It seems that 2007 is the “Year of the Shooter”, since a lot of games pertaining to this genre have been released in late 2006, gaining their glory in 2007, or are about to be released this fall.

Among them are of course Hal 3 for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Crytek’s Crysis, both of them scheduled for this autumn. If we also mention Codemasters’ Jericho and the fresh announcement of a Gears of War port from Xbox 360 to PC, we have a pretty good picture of what momma’s gonna tell us soon about our social life…

And as if that wasn’t enough, the Swedish guys DICE Studios, now in the property of gaming behemoth Electronic Arts, have announced yet another shooter, called Mirror’s Edge. The game currently being developed in Stockholm will be multiplatform (PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) and aims to redefine how gamers think and feel about the old FPS genre.

DICE general manager Patrick Soderlund, linked the FPS advances of the FPS game to those it made on Battlefield, saying, “We are a studio that believes in taking risks and taking games in new directions. We made the sandbox experience viable and enjoyable in Battlefield and now, we are looking to do something radical with the traditional established mechanics of first person movement.”

Senior producer Owen O’Brien added, “We want to change the way that players are able to move in first person. No more restrictions, no more being blocked by simple barriers such as walls and fences. We want to enable the player to move like a real person, with the ability to run, jump, vault and slide in a way that has never been seen before in a first person game.”

Mirror’s Edge is scheduled for 2008.