Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Titanfall!

With my tax return I invested in an X-Box One and Titanfall because I was going to jump into the next generation of consoles eventually and this game looked awesome. I like the One's interface menu. It's simple and very similar to the 360's so I wasn't confused when I jumped in. The party system is a little more complicated to start up than on the 360, but it runs just as well once it's going so the switch of consoles hasn't been a difficult learning experience. The odd thing was when I inserted a DVD and had to download a DVD/Bluray player program. I don't know why that wasn't just on the machine to start with.

But enough about the console let's talk about the game Titanfall. I haven't full explored all the multiplayer options, but I've got over twenty hours in the game and I've beaten the campaign on both sides; IMC and Militia so I've got a pretty solid base for my opinion. And that opinion is that this game is awesome. It's missing some bells and whistles like renaming your classes, but it does have a gender choice for classes so it does have that going for it. Any complaint I have about the game is along the cosmetic side of things. Just the peripheral stuff that CoD and Gotham City Impostors have of getting emblems and titles for doing challenges and letting people see them. The fact that there is no real benefit to prestiging is kind of a bummer. At least extra class slots and with the titan loadouts as well it would be easy to alternate gaining an extra pilot and titan loadout for each prestige.

The gameplay is phenomenal. To start with the basic FPS part of the game is very well done. Everything moves smoothly and it's a polished shooter as you would expect from the guys who brought the world Modern Warfare 1 & 2. The weapon selection is smaller than most modern shooters, but everything is balanced fairly well and serves a different purpose. Although I haven't used the LMG or the Kraber sniper much the rest of the guns all feel good. They all have strengths and weaknesses and it's good that every weapon has some kind of limitation and strong point. I don't really have a favorite for weapons, but when it comes to Ordnance I prefer the satchel charge. The others like frag grenade, arc mine, and arc grenade have their benefits, but for me satchel charge is where it's at. More oomph and all I need to do is double tap x after tossing it. Well worth the shorter range and having to manually detonate it.

The second half of this game is the Titan combat and it's exciting as well. I don't have experience with other mech games, but I like the slower, but heavier feel the titans have compared to the pilots. I'm also not very good with my titan yet, but the difference in how the game plays between being on foot and being in the titan is obvious, but how well combat is balanced between the two is perfect. Titan weapons will do good damage to another titan, but pilots can evade the damage if they are careful and throw out more damage against them with the anti-titan weapons. The way the maps work with these two different forms of combat is amazing. There are awesome wall running sections and elevated paths for the pilots to take and offer lots of different ways to move around, but the titans get more standard FPS map patterns to follow and face each other. As a pilot you can ignore enemy titans and fight other pilots or the minions that spawn for the enemy side.

Which brings me to another wonderful aspect of this game the minions and specters that spawn as NPCs in the game. They provide a good feeling when you are having a bad game or if you aren't an FPS superstar and allow you a way to help your team in a game of attrition or in other game modes to grab a Titan faster. It's a really good choice to keep the maps full when everybody is on foot and doesn't make things feel overly full once a bunch of people get in their titans which changes the size of the match. It's just an amazing job that Respawn did of balancing the changes in combat between pilots and titans and it's so amazing to look at for their first showing as a studio on a big game that is there to sell a new console and they nailed it out of the park. The game lacks single player which is fine with me, because the single player of an FPS is always more of a chore and they make the story play out in multiplayer maps which tell a basic, but solid story which is all I ask for from an FPS in the first place.

They make up for the lack of single player by having fifteen maps which is a crazy big number for a shooter to come with standard now and I haven't had any maps I don't like. Some of them are a little unbalanced in Hardpoint, but nothing that makes me hate a map. It's got five basic game modes which isn't a ton, but they provide enough change of pace amongst each other. I wouldn't be surprised to see more game modes come out with the DLC either. Although balancing a game mode with the titans and pilots might be difficult, but I trust them to come out with a strong way to do it.

I am loving this game so far. It's a great FPS that does a lot to change how the genre works and is all the better for it. Definitely a game that makes jumping into the next gen of consoles worth while and it is the game that sold me on the X-Box One as I was debating which console I was going to go with. I don't regret the decision I've made yet.