First off, what drew me into Titanfall 2 was my enjoyment of the first game, knowledge of a Single-Player campaign this time, and no season passes as upcoming DLC will be free. All for $60. Sounds like a pretty good deal right?
It depends.
Titanfall 2 is an alright game, it's a very nice looking game, and nice playing twitch shooter with solid controls. I am playing on the Xbox One and if it's not, it feels like a consistent 60 fps, not really sure about the resolution but the game looks great. The artwork and just general feel of the game reminds me of a cross of like Call of Duty with Crysis, kind of like with some of the enemies and weapons along with the control scheme are just very reminiscent of those titles.
The single-player campaign is a relatively short but sweet experience that honestly, should have been in the first game. You assume the role of Jack Cooper, an aspiring Militia pilot where you team up with your Titan "BT" to fight against the IMC. The game features some returning characters from the first game... Like the people who popped up in the video feed of your HUD in the first game and said stuff like "Your Titan is ready." have roles now. The campaign features some decent character development as you get to learn more about the main character and his titan. There is plenty of action as a pilot and titan, often fighting against multiple pilots & titans at once. The highlight of the campaign though would have to be the boss fights, where you battle characters with special titans who make taunting comments while you showdown. Overall the campaign is a welcomed addition to Titanfall 2.
Titanfall 2's multiplayer returns with an assortment of game modes very similar to it's predecessor. It also features an unlock system and pilot & titan progression and customization options very similar to the first, where you basically unlock more stuff by playing the game. But aside from it from having some new levels, weapons and titans... a new hud... it is largely still the same Titanfall from a few years ago.
And this is where I have most of my gripes with Titanfall 2. Jumping out of the aircraft, calling in Titans to battle, killing every enemy unit in sight was novel one time Respawn. Aside from that you basically just have another game of CoD with people running around like chickens with their head cut off, and no surprise I won most of my first few games not by getting the most kills or running around aimlessly, but by simply playing the objective.
In addition, while "Titanfall" sounded like a great idea on paper years ago, and while the predecessor was definitely impressive for it's time, the second iteration still leaves a lot to be desired. One thing that immediately comes to mind is why not try and include some location damage on Titans? For example if I were to shoot a Titan's arm lets say with a missile, and it deals enough damage could it be programmed that it blows off that Titan's arm and renders any weapon used by that arm useless? Now I think that would be cool. How about things that have been done before such as destructive environments? Nothing like a titan punching through the wall of an unfortunate camper. How about giving us an engineer tool with the ability to hijack titans? How about a kill-streak based Super Titan? How about just letting us play larger game types like 12 vs 12? Not enough population playing your game? Ohh burn.
In conclusion, I like mechs and I liked Titanfall 1 so I wandered into GameStop yesterday and was like "Can I have a Titanfall 2?" and the employee was like well, yeah that's one of the games we do have in stock. He acted surprised I actually asked for Titanfall 2. Then he asked if I was going to be pre-ordering Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and I was all like
no.
Thanks for reading. Final verdict - 7/10.