WTF Titanfall????

[blueonblack]

So I finally broke down and bought this game. I'd heard and read a lot about it and Origin had it half off so I figured what the heck.

The training simulator was cool, the whole meshing of the Titans and the pilots was interesting, I liked the abilities of both and could even see myself playing it online.

Jesus. These guys took a very good concept and pretty much screwed it up as badly as they could. If I handed a pack of koalas a screenplay for an excellent movie, they would have made something along the lines of Titanfall.

First off, they claimed it had a campaign. I took that to mean single-player, my mistake. Regardless, it doesn't have one. What it has is *exactly* the same thing as the standard multiplayer portion of the game with bad voice actors muttering about some hackneyed attempt at a plot. And you know, I don't mind the hackneyed attempt at shoehorning a plot in there somewhere, I've been gaming long enough to know what's up there. I don't mind if the gameplay is good.

And sadly, the gameplay COULD have been good. All of the elements are there. The game mechanics, the graphics, everything is on place for what could be an enjoyable sci-fi shoot 'em up.

So what's wrong? Well, I was first tipped off when the team I was saddled with on my very first mission had myself (level 1, obviously), one other lost soul at level 2 and four pilots of at least 20th level, some over 40th. Generation 10 pilots in the mix with me, the guy who's never piloted a Titan in his life.

After all of the achievements they made here, how damned hard is some simple matchmaking??? Seriously???

So here I was, all these years after trying to play online FPS in Call of Battlefield whatever-the-hell-it-was and not understanding the appeal when all I could do was spawn/die/spawn/die/spawn/lookarounddie. I had given it up. Then I read about this game and how they had balanced things out with better spawn points and a limit of 12 players per match. Ok, looks good, I'll give it a shot. Oh, hi there mister Generation 10 Pilot! Don't mind me, just step on me please.

Yeah, whatever. At least I get to see how good Origin's "Great Game Guarantee" is.

[d_stilgar]

Sorry to hear about the bad experience. The game looked really fun, but you know . . . EA, Origin, so I'm going to pass on it forever. Glad to hear that I'm saving time, money, and agony. Hope you get your money back.

[blueonblack]

As a matter of fact, I got my refund in less than 12 hours. I'll give them that.

[TheMainMan]

Bummer to hear about that. I was pretty leary about the whole campaign thing not really being a true single player campaign, I've had enough bad experiences in online multiplayer that I pretty much stick to solo or co-op campaigns now. While the game mechanics looked cool with in and out of Titan play, I bet that there is one hell of a learning curve to overcome and getting stuck playing against high level players isn't going to help. Who knows, maybe by the time I finally pick up an Xbox One, Titianfall will be cheap enough used to re-gain my interest. I just hope MS doesn't botch Halo 5...

[TLHarrell]

I've been playing Hawken again lately. Keeps me from needing to buy Titanfall. As it's a free to play, I can't complain much about it. It's decent, and it looks awesome.

Core i7, 16GB, 770FTW, 30" Dell @ 2560x1600, running everything on ultra including NVIDIA PhysX.

[Konrad]

Ye Olde Starcraft 2 is keeping me occupied, though I be drooling over the new (that is, not two decades old) X-COM title. Cool units, tech upgrades, pretty pictures, neato noises.

Blizzard takes the "no-plot" problem right over to the opposite extreme. You can't play the damned game for more than 20 seconds before some uninteresting NPCs take over your interface with endlessly back-and-forth hackneyed video chats.

Moved into a new map area? Here's your instructions again, in case you're dumb.
Found some resource? Idle chatter.
Spotted hostile units? Got something corny to say about that, too.
Discovered new tech? Hahaha, listen as we all jokingly insult and flirt with each other.

If it was a real war, I'd order them all to break their radios and lead, follow, or get out of the way - just do it without interrupting me, I'm a busy guy. I got my mission parameters, my objective is to kill this or save that or shoot at whatever, shut up and lemme go do what I gotta get done to win!

So, in this respect, methinks I could almost enjoy a game like Titanfall. It just stays out of your way while you play.

[blueonblack]

I completely understand your point on obtrusive gaming and Blizzard is the best example I can think of also.

In that respect you're absolutely right, Titanfall is very clean and easy to use. My issue was with the pairing of complete virgins to the game with obvious veterans with no choice whatsoever given to the player. In the right RPG-type setting that wouldn't be so bad. Titanfall is not such a setting. That game is all about dropping in and getting started with the slaughter. What communication there is is very fast-paced and minimal. You talk with your guns, and I don't see why they couldn't match players of a certain level range together. It's really not that hard.

Doesn't matter, I got my money back from Origin and bought Metro: Last Light off Steam. FAR better gaming experience.