Titanfall Thoughts

Introduction

When I heard of the old Infinity Ward (IW) developers forming Respawn Entertainment I was both excited and a little sad.  One of my favorite online multiplayer games, the Call of Duty series was probably going to see a degradation in quality with them leaving IW and if gamers followed those developers around then that could potentially fracture the players amongst platforms and games.  Which would lead to overall less fun times.

Considerations

I finally borrowed the game from Gamerang.  I'm at level 12 now and after playing for about three weeks I have to say that I may like this more than Call of Duty.  To keep me honest I'll go over what I like and don't like about this game.

As an aside, I think the main difference for me is that when you're playing Call of Duty (I've put in way too many hours to come to this conclusion) there is a lot of emphasis on the 1v1 game.  Because of that difference in timing due to bad connections, lag compensation, or cheating is exposed and makes or breaks your encounter with the enemy.  You think you killed an enemy but instead you got killed.  You look at the killcam and noticed that you shot way too late.  Hrm.  If that happens enough times in a game where that is the focus then it gets frustrating.

Likes

  • Playing as a giant robot.  I used to play Mechwarrior as a kid and haven't done that in over 20 years.  This game fires up some nostalgia for those days.  The controls of the Titans are different from when you're outside of them fighting as a wee person yet fairly easy to pick up.  They've balanced the power of the Titans so that your ability to use them spread out over the match.  They're absolutely powerful against normal players but are equals against other robots.  Normal players also come with anti-Titan weapons.
  • You can really move in this game.  The maps are rather large and have multiple levels but they were fairly quick to figure out.  I feel that I can run around the map and especially in the open to some degree without campers picking me off.
  • The games are tense.  Everything just seems so big and grandiose with the Titans in place.  There is so much stuff going on in the game that you're always on alert.  It's difficult to camp with the incentive of going out there and killing enemies to reduce time-to-Titan.

Dislikes

  • Getting killed is fairly easy.  You tend to get squished by Titans, blown up by random collateral damage, or shot in the back by an opposing player.  This is a lot different from Call of Duty games where you tend to have one-on-one encounters with enemies.  This is frustrating but you just do your best and you have to know when to pick your battles
  • The metagame is confusing.  What is campaign mode?  How do you progress?  Is there a progression?  I eventually figured this out with Internet help but there's not much in the way of explanation other than jumping in.  I think I'll appreciate this more that developers didn't take what is essentially a multiplayer game and bolt on a meaningless campaign mode onto it.  They basically developed a multiplayer core and reused that.  Still finding your way around can be confusing.
  • The game runs at 792p.  This is a shame because of the fact that Call of Duty: Ghosts runs at 1080p on my PS4.  The extra detail makes the game more realistic and makes it easier to see things far off in the distance.

Conclusion

I really like this game.  I like it so much I went ahead and purchased the Collector's Edition.  I really think they set a new standard for this game.  One thing that really tips me off to how much fun it is is that I don't mind playing multiplayer alone.  You can still be somewhat successful without playing with your friends and have a good time to boot.  The action is fast paced and I don't feel as bad as I do when I'm playing Call of Duty.  If you've played, what do you think?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Frail, Frail Body

I had a conversation with my mom the other day a little while after I broke my elbow snowboarding.  She criticized me for doing reckless things like that and that I shouldn't do things like that.  I told her that you need to take risks sometimes to get a great reward.  In this case it's the adrenaline rush from bombing down a mountain.  Or in my case, uh, bunny slope. Then this weekend I walked down a flight of four stairs in broad daylight.  I'm not sure what happened but I totally bit it.  For some reason the first thing I thought was "Is my camera OK?"  Kind of stupid once I finally saw the total damage on my leg later that day. So back to my original point.  I don't know if I'm getting old and my coordination is getting worse or what but I fear that I need to invest in elbow, shin, and knee pads.  What the hell, why not ankle pads at this point.  Are these the "extreme" activities in my life now that I need to watch out for?  Walking down sta
Read more

Bacon + Chocolate

Image
Bacoloate? Chacon? Whatever you call it, it is one of the rarest forms of enjoyment in the universe. Let's start with the packaging. Standard fare for packaging as far as I'm concerned. Please make notice of the ginormous strip of bacon adorning, no, almost spooning the piece of chocolate. The child of their strange union is waiting inside. Let's see what else is in there: OK, nice silver wrapping. Not quite hermetically sealed but still pretty good. If you can read it, notice the "BACON EXOTIC CANDY BAR" product labelling. Truth be told I got kind of excited when I saw the word "EXOTIC" preceeded by "BACON." The candy bars are little squares: I got tired of taking pictures so I finally dug in to the little sucker. What a treat this was, let me tell you. If you're a fan of sweet and salty products you will enjoy this. If you like chocolates with nuts you might like this as well. Honestly I didn't know what to expect upon digging
Read more

Chain Restaurants

Image
I don't know how I feel about them. I used to despise them with a passion. I think I might be starting to soften my stance on them though. One of the things I like to do in Richmond is to try different restaurants particularly ones that are unique. I figure that there's a T.G.I. Friday's every half-mile on my side of town so I could go there anytime. After going to my fair share of restaurants around town I can see why people would go to a chain. I am not going to name names but I have been to a few restaurants in Richmond that have been hyped up only to deal with atrocious customer service once I get there. I mean we're talking Waffle House bad. No, worse than that. I guess the plus of the chain is that the food and service is fairly consistent from one restaurant to the next and that the food is of a certain quality. I didn't say good necessarily. I find that the food usually tastes good at a chain restaurant but that is mainly due to the excess fat and s
Read more