PS3 owners will still be able to play the free exclusive map being released today, January 29th.

The reason for the delay appears to be for quality control purposes, with EA reporting that the delay will help them offer a “completely smooth experience for players.”

Delay or no delay, at least DICE is putting forth effort to deliver a wonderful experience.

EA has announced that a new time trial map pack will be available on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC on January 29th, 2009.

The downloadable content will cost $10, and includes seven brand new time trial maps for Mirror’s Edge (9 new time trial races). The new maps are styled completely different than anything else seen in the game, featuring abstract shapes and colorful arenas in large open spaces.

“The freedom of movement and control in first person has been the most popular aspect of Mirror’s Edge,” says Owen O’Brien, Senior Producer for DICE. “We deliberately chose a more abstract aesthetic that is still within our distinctive art style and then focused on flow and gameplay to create an experience and challenge very different from the main game.”

PlayStation 3 owners will have the opportunity to download one of the new maps for free.

And in case you’re interested, the names for the new maps are as follows: Kinetic, Razzmatazz, Actino, Reflex, Chroma, Flow, Velocity.

Screenshots

It’s no secret that installing games to your hard drive will make them run faster — in fact speed tests have already proven that games like GTA IV load up to 12 seconds faster on startup.

One thing avid Mirror’s Edge players should notice is a significant speed increase during elevator rides. While a few seconds may not seem like a whole lot, it can be a real time-saver during those tedious speed runs where time piles up fast.

Mirror’s Edge is a pretty large game, so unless you have a larger hard drive, you probably won’t be loading any other games to your HD. Instructions for installing to your hard drive can be found in the NXE, or over online here.

Special Offer for New Xbox Hard Drives

Might be time to give yourself the gift of more space on your Xbox 360.

If you’re currently stuck with the 20GB hard drive for your Xbox 360, it may be time to upgrade. Currently, you can save 25% (around $20) on the 120GB Hard Drive over at Amazon.com.

Alternatively, the 60GB Hard Drive is also available for $99, and comes with a headset, ethernet cable, and 3 month subscription to Xbox Live.

Part of our job as Bag Runners is to completely indulge ourselves in the world of Mirror’s Edge, and to discover everything there is to learn about its universe. We want to create the most throurough ME experience possible here on BagRunners.com, and we feel like the video guides do a nice job explaining where you can find different items visually.

The rest of our video guide series for the bag locations will be finished and posted soon, and we hope you’ll come back to check them out. If nothing else, you’ll unlock 3 achievements by collecting all the bags in Mirror’s Edge.

Return to Mirror’s Edge Bag Locations

The hidden bags for Chapter 1: Flight are as follows:

1. Bag 1 is found on the second building in the level. There are two electrical fences on this building. Just after fence two, there is an extrusion on the left of the building (the one with two “L” shaped vents connected to it). The bag is on top of this between the vents.
2. Bag 2 is found during the helicopter chase, a bit after you jump down into the large cushion. Continue down the ordinary path, making a right into the narrow alley up ahead. In this ally, rather than breaking off left, continue going straight ahead and leap to a balcony at the end. The bag is found behind an AC unit on this balcony.
3. Bag 3 is towards the end of the chapter, in the area with the huge orange staircases (it’s hard to miss). Instead of heading up the orange staircases, check underneath them and too the left for a chain fence. Leap the fence, and you’ll find the bag.

Return to Mirror’s Edge Bag Locations

The first 3 hidden bags in Mirror’s edge are as follows:

1. Bag 1 is almost impossible to miss. After breaking through the first red door, go up the stairs, and climb onto the vent. The bag is lying on the vent just before the entrance to the next ventalation shaft.
2. Bag 2 can be found after your first encounter with the patrol cops. When you get to the top of the stairs and break through the door, go left (instead of right), and climb to the top of the crates at the end of the hall. The bag is hidden there.
3. Bag 3 is hidden right before you meet up with Celeste on the building with the two patrol cops you’re supposed to take out. The bag is hidden underneath the blue stairs the second patrol cop is on, between some ventilation ducts.

Return to Mirror’s Edge Bag Locations

• Playground One

Get the Perfect Time

Looking to nail your perfect run in Mirror’s Edge? These video guides can help.

Check out our exclusive time trial video guides to get excellent tips for getting that top time in the leaderboards. While you’re at it, you can also achieve your time attack star rating of 50.

Share your own Tips!

Be sure to share your own running tips in the comments for each video. We can all take something from each other to get better times!

This Mirror’s Edge Time Trial Video Guide will help you achieve one of the fastest times possible on “Playground One”. Please share your own tips in the comments below for quicker times!

Back to: Mirror’s Edge Time Trial Video Guides

We recently spoke with DICE Software Engineer, Mikael Lagré, who was able to shed some light on the creative process behind Mirror’s Edge.

What were you responsible for in the making of Mirror’s Edge?

My main responsibility and area of expertise on Mirror’s Edge was the control and gameplay for Faith and the first person animation systems. This includes coding a lot of the movement and physics and making sure we trigger the correct animations for Faith.

What would you consider to be the best part about working on this game?

There are so many great things about working on this game! I feel lucky to be part of a game that truly is original. I feel we have a great main character that I can relate to and seeing the progress we have made on first person movement makes you work that extra hours knowing you’re doing something special. We have a great team at DICE working on ME. There are a lot of talented people here at DICE sharing the same vision - to create something unique that shines quality.

Can you tell us a bit about your background, and how you started working on Videogames?

ME is my first game project. I’m 26 years old and like many other people I started playing games when I was a little kid. Mostly NES and some games on my PC 286… During my teenage years I sat at home creating small games in various programming languages while my friends where outside chasing girls. Eventually I studied game development at university for 3 years and ended up at a company in northern Sweden doing some graphics programming in Java. Half a year later I started working at DICE for “a new and exciting IP”.

Is there anything interesting about working at Dice that’s unique from other jobs?

Working with games is such a creative job and I wouldn’t want to work with anything else. I’m not sure how other game companies work but something I believe is unique to DICE is the culture here that we all have input on every aspect of the game. Even if you are a programmer you can discuss with design, sound and artist on what is best for the game.

Same goes for the artists and design they come to programmers and we all solve a specific problem together. I’ve had numerous conversations directly to our producer or our lead animator on how to solve certain movement of Faith. Maybe it’s not unique to other jobs but it certainly helps aiming for an awesome game here at DICE.

Other than that we have a great office here in Stockholm with a game-room where you can relax and play some pool or play some rock band, we have a lot of game corners with nice sofas to relax and play some games. We have a game store to buy games from and a personal favorite of mine is the nice breakfast we get every Friday.

What does your typical day look like?

There’s not a typical day at all - sometimes there is a lot of meetings during the day to discuss some areas of the game, other days you sit with the same bug for days without progress and some days you actually write code that eventually becomes what some people would call … a game. At least every day usually involves a lot of coffee.

Since my boss might be reading this I should mention that we do have a timeline to follow and it’s not only fun and play - timeline is usually certain tasks you need to finish during a 2 week period - so a typical day for myself as a software engineer would be:

Getting up and running to work (making sure I take the shortest path doing parkour-moves). Reading all new emails (Typical topics are: ‘game crashes when I…’ and ‘has someone seen my…’ etc). Continue working with the code you didn’t finish yesterday - writing some new code trying some new ideas - testing them on consoles/pc. Talking to design and artists about new features and how we should implement them. Reading the timeline for your tasks and getting nervous. Drinking some more coffee and really starting to get some results. Coding some more and eventually going home a tiny bit too late than I should only to dream about jumping and wallrunning…

What are your top 5 favorite games?

Kingdom Hearts, Psychonauts, FFXII, GTA IV and Rallisport Challenge 2.

What would you consider to be your most prominent inspirations for Mirror’s Edge?

Out of games I personally looked at Metroid Prime and Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for the first person movement and how they show their characters animations. Other than games I got a lot of inspirations from watching people doing crazy parkour moves on youtube. Again these are my personal inspirations.

Who, in the gaming industry, would you say has had the biggest influence on you?

Actually to be honest DICE had a big influence on me before I started working here since I was a huge fan of Rallisport Challenge 2 when that game came out. I enjoyed ICO when it came out on the PS2 but one of the greatest games that really shows that the team creating it had a lot of fun is Psychonauts (PS2, Xbox). If you haven’t played it stop reading this and go buy it!

Who do you think will enjoy Mirror’s Edge most?

Anyone that is looking for something new and fresh to play! I believe that a lot of people that enjoy playing 3rd person platform games will love playing Mirror’s Edge. I hope so.

Would you like to share anything else with readers of BagRunners.com?

At lot of people at DICE and in the ME-team are reading comments from users on various blogs, forums etc. Even though we cannot comment or engage in all discussions (we are too busy creating the games you are discussing) … most of us, myself included, read a lot of user feedbacks in forums and blogs so keep posting you opinions! We actually care.

Thank you for reading.

Mirror’s Edge will be in stores Nov. 13th, 2008.