If there’s one fantasy that cartoons, films, and video games have put in people’s head, it’s piloting a giant robot. Titanfall 2 puts you back in that chair and does it in a way that is satisfying enough to scratch an itch, though not much else. You play as a soldier in Titanfall 2, be it in single player or multiplayer, who has the ability to call down a giant robot, and that should be plenty exciting and for a time it is!
There’s little distinguishing the combat components of the game when you’re just a soldier on the ground; It has the same control layout as every other first-person shooter in existence, so it’s easy to master. Not only are the controls the same, but you might have a hard time distinguishing what you’re seeing in this game from other games as well. Sure, it looks great, but so do all the other shooting games out there. The quality of visuals is no longer the primary selling point of these titles, it’s in the gameplay and that magic X factor that distinguishes it from everything else.
Titanfall 2 luckily has that X factor in the Titans themselves. After a brief interlude of traditional combat, you have the ability to call down your Titan, which all have different abilities and weapons. Luckily there is a differential in how the game looks once you hop inside as your screen becomes semi-fragmented – you are piloting a giant robot from the inside after all. Those screens can even become cracked and obstruct your view when you take enough damage.
Combat with the Titans has a similar functionality in the controls, but it has a much more satisfying appeal when you defeat an enemy. Bigger guns mean bigger explosions, and longer reload times, but the additional arsenal equipped on the Titans gives them a much wider variety of ways to fight, which is a little bizarre but makes playing as them even more satisfying. Speaking of satisfying, two things that can happen when you’re in the Titan that I wasn’t expecting to love so much: Punching a regular person, and defeating another Titan. As you can imagine, a regular soldier simply turns to paste when punched by a Titan and if you beat down another Titan hard enough, it pulls the camera back to show you demolishing it.
Those two things are a great deal of fun, but they were the peaks in an otherwise empty valley of the game. The maps in TItanfall 2’s multiplayer have an immense variety in locations you can access, which means if you’re not in the middle of combat you’re going to have to find it, and that can get old. Furthermore, since EA has yet to fully confirm what’s in store, I can only hope there’s a significant amount of gameplay modes and maps, because I was already getting the feeling of staleness at the end of the match I played.
Is Titanfall 2 fun? Yes, it achieves the minimum amount of joy required to qualify as fun, but there’s long stretches where it’s indistinguishable from other games of the genre. Does it deliver something we’re not getting elsewhere? Partially, and those are the best parts.
Titanfall 2 will be released for the Xbox One, PS4, and PC on October 28. You can pre-order your copy by clicking here.
