Titanfall (BETA)

So I had the chance to play a bit of the upcoming Titanfall. The beta consisted of two maps and three game modes, with a level cap of 14. There were three classes of pilot and Titan available along with a selection of weapons, attachments, equipment and ‘burn card’ upgrades. I sunk about 8 hours into it before the beta ended.

And I have to say, it was quite a lot of fun. It’s a very fast paced game, along the lines of the popular Call of Duty franchise. So there’s certainly a market for this more, uh, ‘casual’ type of shooter, and believe me, I really don’t like using that silly word. But honestly, there’s not a ton of depth to Titanfall and it’s not really a game you can ‘master’. It’s ultimately a pretty shallow, but undeniably entertaining experience.

Of course, the CoD franchise with its yearly release schedule and declining quality has resulted in games catered to this market becoming synonymous with low quality cash-grabs, so I can understand why people would be wary of this game. But Titanfall is certainly not low quality. It’s a silky smooth, extremely polished, well designed and neatly balanced experience, at least from what I’ve seen in the beta. It may cater to the ‘casual’ shooter market, but it excels in what it sets out to achieve, and that’s the most important thing.

So what’s so fun about it? Well, the combination of foot based and mech combat is a great mix. On foot, you’re fast and agile thanks to the wall-running mechanics and jump-jet boosts. In a Titan, you’re still pretty fast, but obviously you’re limited to exterior areas of the two maps. Everything about the game is designed to be fast and fluid. Whether it be movement on foot, or in a Titan. Or calling down and mounting a Titan. Or capturing a node. Even the matches are short and sharp, lasting only around 10 minutes on average.

It’s certainly an addictive, if repetitive experience (only playing two maps over and over will do that). The two maps were just the right size, and you’re never too far away from the action. This is a game where something is happening every second, so you need to stay on your toes. Although the matches are only 6v6, they do feel a lot larger thanks to the Titans and the bot soldiers running about the map doing their own thing.

These soldiers, although effectively useless in combat (seriously, you can stand in a room with 6 of them and they won’t be able to hit you for shit) add a lot of atmosphere to the maps. They react to the player and your actions, and they have a lot of nice little banter between them. Some of them you can even ‘hack’ (by sticking a knife into them? What?) to fight with you. A nice touch, but rather pointless. Plus, there are frequent audio cues filling you in on the action and what’s happening, plus a video feed of your commander popping up occasionally to bark orders. It all adds to the atmosphere and the frantic, fast paced action.

But as much as I’ve enjoyed my time with it, I do have my concerns. As I said, this isn’t exactly a game with a ton of depth to it and it’s hard to see how long the appeal will last. Of the three game modes, I found Attrition (team deathmatch) rather dull. Last Titan Standing was fun, but tactically, there’s not much going on. Hardpoint was my game of choice, but it remains to be seen if there will be other game modes on release or in the future.

I also have to say, that it barely took a couple of hours to hit max rank and unlock everything in the beta. Perhaps this was accelerated, I don’t know. But I hope there’s a lot more customisation, weapons, attachments and gear to be unlocked in the release game. Not to mention a lot more maps. And that’s my biggest concern. How much content will there be on release? There’s no single payer campaign, and if the game ships with a handful of maps and just these basic classes/modes and unlocks, that’s not much for the asking price. Especially when you can be sure we’ll be getting stung with a DLC map pack a month later. So until I know more about the release features, I’m going to hold off on a pre-order.