Well, I have to say I am a little more than surprised. Titanfall has turned out to be a hell of a bombshell so far, literally.
I want to briefly share my experiences with you about the beta, my impressions, and what I think the future holds for Titanfall.
First Impressions
At first glance, Titanfall (for me, anyway) was a desperate attempt on EA's behalf to clean up their image and show people they're still capable of being (at least) a good publisher. I'm happy to report that I don't feel the same way anymore, after playing the beta for some time.
I do feel like Electronic Arts, as a publisher and even as a developer, needs to understand the dynamics of the gaming industry and change/adapt with it, to meet the needs and expectations of gamers, who let's face it- are paying their bills. Milking people for money year after year with re-iterations of their most popular franchises and making us feel like at times they weren't even trying is NOT the way to do that.
However, working on a project with a talented and ambitious developer; and more importantly, cooperating with them and working on putting out a product that is solid, engaging, fun, fresh, and worth it, is the way to go. Titanfall to me is showing that there's still hope.
My overall first impressions of the game are fantastic. Sure there were a couple of very minute bugs, not even noteworthy at this point- but the game was engaging. It gave me a sense of urgency to help me team when they needed it most, it made me sit on the edge of my seat as I was flanking the enemy squad while being chased by one of their titans. It was just, well, exciting. And I can't remember the last time a game made me feel like that.
I am (at least in part) now a firm believer that there is nothing fresh left and what we get are going to be re-makes of things that have come before, but clearly that is not the case.
The parkour style movement of the pilots gives you the ability to outmaneuver your opponents, flank enemy positions, and get into firing range of a titan - a massive robotic exoskeleton suit called in and piloted by players. The titans themselves have unique movement characteristics which you have to use if you want to survive. A clever auxiliary weapon system (when used properly) can mean the difference between life and death of your titan while you're reloading... It's very fresh, it demands a bit of skill and practice, and it's just a hell of a lot of fun. And when you do get good at it, it's very rewarding.
Gameplay
Let's start off with the visuals. The visuals during the gameplay were initially very laggy and the framerate was absolutely terrible. However, once I finally reduced the texture quality from insane to high (which still looks pretty damn great) it made a huge difference. Framerates for me stayed in the 60fps range even though I had all my other settings on high, running at 1920x1080.
Movement, weapon and combat animations for pilots and titans alike were fluid, responsive and satisfying. There was no texture pop in to speak of and a minute amount of screen tearing as I was playing with V-Sync disabled.
The sounds were a joy to the ears. I am playing on an Astro A50 wireless audio system and I found that the quality of the various sounds from effects to music in the game were superb. The sound of emptying a clip into your enemy was greatly satisfying and sounded realistic to boot. The thunderous sound of a titan running straight at you, or even worse, chasing you from behind, is more than enough to get your heart beating and your adrenaline pumping, and almost instantly demands some kind of physiological response. It's almost euphoric- and I would continuously find myself jumping out of my seat - a new reaction every time - after having taken out the enemy titan, or sneaking up on a bunch of guys huddled up in a hole somewhere and taking each..and every one...out...with...a...pistol.
Menus and UI
The menus and UI system in the beta are of a very basic, but useful nature. I am not sure if they are going to change for launch, but I would hope not. I like simple. Simple and effective. And that's what it is. It's easy to find the settings you want to change, change them and move on. No b.s. - and I think that's the way it should be.
It's clean, appealing, and somewhat organized. Although I feel like some of the more advanced settings are very cluttered, and it would be nice if they separated them (such as Audio, Visual, etc) into different categories in (maybe) different areas of your screen as opposed to having them all in a list view.
Performance
For a beta, Titanfall runs beautifully. I am currently running a core i7 930 and two EVGA GTX 570sc in SLI mode. I have had no game ending bugs, no artifacts, or other major issues to speak of hardware wise. In my first match however, the inputs were extremely unresponsive, and I had to move my mouse a great distance in order to move a small distance. The screen would shake violently making it hard to see anything while moving. Fortunately that was a one time occurrence, and never happened again. The loading times were a bit longer than I was used to - but the detailed and engrossing worlds and environments that followed were worth it in the end.
Design
Everything in Titanfall has this futuristic look to it. It kind of reminds me of Battlefield 2142 - which was a great game. And funny enough I also really enjoyed the titan gameplay - it was my favorite game mode.
The way the character models of the pilots and titans are built is fascinating. It feels very futuristic, but also has the human element (such as being able to see a human face behind the armor in some loadouts) which makes it a little bit more believable and helps you to be immersed in the game a little more.
The weapons, armors, and environments look very rich and detailed, and make me feel like the artists had great attention to detail during the (seemingly) painstaking work to create all of this.
In the end it feels like they've hit the perfect balance of high tech but not over the top.
Conclusion
I was not a believer that this game would be anything good. I never really believe any hype for any game, because anyone can say anything, and unless they back it up, only the naive are going to be buying it.
However, I am so happy to see that this game is bringing a lot of fresh ideas to the genre, and hey, who knows, it might even reinvigorate it. Other publishers and developers should take an example from Respawn. It IS possible to come up with fresh ideas that will get people excited. All you have to do is TRY. And I hope that as a result, publishers like EA will give those developers the time and resources they need to make that awesome game they want to make. Don't always focus on the bottom line, the time table, the "we have to release this game before they release theirs". Competition is good, but not if it negatively impacts how the end user feels about your product, because then, nobody wins.
Keep an eye out for more awesome content here at SSP Gaming, and more Titanfall coverage.
As always, stay classy.
Scaryspikes
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