and it does little to endear itself to those who weren't already in thrall to the original.
Faith herself remains the same, an avatar of fleet-footed athleticism who propels the first-person platforming through which Mirror's Edge Catalyst truly soars. At its very best, Catalyst builds upon 2008's Mirror's Edge to create something frequently remarkable: set-pieces within the story missions nestled within the world push the player towards dizzy heights, deciphering their handsomely stylised surroundings with Faith's vocabulary of wall-runs, wall-jumps and mantling. There are moments, when the momentum slows and you're at the foot of an office building figuring out how to get from one point to another, where Catalyst is reminiscent of the excellent Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, in which platforming meets a light sense of puzzling to create one delicious whole.
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