Yesterday I picked up TitanFall, a game I had been anticipating for quite some time. Since I am currently doing all of my gaming on the XBox360, my wait was a little longer. The game, originally slated to come out for Xbox 360 March 27th was pushed back to April 8th. So, my excitement for this release was growing for some time.
I have heard all of the hype around this game, “the Future of Multi-player gaming” and the constant touting of it’s numerous gaming awards. How on Earth can something with so much hype, so many accolades and so much chatter surrounding it’s release NOT live up to expectations?
In Titanfall, players fight as mech-style Titans and their pilots in six-on-six matches set on a war-torn planet. The game’s action is fast-paced, with wall-running pilots, gameplay optimized for continual action, and when including the artificial intelligence, up to 50 active characters in a game
I started as most did when first playing TitanFall, through the training mode. Although this was a bit boring at certain points as it seemed to drag on longer than needed, it furthered my excitement to jump into real action. Everything seemed rather bad ass. Wall Running. The ability to absorb and redeploy enemy fire. Assassination/Execution ability. The chance to level up. And a pretty badass Titan.
Yep, seemed like this game was primed to take a good chunk of my free time.
But then I entered the gameplay, in “Campaign” and this is where this game failed on every level.
Sure the action is intense and your abilities make it fun and interesting, but that only lasts a few minutes as you realize there is absolutely no effort to telling any kind of story with this game. None. Zilch.
I had no clue of any objectives, a reason to why I was doing what we were doing and the only thing that seemingly differentiated one stage from the next was the environment. I leveled up but had no clue what exactly contributed to my leveling, how XP was gauged or how on Earth I could see upgrading anything regarding my Pilot or my Titan.
Grant it, I played this for a a little over an hour and reached Level 4, so I could have gave up before things drastically changed. But this game gave me no incentive to continue playing.
It’s repetitiveness dulled my experienced. It bored me. It forced me to turn off the game and I haven’t turned it back on since then.
To me, TitanFall seems better suited in an arcade. Even though arcades are pretty much extinct nowadays, this is the type of style that fits an arcade machine perfectly. Something you can spend 5-20 minutes on with a few friends. No storyline. Very to the point and straightforward. But as a console game this seemed like a lazy effort.
If this is “the future of Multi-player gaming” then that future is grim.
I suggest TitanFall look at Borderlands before making that claim ever again. It may behoove them to try being the least bit creative with a story. While Halo 4 can be repetitive, there are so many layers to the gaming experience that any repetitiveness is easily forgotten.
Hence why TitanFall was a Titanic Failure. I’ll give this game another try some day and maybe I’ll change my tune, but i highly doubt it.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPm_GeGIUZs]