Hands-on with Mirror's Edge, Mercenaries 2, FIFA 09 and Brothers in Arms...

On Saturday I had the opportunity to attend the Multiplay Festival at Stoneleigh Park in the UK. Although the event was mainly aimed at PC gamers there were a few PS3s set up demonstrating upcoming games.

I was able to observe an EA representative playing Mirror's Edge. The graphics appeared clean, crisp and visually distinct. I was impressed that the restart points after deaths were frequent. My only concern was that the 1st person viewpoint seemed to make it hard to see the edge of the buildings, making it easy to fall off.

The next game that I saw was Brother in Arms: Hell's Highway. Visually it was a very detailed game. There was a slow motion bullet time when the demonstrator got headshots, which added to the atmosphere of the experience. The gameplay appeared to be smooth and polished, with the squad directions well implemented.

Next I moved onto FIFA 09. I played FIFA in both single and multiplayer. Both game modes were smooth, with very good graphics. EA seem to have worked hard to make the graphics even more realistic, which has resulted in a great looking game - however the game did seem much slower. I found that in both modes it was harder to score than in previous FIFA games.

Finally I got to the highlight of my day, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. I've been looking forward to Mercenaries since it was announced and I wasn't disappointed. I chose to play as Jennifer Mui and was able to start the game from the beginning.

You are thrown right into the action and the game holds your hand with an excellent tutorial. The first fifteen minutes of the game are linear giving you the opportunity to learn the controls, fire a few guns and drive a couple of vehicles. After that you get to roam the local area, completing missions in any order you want.

To conclude it was a great day, which proved that there are some exciting games coming soon to the PS3.