It took a while for the first major franchise game arrive for this generation of consoles, but arrive it did, touching down in the form of Titanfall on 14^th March 2014 for us European gamers.

The game itself was hyped highly by Microsoft; touted as being a revolution in multiplayer gaming and a vision of what next-gen online experiences will be going forward. In the weeks leading up to the release you couldn’t move for Titanfall promo material, be it TV advertising, online pop-up windows, published advertising or console dashboard panels. To say the game was omnipresent was probably underselling its coverage if anything.

Indeed, so complete was the media saturation, I was quite surprised to arrive at the midnight release to find a pretty low turnout. Now I haven’t been to a midnight game release since the heady days of Halo 2, when the queue began at about 23:15 and trailed several hundred yards down the road so perhaps times have moved on since then, but the small numbers on show seemed surprising to me. Hell, I showed up at about 23:50 and had my game in hand by about 00:05, which tells you more about the length of queue than the efficiency of what must have been some very tired staff.

So, we’d all seen the marketing blurb, many of us had viewed the trailers and a fair few of us had played the BETA, so what was there really to see that we hadn’t already experienced’ either first or second hand?

The answer was, in all honesty, not a lot, while at the same time quite a lot.

So, first things first; the game is very, very pretty. It’s a next gen game, so of course it’s a visually impressive title. The player characters are suitably flashy looking, as are the Grunts & Spectres, though from my best impressions there aren’t a lot of character models for the latter two. I found myself brutally murdering a swathe of identical clones fairly quickly, which, while not unusual in gaming, it’s disappointing to see so few character models. Indeed, my main gripe from an aesthetics perspective is the inability to manually change your character model. The model seems to change depending on the loadout you choose, which is, I suppose, all well and good, but it would be nice to have the choice as to how you looked, other than a standard male/female model change.

The titular Titans are limited to a choice of three robot death-machines: the all-rounder Atlas from the BETA, the quick but fragile Stryder and the slow but tough Ogre. Not an especially inspired division of types, but a choice obviously grounded in gameplay balance. Each titan handles more or less the same generally, with a slight change in speed or shield power, as well as more or less boosts dependant on type. However, while this might feel like a bit of a cop out on first view, the fact that no one type feels significantly better than the other makes all three a viable choice, something vital for a decent competitive online game. Also, don’t expect any more Titan types in DLC; the developers have already stated that as balance is the key factor and that adding an extra Titan type would play hell with the balancing, they are unlikely to release new types. New skins for your mechanical behemoths though? I’d say the smart money is on that.

The thing that really impresses visually, however, is the environments and maps. Virtually dripping with character, the game worlds you variously occupy and traverse during the game are expertly designed and depicted. While you rarely have the chance to stop and admire the view, I would recommend taking a moment to do so where possible. Simply put, some of them, the space maps in particular, are truly breath-taking in the illusion of scale they portray.

But, Titanfall is a multiplayer online game, meaning that what really matters is the gameplay; so how is it? Frenetic would probably be the best word to use. As each team only has human players, Respawn Entertainment have made the maps fairly condensed and the respawn delays even more so, meaning the gap between death and being back in the thick of the action is very short indeed. Combined with the rapidity of player movement and you’ve got yourself a game that feels like playing an FPS on fast forward.

Standing still in this game is a death sentence, as shown in our video piece. Your character’s well documented wall running is vital to staying alive and when you go back to other games you’ll start to wonder how you ever managed without it. I can’t stress enough how quick the game is. The weapons are exceptionally lethal and your character very vulnerable, meaning you die very quickly and suddenly. This is a world where twitch reflexes are king and motion-sickness the jester. I took a break to play Battlefield 4 at one point and it felt like my system was running slow. That’s not to say that Titanfall is better or worse than games like Battlefield, it’s just a very different experience. Never mind Call of Duty or Battlefield, Titanfall is more like the Unreal Tournament games of old; all-action, cinematic blockbusters in contrast or the more structured and considered military shooters available today.

The main issue with Titanfall compared to the aforementioned online shooters is its paucity of customisability options. In each customisability section there’s only a few things to unlock, meaning that I can’t see there being a whole lot of longevity to playtime. Couple this with the fact that the game modes are limited in number and boil down to a few fairly tired, standard modes and the game structure itself isn’t anything to shout about. It’s a good thing the action is so engaging. To be honest you’re not really thinking about the lack of mission modes when you’re stood astride a Titan’s roof, desperately trying to shoot out its health before the pilot ejects you both into the stratosphere and you engage in a shootout while falling back to earth. Funny that isn’t it?

All in all, Titanfall is a good game. It’s an engaging and action-packed experience, even being described as cinematic by my Faulty Pixel Show colleagues in our video playthrough. while many will love the frenetic gameplay, others are going to struggle with its demands on being constantly active; the game will divide opinions severely and its likely you’re either going to love it or loath it; I can’t see there being much middle ground.

As an online game Titanfall is an enjoyable experience. While it may be limited in game modes, character models and customisability, it’s very well stocked in scale, grandeur and all out robot-bashing, neck-snapping, knuckle-whitening action.

And really, isn’t that enough?

© 2014, zero1gaming.com. All rights reserved. On republishing this article your must provide a link to this original post