Titanfall pushed the power of the Xbox One to the limits of the console. The in-depth AI that ran around the map while you were looking out for enemy players and automatic Titans. Not only was the game worthy of all the awards it had, but it helped push the first person shooter genre forward from the stagnation it had been experiencing since the Call of Duty Monster had taken over. Not only was Titanfall innovative, it changed the way games allow you get to around the map and in different ways produced a chaotic game lobby and gameplay. Many fans look at Titanfall as a failure mostly because the game didn’t keep it’s player base from lack of content, but it wasn’t meant to keep your attention for 3 years like Destiny was marketed as.
1: Movement
When Vince Zampella announced he was leaving the Call of Duty team I didn’t know what to think. He was the mastermind behind arguably one of the best campaigns in modern video game shooter history with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The way the game progressed and never stopped from the beginning made that game great, even good enough to get a remaster 9 years later. Titanfall falls under this category of progressing and pushing games beyond what we thought was possible. Many games have tried the parkour movement (Mirrors Edge) without the success that TF had. Wall running was seamless and felt just as easy as running across the ground. Not only was playing as a Pilot easy, but the Titan movement was just as seamless, the only way to describe this movement is smooth and controlled. Everything that game did was near perfection and brought its own unique part of the game. With Titanfall 2 on the near horizon, I can’t fathom how the movement can get any better, but can it?
2: Weapon Diversity
Military Shooters have long been repetitive in the weapons they put into their games. Take the COD franchise, the M4 and M16 have been in nearly every game since MW in 2007. Even in Battlefield, the same weapons have taken over multiplayer, which doesn’t encourage you to branch out and take risks in your gameplay. And even when you use the weapons, they all feel the same, the only exception to this is the Sniper class in BF. Titanfall changes this. Every weapon feels and acts differently in the game, the SMG and the Assault Rifle all felt different, even the controller would vibrate differently as you pulled the trigger. Not only were the pilot weapons different, but so were the Titan weapons. The balance of all the weapons made for a very good battlefield for the players to compete on. Some weapons were slow and hard to use, but did massive damage if you hit the right spot, others were fast paced but needed a lot of ammunition to do massive amounts of damage. Even the grenades and secondary’s all had their benefits and downfalls that mixed well together. Adding to the diversity of weapons, was the diversity of enemies. Even competing against live players, there was AI with just as powerful weapons that could do damage against you.
3: Content
Titanfall launched with 15 multiplayer maps and 33 weapons, including the Titan weapons. The diverse weaponry helped to keep the gamers occupied for during the spring launch it had in 2014. Many people bought an Xbox One just to play Titanfall. For someone to say that the lack of content kept the game from being “successful,” and keeping gamers intrigued and engaged in the game, is inherently, wrong. The game suffered from the launch of the Masterchief Collection, Destiny, and Call of Duty in the fall. Any game that is multiplayer will always suffer a loss in players when those games come out. While there were 15 maps that launched, 9 more were added within 12 months of launch with DLC. The maps were some of the best in gaming history, even the DLC maps were fantastic. Respawn did an impeccable job at producing a game that was nearly flawless in less than a year.
With the launch of Titanfall 2 on October 28th, the second installment to one of the best multiplayer games will now have a single player campaign. If I were to pick one critique of the first game, it would be the lack of story in the game. I wanted to dive into that world. I wanted to learn more about how the Pilots are trained and what the Titans do when the Pilots aren’t around. The last game I remember being this hyped about was Halo 2, and even then I don’t think it was this much. Bright horizons are ahead for Respawn, and I’m looking forward to many successful games from Vince Zampella.
Kuma Unique Baity
June 26, 2016 at 12:46 am
Digging it. I can’t wait for Titanfall 2 to drop.