It is fair to say that the original Titanfall didn’t quite live up to the hype that surrounded it before launch. It look as though Microsoft had pulled off a massive coup by picking up the first game from Respawn. Remember, these were the guys behind making Call of Duty the behemoth it now is. The ones behind Modern Warfare, arguably the standard bearer of the series. And in Titanfall they created a fantastic First Person Shooter, mechanically. The way it played demonstrated that these guys knew what they were doing. But what let the game down was the lack of content for it, which led to repetitiveness which saw the number of gamers playing the game drop. I enjoyed myself with the original, but after 40+ hours I felt that I had done all I could. Based on that, I had high hopes that Respawn would listen to the feedback, and build on the very solid base that they set themselves.
I love a first person shooter’ and there was a time where I would play multiplayer for hours on end, be it online, or locally with friends. However I am much more likely to play through a campaign than devote myself to a multiplayer mode. That being said I do absolutely love the multiplayer in EA’s other big shooter Battlefield 1. Anyway, I was very glad to hear that Titanfall 2 was going to have a fully-fledged campaign, something its predecessor sorely lacked. And what I’d heard about it in the build-up was getting me excited.
You are Pilot Cooper (who doesn’t start the game as a pilot) and you’re quickly thrust into a more prominent position in the war than he was expecting. You take control of a Titan called BT that you adopt after his current pilot (and your mentor) dies. I won’t divulge much more of the plot, which dips its toes into an unexpected area of time travel at one point, but I will say that the pacing of the game is very well done. It isn’t full on action all the time, you are given the opportunity to take in and appreciate the well-crafted areas on quite a few occasions. Whether you are walking and talking with BT, or traversing the environment using your parkour abilities in one of the many well thought out platforming sections of the game, it is nice to be able to take a step back from the shooting.
In terms of the story itself, it does a job. It is good enough to keep you interested in what’s going on. Though I feel that Respawn could have done more with character development across the board. The relationship between Cooper and BT is decent, with the expected AI taking things too literally at the base of the majority of the humour. The option to choose what you say next in a dialogue is nice, but doesn’t have any bearing on the game at all really, and you’re likely to need to go through them all anyway, so you end up just picking the order in reality. In terms of the enemies, they are introduced in a way where you think there may be some interesting story about them, but you end up hearing a handful of dialogue lines before eventually killing them.
The voice acting in the game is well done. Nothing seems robotic or anything like that which is down to decent writing and the voice actors themselves. Despite the lack of depth provided for each character, the voice actors have performed their lines well. Sticking with the audio side of things, the game is strong from the menu music, to the sounds on each weapon sounding distinct enough to appreciate their difference from each other.
As you’d likely expect, multiplayer is a major focus of Titanfall 2, and invest a lot of time with the game, the likelihood is the majority of it will be spent here. It’s safe to say Respawn have done a great job here. And while it doesn’t seem quite a quick as the first game, it is still extremely good, arguably better. There is more variety in terms of game modes, loadouts for both pilots and titans, and plenty of maps to keep you busy. There are strengths and weaknesses to both pilots and titans and there is still nothing quite like being able to take down a titan on your own as a pilot. A real David v Goliath fight off. Just like I felt with the original game, Capture the Flag is absolutely brilliant. No other game since Halo 2 has given me an adrenaline rush quite like it. Grabbing the flag surrounded by enemy titans, grapple hooking away, wall running, sliding and shooting your way back to your own base as quickly as possible.
Titanfall 2 is a resounding success in my eyes. It’s given me the relief to the itch that Call of Duty hasn’t quite been able to scratch for a good few years. While the story itself isn’t too strong (that is by no means saying that it is bad) the gameplay and enjoyment you’ll have in the campaign is a great strength. And its multiplayer is lots of fun. Even if you aren’t playing for hours on end, it serves as a great solution to filling up an hour here and there. Unfortunately reports are suggesting that the sales of the game aren’t that strong currently, which isn’t too surprising coming sandwiched between BF1 and COD, and after a year featuring the likes of Gears 4 and Doom it was always going to be difficult. But I would argue that Titanfall 2 is as enjoyable, if not more so that most of them, and I’d implore you to pick it up and see for yourself.
**Thank you to XCN for providing the review copy of the game**