Titanfall Review – fantastic game for short or long play periods

If we were talking cinema movies we’d be calling this one a blockbuster – at Midnight Thursday this week (March 13) the doors of gaming stores around Australia will fly open ready for fans of futuristic first person shooter Titanfall.  EFTM has been hands on with the game and it’s pretty clear you’re in for a long and sleepless day as a Titanfall pilot this Thursday.

I’m not a hard-core gamer, so if you’re someone who has played days and days of Call-of-Duty or other such hyped games, please, head over to Kotaku or somewhere like that (those blokes know their stuff!) for a true detailed review and comparison – here at EFTM we want you to know if as a casual lover of all things gaming this thing is worth the money.  Not to spoil it for you but the answer is yes.

The concept behind Titanfall is relatively simple, you’re playing in a multiplayer environment in a bunch of different game modes.

As a fully connected game it’s not for you if you’re games console is not connected.

The training alone gives you a cracking view into what goes on once you’re teamed up and ready to fight.

First and foremost you’re taken into a Hammond Robotics pilot and Titan training program.  You enter a training pod at Hammond Industries which takes you into a clinical looking scenario to help you learn the basics of control.  Walking, Running, Jumping, Jumping further and jumping to edges to crawl up.

Then comes the big trick as a pilot – your jump-kit, this lets you jump on walls and even jump again when mid-jump.

The wall-run allows you to run at a wall from an angle, jump up and run along the wall for a period.  You can jump from wall to wall running along as you go.  They challenge you hard and on the first few runs you’ll fall, but after a short while you’ll quickly become a natural.

After a few challenging runs you next learn the concept of “cloaking”.  This feature turns you into the invisible man for a short period.  You’ll then learn about the option of Melee attacks and how to use the smart pistol which locks onto targets like you might have seen in flight simulators in the past.  Once locked onto one or many targets a single pull of the trigger wipes them out.  You’ll also learn the standard weapon switching and reloading to get you going on the combat arena.

In a combat training scenario things start to get really juicy.  You test your combat training on some pilots (soldiers) and then on an enemy Titan.

A Titan is a huge robot like machine which walks and moves like a stilted human, but has the protection of its make-up and weapons to match its size.  Inside every titan is a pilot – you next learn that you have your own Titan waiting for you.

The more you fight the sooner your Titan becomes available, once available you’ll see the reason for the game’s name.  Titanfall.  Call your Titan and it falls from the sky, ready for you to jump in and pilot it into battle.

Mount-up your Titan and you’ll find it to be a natural extension of your pilot.  A Titan against some pilots on the ground seems easy – so you’ll need some more training in the clinical environment to learn some of the Titan’s specific movements, like dashing – forward, back, left or right, it helps avoid those big shots coming in.

Your Titan can use a vortex shield to resist and capture incoming fire and then throw it back at your enemy.  You’ve also got some more advanced weaponry and generally lots of learning to do – but by now you’ll want to get right into the game!

In campaign mode you are teamed up with remote players to launch a full campaign along a story line.  In Classic mode you can take on smaller scenarios in six different modes.

Attrition is simply a matter of getting in and killing anything on the enemy team to earn points toward a win.

Last Titan Standing has every player starting as a Titan with the aim of eliminating all the enemy Titans.  The only challenge here is that you cannot re-spawn so once you’re out you’re out – be careful!

Hardpoint allows you to capture and hold three hard points on the map for your team to earn points.  The more you hold the faster you win.

Capture the Flag is a familiar concept where you attempt to steal the enemy flag while protecting your own.

Pilot Hunter has a score target which you need to reach to win – you score points by killing enemy pilots.

Finally you’ve got Variety Pack which gives you a bit of everything, on all the maps.

In every sense this is a multi-player sensation – with so many modes and options you’re unlikely to get bored with it fast.

The graphics are sensational, the concepts highly original so there is a lot to be said about this as a potential blockbuster.

Personally, I love the fact that you can enjoy it for 10 mins or hours on end, to span the range of hard-core and casual gamers that’s the kind of thing that’s vitally important.

Got you interested? Check out this trailer:

If you don’t have a next-gen console – perhaps this is the perfect excuse?

[schema type=”review” rev_name=”Titanfall” rev_body=”A different look at first person shooters – with options to run as a pilot (soldier) or a Titan (Piloted robot) – Great for short or long play durations” author=”Trevor Long” pubdate=”2014-03-10″ user_review=”4.5″ min_review=”0″ max_review=”5″ ]