Titanfall

If war is what you are after, then you can at least make it as awesome as possible. That’s what modern shooter developers seem to think, which is why we have gems like Halo, Unreal Tournament and Battlefield. On the other hand, it’s always possible to kick it up another notch or two, either by adding more players, or simply by introducing huge mechanized suits into the equation.

Titanfall is one hell of a multiplayer FPS, and it certainly tries an awful lot to be different than what else is out there. Not everything about is perfect, and it actually has some serious flaws in some regards, but you are guaranteed to have a bit of fun with the game the first couple of hours. As soon as your titan lands into the middle of the map and you hop into it, there doesn’t seem to be any downside to the gimmick.

There are many modes to choose from as well, most of which are somewhat original, at least in some regards. Frontier Defense, Hardpoint and Marked for Death are just some of the options, and they usually involve some kind of special objective every player must work on. In some cases, survival is all that matters, since everyone plays for the same team and the AI is the enemy. It’s up to the players to make the matches fun, however, so your experience with the game might not be the same every time.

Before each match, you are allowed to change the loadout for both the pilot and your titan. Better weapons and upgrades are available, and it makes you feel like the experience you gain matters. The actual gameplay is quite fast-paced and explosive as well, since you are always blowing something up, or unloading high-caliber magazines into enemies. Special abilities are available as well, and you can have a blast finding the limits of your titan during the matches.

On the other hand, the dream can end rather abruptly, mostly because the selection of maps is rather poor. You can get more by purchasing DLCs, but that’s hardly something you can get excited about. Thankfully, at least the ones you get to play on are quite gorgeous, albeit still rather small for the type of combat the game theoretically encourages. As such, all the fancy explosions in the world can’t make up for the lack of content.

Titanfall is not really as awesome as advertised, but it comes pretty close. It has one too many flaws to become a classic of the genre, but it’s not bad either. As long as you can live with the annoying lack of content and the rather chaotic gameplay, Titanfall might even grow on you over time.

Note: The game is available through Origin's "Game Time" program, which allows you full access to all of its features for two straight days. As soon as you start the game for the first time, you have 48 hours to play as much as you want, without any kind of restrictions, other than the additional maps available with DLCs.