In DICE’s parkour first-person action game, Mirror’s Edge, you’ll be using the city as your personal playground - you’ll be moving quickly, from rooftop to rooftop, jumping and sliding over and under cranes, fences, and other obstacles that are between you and where you need to be. And you’ll be taking down whoever gets in your way by pulling off some fancy kung-fu close range combat moves. There is some gunplay involved, though those moments are said to be short and only last until you empty a clip.

The game was unveiled to the gaming press behind closed doors at GDC’08, and the impressions that have been popping up have been generally fairly positive. Below are a few snippets from sites that were present and saw the game in motion.

Gametap: “One of the coolest aspects of the demo was how the aesthetics of the city play into helping you know where to navigate. While white is the predominant color, highlights of red come into focus as you get closer; the red signifies a place that Faith can climb or jump to.”

GameDaily: “The whole concept of free running, especially when it involves making dangerous jumps hundreds of feet in the air intrigues us, especially since all this happens from the character’s eyes, and you get to chain moves together, building combos by jumping over things and sliding underneath them.”

Kotaku: “..the game is all about momentum. Take a few steps back…then run as fast as you can, jump to the next building, roll out of the landing, slide over an obstacle, hop a fence, surf down a crane, leap for the next rooftop (in bullet time) and…fall short, grasping onto a drain pipe…until you climb up to safety.”

Hopefully DICE won’t hold back a gameplay video for too long, and we’ll be able to see how they’ve managed the movement for ourselves pretty soon. For now, hit the Mirror’s Edge gallery for a handful of new screens that were released today.

The game is still on track for an ‘08 release on PS3, X360 and PC.

[See also: Mirror's Edge gallery]