Review - Titanfall 2... Still Holds Up

 

Image credit: Respawn Entertainment

A lot of times games age out. It's just the nature of the beast. You go back to play Twisted Metal 2 and realize that the game looks like garbage and plays even worse. Now granted, that might be an unfair comparison since it's significantly older than Titanfall 2, but my statement still stands.

    Titanfall 2 does not fall into that category.

    In the game, our protagonist Jack Cooper is a rookie rifleman of the future's "Militia" acting as a protege to a celebrated pilot. Pilots in Titanfall are the main guys and gals running the frontlines. They act in conjunction with their titans to be true heroes. Smarter. Stronger. Faster. Better, right? That's how it's going for Cooper's mentor until he gets wrecked by a couple mercenaries working for the IMC. Now it falls to Cooper to take over the slot and fill the mighty shoes of BT-7274. Alongside this titan, we have to learn how to wall run, switch weapons fast, and tactically assess situations that require a more finessed hand. Well... sort of.

The Good

Some of the good has to be how well this game has held up. The graphics still look pretty amazing 10 years later, and that could be due to some patches along the way or it could be due to the fact that Respawn limited the total campaign time to around 5ish hours. Either way, it looks great.

    Gameplay is also up there. Wall-running is something that other games have tried with limited success (I'm looking at you, Hired Gun), but Titanfall 2 manages to do it with minimal issues. It flows well, and so does power-sliding. It's moves like this that pave the way for games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Ghostrunner. That level of gameplay makes those games coming after all that much better in their finished versions. Titanfall 2 as a whole just has a certain feel to it that lends itself to flowing from one move to the next without ever breaking the momentum.

The Bad

I'm not sure if I would say things are really bad in the game. Middling, would be more like it. Okay, fine. I'll change the category.

The Mid

Audio is okay in the game. Music is all right and voice acting kind of goes into the same niche. It's not bad. It does the job. It can be a bit hokey from time to time. But it's nowhere near as bad as others (hot damn, Hired Gun, I'm looking at you a lot today).

    The narrative would fall into the same category. It's not bad. It's not good, either. It serves a purpose for getting Cooper from A to B, but a lot more could have been done. Give us a reason to care about the connection to BT. Is BT fully sentient or not? It's hard to tell when his personality really only serves the purpose of mission completion. More could have been done here. I understand that's not the main point of the game, but even a little would've gone a long way.

The Verdict

Ooh, so daunting. So ominous when writers put "verdict" down for their final thoughts. Like the game is about to do some hard time.

    In all seriousness, though, the game is very fun. It's a good way to spend a few hours if you're between games and want to visit one that isn't horrendously long. It doesn't tell a compelling story and some of the voice actors could use some more classes, but the game's breakneck speed from mission to mission will have you entertained enough not to care. It holds its own in a sea of 1st Person Shooters, that's for sure.

7/10

Good Enough

Want to check out a book review of mine? Look at Road to Neverwinter.