Titanfall: A Player's Review

By Robert, Week of 24th March

I just got Titanfall, on Friday.

Yes, it took bloody ages to ship, but I got it off Amazon for £36.70 shipped to Switzerland from the UK. Good deal.

So after the hype, where does Titanfall stand in the presence of the Big Three, Halo, Call of Duty and Battlefield?

Titanfall has a chance. A big one. But the next release needs to cement the feeling of glory and power the first brings to the table, on Xbox One, PC, and soon Xbox 360. I own the Xbox One version, and damn, it's impressive.

 

 

Before we jump into the opinion, let us state the facts. Titanfall is 6v6 with up to 6 Titans and 12 AI on each team. I was initially sceptical about these numbers, but it turns out that 6v6 plays nicely with the current map size. It runs at 1408x792 progressive, which comes out at 1,115,136 pixels being rendered natively, with an upscale to 1920x1080p. The engine puts out 60fps 98% of the time, and when 4+ Titans are exploding or creating Electric Smoke, it can drop quite nastily to what looks like around 20fps. However, this is so rare it is not a problem. The graphics themselves are nice and all textures are on the PC's "Insane".

 

 

 

For comparison, Killzone: Shadowfall's Multiplayer, an exclusive optimised solely for PlayStation 4, runs at 960x1080 (a very bizarre resolution that, unlike 792p, is not 16:9, nor anywhere near it), and according to Guerrilla Games, uses interlaced scanning (progressive's ugly brother) to save bandwidth. It also has a highly variable FPS , averaging 50fps. It is then upscaled to 1920x1080i. Therefore, it is outputting 1,036,000 pixels on interlace, which is 79,136 less pixels using inferior scanning and with an inferior (mostly) framerate. And it is PS4 exclusive.

 

The gameplay of Titanfall is revolutionary. Wall running and double jumps offer a superior movement experience using the full three dimensions of the map that most other FPSs would be hard pressed to keep up with. Titans, as well as loadouts, are excellently balanced from Rank One all through the 50 ranks, and the next 9 generations. Titanfall is initiated, when you have earned enough time credit, or the timer has run out, by pressing the D-Pad. This will drop (or warp) your Titan into battle. Board it, or leave it to activate the (excellent) Auto-Titan AI. When your Titan is severely damaged, eject, and if you enabled Nuclear Ejection, you will cause more than a little trouble among the other team if you were close by.

 

 

 Titanfall's only...well...fall...is the campaign. It is cool and understandable, as well as playable from both sides, but it is very, very short. Not only that, but the actions of the players have no bearing on the story. Win? If you are IMC, you are still going to lose. Lose? If you are Militia, you are still going to win. Multiplayer campaign is a good idea, and all first-person, interactive cutscenes are a bonus, but ultimately it needs work.

 

Verdict: The twitchy but skilful mechanics of Titanfall ask you to perfect the old, and embrace the new. The Titans offer a second, very fun area for experimentation and to be part of a less stealthy, more explosive battle. The campaign lets it down, but to be honest, who was going to buy it for story?

 

Campaign Score: 5.5/10. Don't buy it for story, but it's worth one play through on each side and the missions are fun multiplayer matches.

Multiplayer Score: 9.5/10. Incredible, revolutionary, very few holes.

Graphics: 4/5. Good, shiny, lots of effects. Nothing super incredible like Ryse though.

 

Total Score: 19/25 (13.5/15 for Multiplayer, most of Titanfall).