Review of Titanfall

Titanfall (2014 Video Game)
6/10
Good, but lacks single-player campaign
11 September 2017
I was going to give this title an 8 out of 10. However, I dropped it two points because it doesn't include a single-player campaign mode and it also doesn't include any way to play against someone else over a local network (cross-wired connection of two consoles, for example).

In fact, Titanfall won't even allow you to start the game on a console unless you have both an active internet connection and a paid-up XBOX live account. This alone is a disappointment and a terrible foreshadowing of what the future of gaming is likely to be. That's right -- the game that you paid for is only good to you as long as you keep paying for additional services to enable said game.

Now that I've railed on the unfortunate decisions that a committee arrived at, I'll talk about the good aspects of the game.

Titanfall builds on the best aspects of multiplayer first-person shooters. And, more importantly, it builds on the successful aspects of games like MechWarrior, MechAssault, and GunGriffon: Allied Strike. The latter is what is of most interest to me, since nothing beats a really god mech combat game.

At first I thought the mech combat would be simply superficial (like in games like Armored Core). However, it turns out that Titanfall's mech combat is excellent and has the added depth of allowing players to latch onto opponents' mechs and sabotage them. Additionally, you can leave your mech and command it to follow you. While it follows you, its A.I. will continue to annihilate enemy targets. Multiple mech types are available, and they can be upgraded as the game proceeds.

Although running around as a ground soldier is not my thing, I have to give kudos to the refinements in this game that alleviate some of the death, respawn, death speed-cycle behavior that you see in other Call of Duty/Battlefield-type games. Once you get your bearings and play as the tutorial instructs you to, you can stay in the game longer without being offed. The mechs also help extend uninterrupted game play and they make for a change-up in the style of fighting. Alternating between ground combat and mech combat makes for a nice balance. And you can be certain that mech combat is far and away superior to simply jumping into a Halo Jeep or a simple flying machine like you see in other similar games.

Titanfall is an evolution of the first-person combat genre and it clearly illustrates the advantages that mechs have over tanks and infantry.

This game is fun and well worth picking up. Most surprising is how very close the XBOX 360 version is to that of the XBOX One.

In short, this game is highly recommended.

As a closing note to current and future software developers: Be sure not to make the mistake that Titanfall made. Instead, make your game future-proof and allow players to game off-line or using a local network. Mech Assault's cross-wired connection between two consoles with the two human players teaming up to fight computer A.I. mechs is a good example. That plus a level editor and you'd be presenting the world with a near-perfect mech-combat experience.
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