Get Titanfall - PC

CUSTOMER REVIEW



I'll start by saying this is a very very polished game. It looks good, the gameplay is smooth and the balance is superb. For me anyway, the launch has been completely smooth with no server issues or game-breaking bugs.



Weapons: Nothing Earth-shattering here. You have your standard shooter arsenal. Pistols, Shotguns, Machine Guns, Rocket Launchers, etc. Some weapons have cool twists, like the smart pistol. Many people will hear about the smart pistol and immediately roll their eyes. It sounds ridiculously overpowered, a gun that locks on and then doesn't miss. Why would you use anything else?! Well, the developers were careful to keep it balanced. The smart pistol has a short range and takes a while to lock on. So a standard point-and-shoot will be superior in many situations.



Movement: It is very freeing to double-jump around, run along walls, etc. This is a welcome change from other shooters where there are pre-defined ramps and corridors. It wouldn't be easy to camp in this game, because the enemy can come from anywhere. It honestly takes a bit of getting used to. The maps still have the ramps and streets you're accustomed to, so you just slip into the habit of walking around on the ground, which is a decidedly bad idea in this game.



Titans: This is the part that is really different. Mixing mech-based combat with a first person shooter, AND preserving balance. There are three types of titans, basically a fast light one, a heavy tank, and an in-between. As you level up, you can customize abilities to suit your style. You have to be careful, as once your shield is gone, any damage you take is permanent (unlike when you're on foot). I was concerned that they may be something like tanks in battlefield, where the map deploys a certain number of titans and whoever gets there first wins. That's not the case, everybody can summon their titan after a few minute cooldown. They are certainly most effective in packs, and I found myself staying on foot most of the time.



The individual components of this game aren't particularly original. Perfect Dark had a locking pistol back in the day, there have been countless mech games (was always partial to starsiege, but that may reveal my age), parkour was in Mirror's Edge and double jumping has been a scout thing in team fortress 2 for years. However, combining all these things was just executed so well. When on foot, I have no hesitation trying to take out titans by jumping on them (though some abilities will make me more hesitant as people level up). When there's a bunch of enemy titans, I summon mine to bring out the big guns.



Worth noting, however, is the lack of a proper campaign. I know that most people don't care anymore, but I still enjoy a single-player story. Even an atrocious one, like battlefield and CoD are known for, would be welcome. As it is, the game has a multiplayer campaign. So it goes through a story, where the allies and enemies are played by real people. The problem with this, is it makes the story incredibly hard to follow. Single-player campaigns rely on stopping the action at key moments to tell a story. If it's multiplayer, you can't stop the action. There is plot dialog going on while you're fighting, but it's hard to follow because you're distracted. This annoyed me a little, but honestly the game is so strong that I'll forgive the lack of real campaign.



**Update 3/17**

Still loving the game, though I thought it worth mentioning burn cards. They are kind of tedious. Basically, you get cards, which serve as temporary buffs when you use them. They are good for exactly one life, and you can only have 26 in your deck. This means that unless you stay on top of them, your deck will fill and prevent you from getting new ones. I would prefer it if they were implemented more like Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. In that game, you pick a buff for the whole round and you can hold more of them.



Sometimes, someone sneaks up on you and kills you. It happens, but if you just used a burn card, oh well. Your gun may be more powerful, but you never saw that guy and thus never fired. So it would be nice to have a buff for an entire round, which really isn't very long, but at least it guarantees you get a chance to use it.