I haven’t played the original Titanfall for a long time. A very long time. But that’s not to say I haven’t got any interest in the upcoming sequel. In fact, if anything, I’m hugely intrigued as to how the first game has been built on and how Titanfall 2 is going to have me jumping about as a Pilot and stomping around in my Titan on Xbox One.
Well, a single player campaign is certainly going to help, but unfortunately that wasn’t part of the preview available at EA Play 2016.
And that’s a shame because a solo story, detailing how the Pilots and Titans become one would have been great to take a look at. Instead though, I was left with 20 minutes of a fast, supremely fluid multiplayer battle which takes everything good about the original game and builds on it nicely…getting a deeper more rounded experience without really changing too much.
At least not to my untrained eye that is, for Titanfall 2 really is very much like its predecessor. The visuals are amazing with a serious level of detail in place for all of the well worked multiplayer map that I got to play through, the Titans which drop into action with a bang and the Pilots who are left hopping, skipping and jumping their way out of, or in this case, into trouble at every turn. It really does look very good indeed and even amongst some hardcore battles full of both Titans and Pilots shooting and flying around, everything is super smooth. But then, the first game wasn’t exactly a hassle on the eyes. Whilst it must be said I’m in no way an expert, if you’d put the two games side by side and not told me which was which, then I’d probably have struggled to tell the two apart. But then, that’s me and I’m sure those with a well trained eye would be able to pick out the differences.
What I did however pick out is that the technique of Titan jacking has changed slightly – at least from what I remember. Instead of hitching a ride on the back of an enemy Titan, bashing open its lid prior to hammering a ton of bullets into its body in an attempt to fry the internals, you are now left with a two step procedure. Get up close and hop on board and you’ll first need to knock open its hatch – prior to being thrown off again. It’ll then be up to the Pilot to clamber aboard once more and chuck a ‘nade down to cause the destruction. It works well turning the whole Titan destruction element into something of a two step process.
Something else that was nice to see and utilise was that of a Pilot grapple hook. Jumping around with the usual double jump is all well and nice, but given the opportunity to cover ground quicker with a well placed grapple hook worked brilliantly…think of Just Cause 3 but in first person viewpoint and you’ll be getting close to how it came across.
I wasn’t completely sold on the full Titanfall 2 experience, but then 20 minutes or so getting to grips with a bit of a manic multiplayer map was never going to sell it – at least not in the same way as Battlefield 1 did. That said though it’s easy to see how Titanfall has grown – not by a huge amount – but by enough to make it a worthwhile purchase over the original.
If you’re a fan of Titanfall then you’ll have nothing to worry about with Titanfall 2. If you’re not a fan, then perhaps it’ll be left to the recently announced single player campaign to get you excited, for multiplayer is pretty much more of the same.
