Monday 22 August 2016

VIDEO GAME REVIEW: Titanfall 2: Mech Test of Alpha Gameplay Review - Respawn


OK, so firstly let me get the disclaimer in.  This is my point of view of Titanfall 2, based on playing the Mech Test of Alpha footage, over the weekend of 19th to the 21st August.  It does not in any way represent a final review of Titanfall 2 and changes can and probably will be made by Respawn prior to release.

Right, so as a huge fan of the original Titanfall, I was expecting a few things, however the key thing that I wanted (and that I feel needs to be addressed first) was for EA to fix what I considered a major problem with the original.  That was playability, after all there was no real Community.  Yes you could play with your friends, yes there were upgrades to earn but at the end of the day if your mates weren’t on, you were stuck doing the same thing, game in, game out hoping to level up.  There were no DLC’s no new weaponry and pretty much every Titan was the same and the only difference was the amount of dashes that you do.  So what have EA done?

Well, in my opinion, not much.  They’ve opened a “Network” forum on the game, you can find local players (geographically), you can get your friends into a Clan like Network and the chance to meet other games to find groups that suit your style or hobbies and go from there.  All in, not much really.

So surely they must have done a lot with the game then?

Well I’m not so sure all in.  Let me list my problems and then go into each in depth:
1)     Mech Action - so its called Titanfall.  That should mean that there’s a lot of hardcore Mech fighting yes?  No.  During a match you’re lucky if you can call in your titan once or twice at most.  They’re relatively easy to destroy and whilst on a brighter note they each play differently (Scorch and Ion), the gamer should have an anti-personnel option to rid yourself of enemy pilots riding on you without having to exit your Titan.

2)    Training - yes you get some Pilot training, however where is the same for the Titan’s.  You surely should be able to try various exercises with the available Titan’s to see which one you like more.  Personally the one I was looking forward to was the Sword Mech (Ronin) and sadly I didn’t get the chance to test him out.  But being thrown to the wolves in a match when you have no idea how the Titan plays means that its serious on the job training hoping to that you won’t frag it and lose the damn thing so quick.  That feels completely unfair.

3)    Weaponry Options – I feel that this is a little out of order personally.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the Anti Titan Weapons and because of the lack of Titan time, I would rather have had a Secondary Primary, for example being able to have a Sniper Rifle as well as an Assault Rifle.  Perhaps if an additional weapon slot were added it would give gamers new ways to personalise their loadouts so that they’re not having to chop and change class depending upon the terrain.

4)    Tactical Options -  OK, there are some good ones that have been added, for example I loved the grappling hook, and the Stim will help speed but I do wonder at the other options such as the Holo Pilot which for hit and runs will work well is pretty damn useless for a sniper and all round I haven’t found the Pulse Blade that useful. 

5)    Game Play – So here is where I feel the biggest bugbears are.  Firstly the Titans take forever to call in.  IN a hit and run gameplay, it seems to be he who sees the other pilot first wins, there’s no gun battle, no chance to duck into cover, you’re just dead watching the replay to find out what happened.  The pilots need to be tougher so that you have a chance to evade alongside the option to strike back. And all in, it feels like pretty much what has gone before with just a few new tweaks for a new release rather than overhauls to fix what the gamers thought was wrong with the original.


To sum up, all in, I hope that the Respawn team seriously listen to the all us fans who have taken the time to play as well as write our thoughts about the game.  Yes I would rather that it was delayed to fix a lot of issues rather than leaving it on its current schedule and here’s hoping that there will be some great surprises to come. 

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