[image via Respawn Entertainment, EA]
As the first Data Fusion to be churned out by this blog, I should probably give you an insight on what I play. As you can probably tell from the title, I absolutely love Titanfall 2, the masterpiece of Respawn Entertainment, published by EA.
I’m a big AAA first-person shooter buff, and when Titanfall 2 (TF|2) released last year in between Battlefield 1 and CoD: Infinite Warfare, it slipped under my radar as I got the former and enjoyed it. A friend of mine, CubanPete (let’s call him Pete), had the means to get both EA’s WWI title and futuristic mech combat title and gave me a short review of TF|2 after agreeing that BF1 was fun.
“Holy shit, man. You have to try this. It’s so fun!” Or something along those lines, I don’t know. The specific words slip my mind but the main idea was this: It was hella fun and hella different from the plodding pace of BF1.
Eventually, I managed to get hold of my own copy and jumped into regular games with Pete and a few other friends. It took a while for it to grow on me but when it did I had more fun than I ever had shooting virtual people in years. I was hooked on being a nimble ninja-like super soldier, being able to run on walls, double jump, and kill someone with a single punch. I was hooked on stomping around in a 3 or 4-storey-tall Titan and stomping cannon fodder, blasting pilots into red giblets, and battling other robots in slower, more tactical combat.
As for how it compares to the original Titanfall, I can’t say that I played much of TF|2’s predecessor. I played it for a couple of hours for free during EA Origin’s Game Time programme years ago and didn’t think much of it – mostly because by then game servers were dead in Asia and I didn’t have a good time getting stomped by people in the US and Europe with better ping than I did. I watched some videos of more skilled people playing it and found a game that was fast-paced, had a high skill ceiling, and had a washed-out colour scheme. I can’t say that I liked the original Titanfall much but it did present some very unique concepts.
With TF|2, the single-player campaign was the mode that I initially tried out. I was aware that the first game had a pseudo-campaign which was essentially a multiplayer match with some narrative shoehorned in. Based on that assumption, my expectations were fairly low for TF|2’s campaign.
Holy shit, was I wrong.
The single-player campaign was hands-down the best one I’ve played in a while. The only other FPS campaign that stood out in memory was the one for Wolfenstein: The New Order a few years ago. Sure, the story wasn’t a Nolan-level masterpiece, but it was a fresh experience compared to the glut of other tacked-on campaigns from multiplayer shooters. The set pieces were great, mechanics were fantastic (especially for Effect & Cause), and it had a buddy-cop-ish relationship between the main characters that made me care for (at least one of) them.
The first part of the campaign was an obstacle course that introduced me to the mechanics of the game. From sliding, to wall-running, to shooting, and finally combining them all into a speedrun gauntlet that challenged me to get the fastest time possible. Granted, I couldn’t break even the 4th spot on the in-game leaderboard, but it was a fun experience all the same. This was especially helpful for me since I had to accustom myself to the more agile combat, coming from the slower BF1.
After completing (and being amazed by) the single-player campaign, I told Pete that I was ready to get my ass kicked by more experienced players in multiplayer. And get my ass kicked I did. Everyone seemed to be a step ahead of me in terms of learning the game’s mechanics (especially the broken as hell melee system) so I never really did too well in the multiplayer matches. We played the team deathmatch mode Attrition a lot (since everyone and their moms played only that in Asia) and the first thing I noticed and loved was that they didn’t show you how many times you died in combat.
This meant so much to me. As a player new to TF|2’s fast combat, seeing that there was no death counter gave me the notion that it was OK that I’m dying. It meant that learning the mechanics of the game came first and each kill I got gave me more confidence. It was a friendly learning process at the time since most of the players online were also learning along with me.
Looking back on footage I recorded in the early days, I realise I spent a lot of time on foot, stopping and taking aim before unloading my weapon into an enemy pilot. It was a gameplay style that I carried over from games like Battlefield 4, Battlefield 1, and other titles which had a methodical way of stopping, aiming, shooting. With time, I managed to throw the slower style I learned away in favour of TF|2’s hip-firing, running-and-gunning style. Exfinia, another friend of mine, managed to make the slower gameplay style work for him and used the G2 rifle, a slower, single shot weapon that favoured staying put and shooting accurately. We both managed to top scoreboards at some point so it showed that the game suited a variety of playstyles.
There was a caveat though: you had to move fast. A few months in, everyone was quite literally flying across the map, giving Pete, Exfinia, and I a harder time getting kills. The metagame was speeding up and we had to learn it or suffer more deaths. Staying still usually resulted in getting smashed to pieces.
This was approximately when we checked out YouTube tutorials on how to use the grappling hook ability to boost ourselves across maps and ‘slide-hop’ to maintain our momentum. The complexity of the game shot up with that, turning Exfinia’s interest in the game way off.
Another friend, GimmeKiss (let’s refer to this eccentric guy as Kiss) also joined us on our nightly escapades in giant robots and found it to be fun for a time. He enjoyed himself for a time, especially when he managed to call down his favourite Titan. The 4 of us, Pete, Exfinia, Kiss, and I, played together through a good few updates, enjoying new maps, a new weapon, and a new Titan class. We all loved that the developers at Respawn Entertainment were giving us free DLC, partially because it didn’t split up the player base like Premium schemes for games like Battlefield and CoD did, but mostly because our Asian currencies made everything a whole lot more expensive.
I stuck around for a while longer than Kiss, but I eventually put down my guns and giant mechs for a time to play some other games. Throughout my hiatus, Pete stayed on, becoming one the most skilled players in the region (that I’ve seen). When I jumped back in, a new update was released, including a new skin for Pete’s favourite Titan mech. We continued playing on and off ever since. I still loved sliding into a room and gunning down an enemy, riding a friendly Titan and shouting “heigh-ho Silver”, and generally having a good time despite being subject to some of the game’s bullshit (looking at you, melee system).
Exfinia and Kiss’s have lost interest in the game. They don’t want to partake in giant robot shenanigans anymore, saying that it’s too tough, too fast. Pete and I play it precisely because it’s fast, skill-based, and rounds finish in roughly 10 minutes. It keeps us on our toes and emphasises our skill in the game. Well, tough luck for everyone I guess; our 4-man squad is no longer together. That being said, I understand where they’re coming from.
I love this game a lot; it’s in my top 10 games of all time (up to 2017 anyway). I really like the direction that the developers are taking the game both with the gameplay and the DLC. More importantly, the game brings my friends and I together for a good time, and that’s what really counts to me. I really wish that more games out there will take a lesson or two from TF|2 and bring us more games with exciting combat mechanics, rewarding gameplay, and the ability to facilitate a good time with friends (also free DLC).
As of writing this, the latest update (read: free DLC) Operation Frontier Shield just released, and everyone wants to get in on that hot PvE action from the first game. Exfinia and Kiss too, but I think that’s because of all the co-op titles we’ve been playing recently. I’ll probably write about the new PvE mode some other time.
If you’re interested, check out Titanfall 2 during the free weekend starting on 28th July, 2017. See you on the Frontier, Pilots!
Knoxid's Data Fusion Reactor 