Reporting for Duty: Titanfall satisfies empty space left by underwhelming Call of Duty

By Ben Boezinger

With the decline of public popularity of mainstream games like Call of Duty, the public needs a new multiplayer. Let me introduce you to Titanfall. The sequel to an Xbox exclusive is now on both consoles and PC.

The first person shooter is fast and plays aggressively. It’s easy to get used to the controls, and as long as you’ve played shooters before, you can get really good really quick.

First let’s start with the campaign. Missing in the first edition of the series, many of the complaints were about the lack of a campaign. The first campaign of the series maybe lacks in story, but makes up for it in entertainment. The story lacks a compelling narrative, and I still wasn’t sure what the purpose of me fighting through the first couple of levels was for, but the amusing dialogue between Jack Cooper (the main character) and your titan made up for it.  After Cooper is given the reigns of your titan, you must fight through levels and hordes of enemies on your way to the final boss. The storyline throughout the campaign is hard to follow and sometimes gets incredibly boring. On top of the that, the payoff isn’t all that great either. The objective isn’t ingenious or creative in any way, and I constantly felt like I was back playing Halo or Call of Duty. And while it was fun, I felt like it was missing something. All in all, the fun and destructive play was worth a playthrough, but nothing more.

The multiplayer in Titanfall 2 capitalizes on what it had going for it in the original, and adds to what it needed to fix. The pace is immediately what jumped out to me as a significant positive. You always need to keep your head on a swivel. Running around the map, quick and indecisive strikes are what will make you an unstoppable force against your opponents.

When I ran around the map, something I found accommodating was picking efficient routes around and to the objective. That’s what else I loved about this game; the ability to be aggressive and not be heavily penalized for it. It doesn’t matter if you’re risks don’t pay off because you immediately get right back into the game.

An additional thing I loved about the game is the little amount of accuracy you needed to succeed. As long as you have a quick reaction time and are able to hit anywhere on the body, you can achieve success. I often times would just slide blindly into the objective and slaughter enemies.

The weapons in the game were just as easy to get a hang of and master. Both the assault rifles and submachine classes are easily manageable and masterable. Along with some advantages and disadvantages. The submachine classes have great fire rate with a powerful punch, but, on the other hand, it’s hard to score from range. I tended to use burst firing and really just hoped I got lucky.

With these classes, I really relied on aggressiveness and smart route running. Assault rifle classes are more for your average Battlefield or Call of Duty gamer. You can hit enemies from sizable range, while suffering a cutback in damage.

Then there’s the titan, the biggest and most effective weapon in the game. If you can hold back the enemy team from advancing onto the objectives, you can guarantee a win for yourself and teammates. Opponents I fought against who were great titan players were always the most defeating and frustrating enemies to play against. There are no dominant titans either; every titan has significant weaknesses as well as strong suits.

I found that for my playstyle, Legion’s massive machine gun and blowback abilities along with Tone’s railgun and rockets where the best, but there’s a titan for every style. Ronin has a massive and effective sword, and Northstar has a nice combination of flight and sniping for a more guerilla type warfare.

My tips for any new comer to the robotic fighting; never let up.

Titanfall is a great game that can make up for the disappointment of this year’s edition of Call of Duty. The campaign is entertaining, and although it is drained storyline wise, it gets the job done. The multiplayer is great and incredibly fun. Not everything is perfect, but the fun playstyle makes up for the lack of good maps and modes. It’s a fun and aggressive game that is a frontrunner for one of the best multiplayer games this year.