2016’s holiday season saw three well made first-person shooters come out, and all three had their merits. One of these games, Titanfall 2, didn’t sell nearly as many copies as Battlefield 1 or Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, but in my opinion, playing it is the best experience of the three.
Titanfall 2 is the sequel to the well reviewed Titanfall. Titanfall was a great game in terms of multiplayer, but had no single player campaign to really flesh out the world that you were playing in. Titanfall 2 changes all that. They put in a pretty hefty sized single player campaign, and a great one at that.
The main conflict stems from the IMC (The Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation) and the Militia in a star system called The Frontier. The IMC are stripping the planets of all their resources, not caring for the consequences. In contrast, the Militia are just trying to fight for the protection of these planets, and to gain their independence.
You play as rifleman Jack Cooper. He’s a renowned pilot, but one still in training, being mentored by Captain Lastimosa. One day, he hopes to take the test to ascend the ranks. In the first mission of the game, something happens to Captain Lastimosa, and you find yourself in control of his Titan BT-7274.
Now that you are linked up with BT, it is your mission to stop the IMC, but they have paid mercenaries on their side called the Apex Predators to kill you. You will find yourself having one on one Titan battles with these named mercs, introducing them in a Borderlands like style; the camera zooms in on their face, they get a name, and they deliver a one liner.
I actually really liked this. I would never remember their names, or even really care that much if they didn’t do this, so I thought it was a nice touch. If you end up playing on a harder difficulty like Master, expect multiple Titans fighting against you in these battles, and beware of Viper.
The story for the campaign is a fun one. You still feel like everything is up to you to fight off the IMC, but you actually get to see other Pilots as well, so you are not truly alone in the fight.
There is one mission in the game that is probably one of the best levels I have seen in a long time. It deals with a lot of time travel mechanics and you actually get a nice chunk of story with it. Another level is set in a manufacturing facility, and it’s probably my favorite wall running, platforming level in any game I have ever played.
If you played the multiplayer for the first Titanfall, then you will be right at home with Titanfall 2. All the fun game modes are back like Attrition, Hard Point, and Pilot vs Pilot. They even have new game modes like Coliseum and Bounty Hunt that are a ton of fun as well. The selection of guns has expanded quite a bit as well, giving more variety, and customizing your Titans is even more fun this time around.
The maps are just as fun in this game as they were in the first. Not too big for a Pilot, but big enough for 12 titans to be running around the map. One of the bigger complaints for the first Titanfall was that the AI Grunts were too stupid, making it too easy to gain points off of them. I would agree with this, and I think developer Respawn did too. They made the AI much better this time around. I don’t find myself getting killed by them still, but they definitely spot you way sooner, and will open fire relentlessly. I think it’s a nice balance at this point. If they made the AI play like they do on Master difficulty for single player, I do not think many people would enjoy that.
Titanfall 2 is a huge step up for the franchise. I was slightly worried that it wouldn’t see a sequel in the future because of the poor sales it saw, but after finishing the campaign, there are a lot scenes in the credits that make me believe we will see Jack Cooper again, and this won’t be the last time we will get to call in a Titan in The Frontier.
