I’m genuinely fed up with platform games. After all the me-too snoozefests, there’s just no hop left in my bop. But at its core, Mirror’s Edge is essentially a platformer…and we think it’s poised to become one of this year’s most innovative, head-turning games. What gives?

A brilliant application of style and creativity, that’s what. Even the story’s got juicy sci-fi hooks that lay an ideal foundation for the gameplay: In a futuristic city where movement and the flow of information are tightly controlled, people turn to runners to transport their private data. As the lean, mean Faith (huge props, EA DICE, for making her a trim, athletic badass, instead of another cartoon-proportioned Lara-alike), you typically flit unhindered by the police across rooftops, a courier without a care but with an awe-inspiring arsenal of parkour-style free-running talents. But suddenly, something changes. Your sister’s been captured, the cops are all over you…and after that agonizing tease of a setup, EA DICE senior producer Owen O’Brien’s lips were sealed.

Still, if you’ve seen the game’s dazzling first trailer, he knows what you’re curious about: “As great as the game is, is it all about running on white rooftops?” asks O’Brien with a twinkle in his eyes. “Well, no — it isn’t.” We got our paws on the controller to tear through two levels, and the man ain’t lyin’.

The first level, though, is those white rooftops. Early in the game, they’re a captivating way to get your feet under you and get moving. The key controls are LB (which is “up”) and LT (which is “down”). As you scramble with frantic grace across this vertigo-inspiring obstacle course, you hit LT to slide under barriers, tuck into a roll, drop from cables — anything that involves moving your body “down.” And that means LB is for scrambling up walls, grabbing ledges, and so on. It instantly makes sense, but it’s hardly automatic. We plummeted to our demise a couple of times before getting a feel for guiding Faith through the air, and we’re pleased to report that all the free-running segments are sooo not canned. Anyone who can make this game look easy will have spent loads of time perfecting their skills.

Next up was a previously unseen sequence in a massive storm drain. Part puzzler and part platformer, it challenged us to pick out a path to the top and make precarious leap after leap. There, the cops were waiting for us, and we learned one of the game’s key lessons. As O’Brien puts it, “Faith’s tough, but she’s also fragile.” Successful attacks (see the six-screen sequence above) require cunning and caution: if you run straight at a cop with a gun, he’ll pop you and drop you…which makes loads of sense, right? We loved the sensation of not being God’s gift to soldiering, of having to work out canny approaches to taking cover and springing out when the moment was ripe.

While we also dug Mirror’s Edge’s obvious stylishness and dazzling graphics, we were most impressed by its first-person perspective. Usually first-person is just a steerable window that gives you no sense of your character’s body — but here, you feel like you’re right behind Faith’s eyeballs. Her arms and legs flash out right when they should, wind whips past her ears, and if she bumps into a wall while carrying a gun, she automatically shifts it out of the way just like a real person would have to. No HUD mars the show; there’s only a tiny reticule to help you line up jumps. Little details, for sure, but they magically make the game feel surprisingly compelling. O’Brien nails why: “It’s action/adventure, but from a new perspective — something you’ve never seen before.” Music to our ears.