TitanFall Review

[Mr.TaLaL]

Available on Xbox One (tested), PC (Xbox 360 from March 28)

 

Just a year on from release, it’s slightly depressing that some consider Titanfall another of last year’s next-gen damp squibs. Respawn’s shooter was pointedly ignored in many of last year’s best of lists, and I’ve actually heard fellow journalists who gave it five star or ten out of ten reviews on release describe it as a weak or uninteresting game. But launch Titanfall on your Xbox One or gaming PC and you’ll soon remember why we all got so excited about it in the first place. Even after Destiny, Far Cry 4 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Titanfall is arguably the best competitive shooter of the last few years.

 

Too many people focus on what Respawn got wrong: the dull narrative, the failed attempt to make a multiplayer shooter feel like a single-player campaign, and the lack of destructible scenery. Instead, take a good look at what Respawn got right. Titanfall mixes two scales of combat together, with the fast-moving, nimble but vulnerable pilots on the one hand and the hulking, heavily armed and armoured Titans on the other, and makes each scale work brilliantly, and mesh seamlessly together. Controls and player movement on both scales are nigh-on perfect, and Titanfall’s maps – the vast majority are excellent – do a fantastic job of providing high-speed parkour routes for the pilots and open stomping grounds and choke points for the Titans.

 

Titanfall

 

The subtleties and balance of the gameplay have only got better with each new patch or update. The Titans might seem impregnable and overpowering, with their massive cannons, rocket launchers and chainguns, their heavy armour and their crushing feet, but Respawn counters with the pilot’s cloak and stim (speed boost) abilities, their ability to leap onto Titans and attack them from the shell (the Rodeo manoeuvre) and by giving pilots weapons that can do genuine damage to the stomping behemoths.

 

Getting into a Titan and kicking ass never gets tired, particularly because the game’s score to reduce the drop time mechanics turn it into a reward for working hard on the battlefield. Yet playing as a pilot is so much fun that losing a Titan never spoils the enjoyment. The groups of AI controlled grunts and spectres ensure that there’s action and excitement even when no other players are in range. It’s hard to think of another shooter where the entertainment to dead time ratio is so high.
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