Titanfall 2 Review

Awesome missions, a solid dependable multiplayer, no cut content and no botched launch; this is more than what we can expect from some big companies at the moment. With some games in the past having a horrific launch, a terrible multiplayer or issues a-plenty with their campaign. The recently released Battlefield 1 is plagued with two major issues; limited weapon choice in multiplayer and a very short campaign, it took my five hours to complete the whole thing. Honestly? That is far too short. Far, far too short.

Yet despite Titanfall 2 having no issues akin to this, having met all the requirements for a fantastic game such as an awesome campaign, an incredible multiplayer experience and a variety of weapon and class choices along with a very successful launch. It isn’t as highly praised or as successful as it should be, no, deserves to be.

Titanfall 2 is a first person multiplayer which focuses heavily on movement, such as free-running, wall hanging and jumping on top of giant mechs known as titans! Whilst this is nothing we haven’t seen before, it is executed in a far better fashion that the likes of Call of Duty, where it feels forced and you have to make a conscious effort in order to take advantage of all of these abilities. In Titanfall 2? Everything feels natural, it feels smooth and given five minutes of practice it is something any player can learn to do very successfully.

Something that Titanfall 2 does have, which its predecessor sadly lacked, is a single player campaign. Something that the community cried out for and something that Titanfall 2 delivered, and my god is it good.

Each mission has a unique feel to it, incredible in its own right and with its own twists turns and developments that make you want to replay that mission again! The game does start off on a dark note however, plunging you into the thick of conflict where you watch nothing short of a massacre unfold before your very own eyes. As I played, I feared that the quality of the campaign would slowly degenerate and would slowly become more generic and simplistic.

Warning! Minor spoiler ahead!

Then they threw it at me, a level which featured perfectly executed time travel. You warp between the present and another time, only those two points but you take advantage of that to use the difference in scenery to allow you to get the drop on enemies in one of the two times. At first it felt like a bit of a crutch, since I was able to take advantage of it and use the ability to travel distance in order to get the drop on my enemies and melee them when I changed back into the time they were located in. After a short while however, the game threw enemies at me in both times, fighting the local wildlife in the present, situated in the ruined research facility and fighting the security forces situated in the past, back when the facility was still functional. It took a lot of time and effort as I had to be careful where I moved into the different times, more than once I would move into the past to find myself staring directly down the barrel of a gun, with barely a chance to say “Oh shit.” before I met my untimely end.

The campaign only improved from there, but I would rather encourage you to find out for yourself. It was hard enough to mention the mission above without including countless spoilers in the intricate web of a plot which Titanfall 2 boasts.

Multiplayer is a bit hit and miss, it feels that some massive and much needed improvements needed to some of the old game modes; Attrition being one of them. Instead of a stale and constant grind where the enemies remain relatively the same throughout, the AIs get stronger and more powerful units spawn. Starting from the weak, human grunts followed by the specters, robotic armoured infantry and then stalkers, bigger larger and meaner versions of the specters and finally reapers which are simply mini-titans that prowl around and can decimate a fair amount of the enemy team!

One gamemode that isn’t as appealing is Bount Hunt, you and your team rush certain drop zone where remnant forces are crashing to the ground and you attempt to wipe them out and obtain a bounty, killing enemy players gives you funds which you then run back to the deposits to score. The huge issue with this is that often you will find enemy team will have cloaked pilots hiding near the banks and as soon as you approach they blow you up with C4, it gets rather tedious after a while.

Overall the game has also made some huge graphical improvements which overall are absolutely incredible. The game looks smoother and it feels that everything isn’t shaded with the same shade of grey, making it easier to tell the difference between a wall and a grunt which in the original Titanfall occasionally proved more than difficult.

Also…

You CAN hack specters in multiplayer! I don’t know WHY so many people are saying you can’t!