A highly recommended underdog

Thrilling gameplay and beautiful visuals make Titanfall2 a worthy purchase

November 15, 2016 12:00 am | Updated December 02, 2016 03:39 pm IST

First-person shooter games have taken us down to hell and back. They have allowed us to blast all sorts of baddies across time, space and wherever the imagination can take us.

Titanfall stands out among the sea of such games as one title that lets you jump into a giant mechanical suit and wreak havoc.

Made by the ex-Infinity Ward founders, the company that put a defibrillator to the Call of Duty series with Modern Warfare in 2007, giving the series one of its best games to date. Now, with their own studio, Respawn, they are doing the same thing with first-person shooters. Titanfall 2 is a big shot of voltage that the genre needs.

What’s it about?

Meet Rifleman Jack Cooper, who was an ordinary bloke handy with a gun. He was a footsoldier in an interstellar war in the distant future of mankind. Cooper’s dream is to become a Pilot one day, an elite warrior. When an attack on his planet goes horribly wrong, the gunman finds his dream coming true. His fellow friend and pilot dies and gives him control of BT-7274, a towering exoskeleton robot bristling with weapons and no sense of humour.

Titanfall 2 addresses one of the biggest problems of the original multiplayer-only Titanfall with a chunky, adrenaline-packed single-player campaign that is one of the best this year.

The sequel’s got a fantastic, fast-paced, action movie-like narrative, telling a story we’ve seen countless times before. But with its special setting and your travelling companion, it makes for excellent entertainment. Also, through the eyes of Cooper and his robot, the developers have fleshed out the world of Titanfall a lot more. This game goes deep into the neural link between man and machine; between pilot and his Titan, who is human in his own binary, sentient way.

How does it play?

Together BT (the robot) and Cooper make the story. But the star of the show undoubtedly is the action and platforming system.

This sequel has introduced something called jetpack parkour which allows its pilots to run across walls, make double jumps and traverse impossible terrain at breakneck pace.

The rest of the game throws Titans and infantry at you, letting you unleash on them a whole host of weapons. The melee attack is especially fun: it lets you punch enemies from quite a distance and at times, off precipices. Satisfying is too mild a word when you're using the Titan weapons, which range from massive shotguns to energy blasts and even thermite launchers. There’s even one called Ronin, a big electrified Samurai sword-like weapon.

The only part that is lacking is the shoddy enemy AI, which is predictable and not proactive in either shooting you or trying to stay alive. The boss battles though are highly entertaining, despite being just stronger Titans in some instances.

Once you're done with the tale of Cooper and BT, you can take your skills into Titanfall 2’ s multiplayer game modes. The latest is Bounty Hunt, where you and your team of pilots have to earn bounties on kills and deposit them in a bank after every enemy wave. Titanfall 2 now features pilot as well as Titan abilities, which you can deploy on the battlefield. They’re all pretty useful and fun to use, with the exception of the cloak, which gives campers — players who like sitting in one corner picking off other players from a safe distance — an unfair and extremely annoying advantage. The multiplayer is fantastic overall, as you run and gun across a diversity of maps, taking down players and non-player infantry.

Titanfall 2 is beautiful, as the single-player mode takes you through dense jungles filled with fallen spaceships and other debris.

Everything about the game is all about large set pieces and impressive graphics. The developers have puled offi an mpressive feat: the Xbox One, PS4 and PC versions of the game all look largely similar graphically, even though the PC looks marginally better.

The scope and breadth of the game has been translated impressively on the consoles. The sound design has an amazing punch, with good performances from all the voice actors.

Should you get it?

Titanfall 2 is a fantastic game, with an adrenaline-filled campaign and truly different multiplayer mode.

Sadly, this came comes around the same time the new Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare launches. If you have to pick between the three, do give this game a try.

The star of the

show is undoubtedly the action and platforming system

in this game

Titanfall 2

Developer: Respawn Entertainment

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Price: Rs. 4,299 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Rs. 3499 on PC

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