TitanFall (PC) Game Review: Worth Picking Up?

Updated: March 25, 2014

Hello Techfans! These days a lot of the biggest budget releases tend to be new entries in long running franchises, with some games hitting as many as 7 or 8 games back to back to back once a year recently. As a result, new IP’s rarely get the same amount of love and attention, unless of course it’s the first new work from a new studio composed of a lot of well known team members that abandoned one of those current dynasty franchises, which is what has made Titanfall one of the most talked about and anticipated games of this year. Titanfall is the first game from Respawn Entertainment which consists of a lot of the guys responsible for COD 4: Modern Warfare, and COD MW2, both games argued by many to be the peak of the COD franchise and responsible for creating much of the modern day warfare craze in the FPS genre. Respawn’s goal was often times stated to be that they wanted to shake things up a bit again, and get away from this formula they helped create, and Titanfall is meant to be the game that hopefully changes things once again, moving towards a sci fi setting with new and different mechanics, and in many ways I have to say it’s a fantastic step forward.

To begin with this game is entirely multiplayer focused, there is no single player campaign or any kind of side mode, the entire game is built around and focused on it’s 6v6 mode, meaning that this was the sole focus of the development team. Players take on the role of Pilots, fighting on foot with means very familiar to a lot of FPS conventions, albeit with the addition of a lot more mobility options including a wall run and double jump ability. What really sets Titanfall apart though is of course Titans, monstrous personal mechs that every player can summon during a match to force a change in team tactics. All match types are permanently set to 6v6 in every mode, and while maps are larger than most traditional 12 player designs, the use of Titans and the games inclusion of AI controlled minion soldier’s helps to keep the action alive across the entire landscape.

At it’s core there’s a lot of things familiar about Titanfall that have simply been reconstructed or changed up to fit it’s new approach, the majority of which I really like personally. First off the game doesn’t use any kind of Killstreak system, instead giving all player and titan abilities either a cooldown period after use, or set them on a timer you have to wait for. The only exception is the ability to summon a titan itself, which while requiring a timer initially, can be sped up through good performance like killing minions, pilots, or simply damaging enemy titans. This means that all players share a similar frequency of power use instead of simply based on kills, so it doesn’t give any kind of ridiculous momentum to someone with an early advantage or punish those players unlucky enough to get sent into a match midway through.

Gunplay on foot feels very similar to the COD franchise (for fairly good reasons), though recoil across all guns feels a lot weaker compared to most games. The new mobility options give pilot’s a crazier amount of speed than most games, and players definitely feel rewarded for learning the fastest ways to travel across the game’s 16 different maps. While titans control for the most part very similarly to pilots, the lack of jump and inclusion of a dash really change up the tactics of titan on titan combat, and players really need to learn how to adjust their strategies based on whether they stay on foot or in a titan, and what they’re up against. I really like the fact that while a titan can easily destroy pilots that just run around in the open, those who are careful enough and take their time are completely capable of taking on a titan one on one thanks to the games rodeo mechanic, though of course teamwork on either side can mess with this dynamic.

As is pretty popular these days in a lot multiplayer FPS games, players earn experience from matches and completed challenges and in return, level up and gain new abilities or options for customization. Pilots run fairly trodden ground getting a primary weapon, side arm, some kind of ordinance, a special cooldown based tactical ability like cloaking or stim pack, and a pair of passive bonuses. Titan’s share the choice of main gun, ordinance (albeit these consist more missiles than grenades), and passive bonuses and tactical ability; though an important unique option is the titan’s core which determines its appearance, speed, and defense. This brings us to the first thing I don’t like about the game: Lack of customization options. While some areas are fine and cover all the usual bases like weapon choice, other options are exceedingly slim like pilot tactical abilities, of which there are only three to choose from. Restricting this variety does make the game a bit easier to balance and test, but it just feels a bit too stifling and having a total of 5 customized loadouts almost feels like overkill considering how many you actually switch between mid match.

The second problem is it’s campaign, which honestly I can forgive considering this games approach. The campaign mode itself is simply running through 9 matches back to back on a specific level and match type, with the addition of some dialogue before hand and maybe some special picture in picture scenes during. It’s short, not always easy to follow since a lot of developments can occur while you’re focused on the match itself, and just not really all that interesting. Still though, I honestly prefer this over the choice of having a single player campaign that lasts 6 hours with no difficulty and was just added on out of a sense of tradition. Instead they knew they wanted the game to be about multiplayer, and made it focused just on that, which personally I respect rather than seeing time and resources go to a mode that devs clearly didn’t care that much for.

My last issue is one that is admittedly a matter of personal taste, and that’s burn cards. Burn cards are these special one time use items you get for completing matches and challenges, and offer some kind of special bonus that lasts for a single life, or in some rare cases an entire match. Effects vary from fairly useful temp bonuses like increased speed or a slightly reduced titan build time, whereas some others can get absolutely crazy like super amped versions of regular guns and permanently active tactical abilities in addition to the one you have equipped. I’ll admit they’re fun to use when you have them, but they just add an element of randomness that just doesn’t sit right with me for the competitive side of the game, and while they’re inclusion in the first place is ok, the fact that there’s no mode in which they’re turned off just bothers me.

Overall despite the few things I didn’t enjoy, Titanfall is a super fun casual style shooter, especially for those of you out there with a love of giant robots punching each other. From a competitive standpoint there are some things to take issue with, but if you just go in looking for a fun way to kill time, then this game is definitely worth picking up. I’d say it’s worth full price to anyone itching to grab it right away, though with EA’s track record and existence of a season pass, then patience can be rewarded since a more price affordable, complete version of the game is bound to come out in a year’s time under the name “GOTY edition” or “Premium edition”. Make sure to check out our complete Video review of the game which covers several of the same topics, but with the inclusion of shiny gameplay to give you a real sense of how the game flows. As always guys, thanks for reading Tech of Tomorrow!