Mirror's Edge Catalyst real-life time trial is a rooftop tour of... Croydon
Good Ikea.
Now this is a story I never thought I'd write: some people have made an impressive real-life Mirror's Edge video - set in Croydon.
Mirror's Edge Catalyst - Real Life Time Trial, below, went live on YouTube just in time for EA's E3 reveal of the game next week. In it we see Freerunners leaping about buildings in the misunderstood South London town. At one point we're above the glass ceiling of the Whitgift Centre, then we're in it, dodging bad guys as we whiz past world class fashion boutique Paris Climate on the way to the car park. At the end, we survey our kingdom - and I think I can see Ikea in the distance.
The video is well done, with combat, small arms fire and plenty of meaty jumps. Its director and choreographer, Claudiu Voicu, wanted to keep as close to DICE's game as possible, with ziplines and even a helicopter showing up at one point. Croydon, with its eye-sore skyscrapers, fit the bill. The project took eight months to complete.
"The E3 announcement trailer didn't give too many clues as to what the new game would feature," Voicu wrote on his blog, "but I did try to include some of the combat elements."
While I like his video, as a Croydonite, I feel aggrieved by some of Voicu's quips about the place. Stuff like this:
"The biggest challenge with this project was to not have a single 'cut' during the full run, as obviously in the game you can't just skip out certain parts of the map (as boring as they may be). Luckily I live near a fairly hated town called Croydon, which features a few nice, Mirror's Edge-esque buildings."
And this:
"It goes without saying that if you're new to Freerunning you shouldn't go to Croydon - you'll probably get stabbed."
I'm not arguing, mind. I'm just aggrieved. We have a very strong branch of Nandos, after all.
