Smashing!
(This
review contains minor spoilers!)
When the first Titanfall came out, I
ignored it completely. It just didn’t interest me at the time, and when the
game seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth a few months later, it
seemed justified. But when Titanfall 2 released to insane critical praise, I
just had to see what was up.
And in all honesty, I see what they
were talking about. Titanfall 2 has stolen long periods of my time away with an
incredibly polished experience that is guaranteed to be an enjoyable experience
for even the most cynical gamers. Everything in the game seems to have been
crafted with nothing but love and hard work by the developers at Respawn, which
clearly shines through and allows the game to give you everything it’s got and
never hold back.
The first thing the game does right is
the campaign. I’ve said before about how singleplayer and multiplayer modes
have been locked in a battle for the spotlight in games for years now (in fact, I wrote an entire editorial about it), but Titanfall 2 rectifies that by having
the campaign and multiplayer function as two separate entities that are able to
support themselves, instead of one relying on the other. The campaign is
self-contained, highly polished, and is honestly the highlight of the game.
You assume the role of soldier Jack
Cooper, a soldier training to someday pilot a titan of his own. But after a
mission gone wrong, you become accompanied by a titan named BT-7274, as you
venture to stop an evil corporation from powering a superweapon. Over the
course of the story, the two exchange some fun banter (you can even choose what
quip you want Cooper to respond with), but ultimately neither of them really
have much depth. BT is essentially Baymax from Big Hero 6, but with military
expertise instead of medical. He’s very loveable, yes, but that’s about it
unfortunately. You, as the player, are sort of able to dictate what kind of
person you want Cooper to be, although only extremely slightly through the
occasional choice of two options for what you want him to say. He’s thankfully
not the stereotypical angry soldier trying to avenge something we’ve seen ten
million times before, but I do wish he’d had a little more background. Nonetheless,
you grow connected and enjoy your time with both of them. The villains have
some fun personalities as well, but are ultimately flat and uninteresting.
Their plot is a standard “conquer the world with a superweapon” story, which
while it works fine in a game that in all honesty isn’t too focused on story, I
do wish a little more had been done with it.
At first I assumed that the campaign
was going to be the usual first-person shooter campaign: more or less a grounds
to learn the mechanics you’ll use in multiplayer mode. Titanfall 2 breaks those
expectations early on, as you are thrust into a jungle environment where you
must run, hide, and parkour your way around to find a battery for BT before the
goons of the evil corporation capture you. It’s a fantastic way to open the campaign,
and it only gets better from there. The ending in particular is insanely fun,
with great setpieces and bosses where you put everything you’ve learned over
the course of the 8 hour campaign to practice.
The campaign continues to break
expectations by introducing some elements that aren’t in the multiplayer at
all, such as an item that allows you to jump between the past and the present.
It’s an excellent idea that is executed perfectly, as you travel through the
ruins of a laboratory, only to press a button and find it when it is sterile
and operating. When confronted with a wall of enemies, with a click of a button
you warp back to the present, walk right through them, and then surprise them
from behind when you jump back to the past. Alternatively, the time travel
assists you in parkour, as you jump from a wall in the present to the wall in
the past, back and forth until you reach your destination. It’s an awesome
mechanic that tragically doesn’t get a lot of screentime.
Speaking of the wallrunning, I should
probably talk about the controls. They’re super tight, super firm, and you
never feel like you’ve lost control or the game was at fault for a death. I’ve
seen some pretty ridiculous moves be pulled off in multiplayer mode, and while
I’m nowhere near skilled enough to do some of the crazier stuff I’ve seen, the
parkour element to the game is easy to figure out for casual players. I do have
a one small nitpick, in that your character’s double jump is more of a second
jump. You don’t gain any extra height, and it’s used to gain distance over gaps
more than anything else. Honestly though, that’s really it.
The other main draw in Titanfall 2 is,
obviously, the titans. While it is an undeniable blast to stomp around the map
as a giant murder machine, tearing through foot soldiers like you were mowing
the lawn, they do come with their fair share of problems. While this isn’t as
evident in the campaign, in the multiplayer mode you’d think the titans were
made of plastic. The titans can only take a handful of hits from an opposing
titan before it’s all over and you have to wait a lengthy amount of time before
you summon it back. This wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that medkits
for your titan are few and far between, unless you retrieve one from killing an
enemy titan. Titans in multiplayer are less of an end-all superweapon and more
of a temporary power-up that’s fun while it lasts, but ultimately doesn’t last
long. It’s a shame, considering those few moments you get to control the game’s
namesake are an absolute joy.
Onto the multiplayer, Titanfall 2
continues the EA shooter tradition of having several different modes for you to
choose from depending on what you want, from Deathmatch, to Point Capture, to
no titans and more, there’s something for everyone here. Granted, not all these
modes were created equal, and some are significantly less fun than others. My
personal favourite is the Capture the Hardpoint mode, where you and your team
scramble to keep control of 3 points of interest. Deathmatch is a lot of fun as
well, as is the Bounty Hunt mode. Bounty Hunt is an incredibly clever idea,
with each kill of either enemy players or AI netting you money that you can
return at specially marked “banks” for a bonus. But the catch is that the more
cash you accumulate, the higher the bounty price on your head. Rinse and repeat
until one of the teams wins.
What’s cool about Titanfall 2 is that
even when you lose, there’s still a way to have fun. At the end of each
Multiplayer match there is an “Epilogue” segment, in which the losing team
attempts to escape to the dropship while the winning team tries to pick them
off and destroy the dropship. This adds a frantic extra chapter to multiplayer
matches as everyone scrambles to increase their final score ever so slightly,
and it can be a lot of fun. The thing is, the dropship is pretty easily
destroyed by the enemy team, especially considering most often they’re still in
their titans and cut through it like butter.
The best thing I can say about the
Titanfall 2 multiplayer is that it’s the type of game that results in a lot of
stories to tell afterwards. For example, I was playing Bounty Hunt when a
message popped up saying that a high bounty AI had appeared on the map. I
ventured into an orange aura, expecting the bounty to spawn in there. Seconds
later, true to the title of the game, a titan fell on me. All I could do was
laugh at my own obliviousness as the high bounty enemy I had hoped to pick off
for easy money wandered away, leaving my character no more than a smudge on the
ground.
You can customize both your pilot and
titan with multiple different builds, each with their own strengths and
weaknesses. I personally went with a more assassin-like build, allowing me to
turn invisible and charge at enemies with a close range rifle for quick and
easy kills. As for the titan, I took how quickly the titans ran out of HP into
account, choosing a more defensive build that prioritized health and defense.
There’s really something here for every playstyle, and no pilot or titan is
without their strengths or weaknesses.
The one thing I really disliked about
the multiplayer is that ultimately it’s not super memorable. All of the maps
are gray and indistinct from each other, and there’s no real incentive to keep
going except to unlock the next gun, which kind of rings hollow once you’ve
found a build that resonates with you. That’s not to say the multiplayer is
bad. Far from it. While it’s really good, I’d still say that the campaign is
ultimately the more entertaining part of the game and that there’s better
first-person multiplayer shooters on the market right now. While it’s one of my
few gripes with the game overall, it’s still a pretty major one, and it
concerns me for the future of the game.
That’s not to sell the game short at
all, because Titanfall 2 is a fantastic example of a shooter that is able to
juggle both singleplayer and multiplayer experiences, ultimately creating a
game that is satisfying in all aspects. The campaign is surprisingly engrossing
and invigorating, standing out from the opposition and creating an experience
that sticks in your mind. And while it’s not perfect by any means, the
multiplayer continues to delight in its frantic, fast-paced action and multiple
modes. If the hero-based multiplayer of Overwatch isn’t your jam, I would
heartily recommend Titanfall 2. It’s one of the most fun experiences I’ve had
with a game this year, and I think you’d agree.
FINAL SCORE
8/10
Great
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