Target Audience: FPS lovers
Price Range: Beta is free, full game $60
Availability: March 11, 2014

For the last two and a half months, next-generation FPS players have had a choice of Battlefield or Call of Duty. But come March 11, a new master will be dropping in; quite literally. Titanfall brings together all the best elements of gritty first person shooter action with the verticality of Mirrors Edge into a single multiplayer experience. But Respawn Studios hasn’t stopped there because players have the ability to order a Titan dropped into battle for them to pilot. So the gunslinging, freerunning action is all happening in the midst of a mech battle straight out of Steel Battalion.

Titanfall doesn’t simply do all of these things, it blends them together in a lightspeed battle of rock paper scissors. While Titans have all the size, armor and firepower that their name suggests, players have jump packs that allow them to run on walls, double jump and even climb on top of Titans’, friendly or enemy. Boarding an enemy Titan gives a Pilot the opportunity to deliver a point-blank barrage from any of their three weapons; just be careful not to use explosive ammo or your moment of glory will be going downhill fast.

While the running trend is for online-based shooters to supply a separate campaign mode, the makers of Titanfall seem to have blurred the lines here as well. The standard array of  multiplayer modes such as Deathmatch (Attrition) and Conquest/King of the Hill (Hardpoint) are available as individual matches. However, Respawn has blended these fast paced experiences with character driven goals and cutscene-esk moments to tell a story at the same time. Players will experience this ‘campaign multiplayer’ twice; once as the IMC and then again as the Militia rising against them.

“You’ve got characters, stories, moments; things that people traditionally expect from a single player game [then] putting that all into a multiplayer game and its awesome.”
-Drew McCoy (Respawn Entertainment)

Weapons in Titanfall begin as you might expect: assault rifle, SMG and sniper rifles in addition to a standard sidearm. But the third slot, reserved for Anti-Titan weapons really brings the pain. Whether it be the Sidewinder, a full auto ‘Micro-Missile Launcher’ or the Archer Heavy Rocket, a locking, fire and forget missile, that does serious damage. What these two weapons mean is that just because you are facing a Titan doesn’t mean you need to head for the hills. But the Titans will be shooting back. First up for Titan weapons is the X0-16 Chaingun firing 1.6 inch projectiles from a 60 round belt. For a more destructive touch try the 40mm cannon firing high-explosive rounds or finally the Quad Rocket which delivers 4 rockets at once before needing a reload. While big weapons mean longer reload times, your Titan’s Rocket Salvo ability comes in handy to fire a handful of missiles downrange instead of leaving you defenseless. Other Titan abilities include the Vortex Shield which gathers incoming projectiles and fires them back at your enemies and the ability to dash in all directions (with some cooldown of course).

The Votex Sheild in action

Everything about Titanfall screams war. The immersion of this game is without equal from the match opening and your team being delivered to the battle from an airplane to the new Epilogue feature. When a match ends, a dropship will fly in to extract the defeated team from the battlefield. No more respawning means that if you die, you die, but if you can survive until the drop ship arrives, board it and hope the enemy doesn’t destroy it before making lightspeed jump into outer space; even defeat feels pretty awesome! During a match, Pilots make up roughly 10% of each team, the rest being AI-controlled soldiers of varying strength that keep the action continuous and never make you ask “Where are the bad guys?” They provide commentary as well as interaction when you stumble upon one bot executing another or dragging a wounded teammate to safety.

Overall Titanfall feels like the next great step in next generation shooters by combining the elements of many different genres in one high-intensity package. Making the player feel like a soldier in a world-wide war instead of a training dummy goes a long way to make you feel like what you’re doing means something. The choice between running and gunning on foot or piloting a Titan really lets the players dictate the action instead of riding shotgun while the game has it’s way. There’s never a dull moment and no lack of firepower in this full-throttle assault, so get your pre-orders in and Prepare for Titanfall on March 11th.

Highlights

• Masterful Mech combat
• Parkour abilities keep footsoldiers from being cannon fodder
• Unparalleled immersion keeps your heart in the action

Rating: 5 out 5
★★★★★