THE REVIEWS Episode 76: Titanfall 2

If I have to be honest, I have never been interested in first-person shooters for a long period of time.

I’m more towards the racing, rhythm, and role-playing types of games, like Forza Horizon, BanG Dream Girls Band Party, and Honkai: Star Rail. You’ve seen me played these games on YouTube, and I even reviewed them here in Medium. They interest me more than shooting. The different cars, the tapping of notes, and how different characters work in a battle fascinate me more than shooting. The only shooting game I played back then was Virtual Cop 2 on PC.

There’s another reason though. I really, really, REALLY suck at playing any shooting games, especially if it is a competitive shooter game. My reaction time with using guns are not the best, and people who saw me play can vouch for that. I got completely blasted in Valorant, and as usual, got roasted in the chat by some random Vietnamese player on my team.

I really do wanna play shooter games though. The trailers for these type of games look really amazing, and when I see YouTubers play games like Call of Duty or Apex Legends, they looked like they’re having a lot of fun. Even some of the voice actress/seiyuus I know like Rincharo (Rin Tateshi, known for voicing Anon Chihaya in BanG Dream It’s MyGO!!!!!) or Natsumi Murakami (known for voicing Ai Miyashita from Love Live Nijigasaki) play first-person shooter games.

Even when these celebrities aren’t streaming, my friends also usually stream in our Discord server, playing Helldivers 2 and having a hella lot damn fun. Many of my friends have constantly invited me to join them in playing these games too, but I have constantly rejected them because I am never confident I’d do well in shooting at all. I suck at Counter Strike, Blackshot, Team Fortress, and Valorant.

You might ask me, “Well, Noah, have you tried these games before? They are not that hard once you get used to the controls.”

Believe me, I did. And I failed terribly at all of them. One notable game I have enjoyed playing a lot though is XDefiant. I thought it was a pretty neat concept to use tools while I shoot my enemies. The maps are cool, so are the guns and the weapons I own, as well as the interesting game modes. Although I wasn’t best at the game, I did get better at it over time. And just as I was about to get the hang of it and fully settle into it, guess what? IT WENT AHEAD AND ANNOUNCED A SHUT DOWN. COMPLETELY.

Instead of concentrating on the great games players love, this joke of a company decided to just delete this game off the servers for…a AAAA game called Skull and Bones? Yeah, you might as well throw your company away, take every game you created, and just burn it in a fire so nobody else can play them. Ubisoft being Ubisoft, am I right?

Anyways, since XDefiant is out of service now, what do I do? Am I really gonna stop playing first-person shooter games, or shooter games in general? I went onto my Xbox store, searching for a top-rated game to pass my time.

That was when I found Titanfall 2, at a whopping discount of 90%.

Titanfall 2 is a first-person shooter game developed by Respawn Entertainment and released on the Playstation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in 2016 by none other than Electronic Arts. Yes, the company that is known for being greedy and overcharging with their loot boxes.

From the game’s name itself, it is a sequel to 2014’s Titanfall, which I had no idea existed. I mean, I should because this is Titanfall 2, and they possibly won’t make a sequel without the original game, but you get what I mean. Anyways, Titanfall 2 follows Jack Cooper, a rifleman who takes control of BT-7274, his mentor Tai Lastimosa’s robot or what they call ‘Titan’, after a mission gone horribly wrong. They go on a journey to stop the villains, a shady organization, from using a destructive weapon to destroy the planet Harmony, which Jack and Tai, along with other riflemen, live in.

I first knew this game when it came along with the Xbox One I bought. However, I wasn’t too interested in it, and neither was my family members, so we sold the disc off to someone else. It wouldn’t be years later when I realized, “Hey, I don’t have that much console games to play, and the shooter game I kinda liked is shutting down.”

Also, I kinda got turned off by the EA logo on the game. Yeah, they’re just distributing the game, not making it, but still Respawn is its own company…Well, not currently. EA bought them, but when Titanfall 2 was released, Respawn was still on its own. So yeah, EA don’t have that good of a reputation either. Just look at FIFA.

However, the moment I played this game, I never stopped.

This game is one of the best, if not the best, first-person shooter games I’ve played. Heck, it beats XDefiant in my favorite shooting game currently, and if any other new games come in, this will still be one of my favorites. It opened a whole new world for me, and I love quite a lot about this game. Let me go through each element one by one.

The campaign mode, also known as the Story mode. I’ve explained the synopsis earlier, and you might think there’s more to it. Not really. It’s just your average man-machine team-up to take down the evil forces of the world. Very standard. I kinda loved the 9-chapter story, but not too much because it is, as much as I don’t wanna admit it, cliche. Bad guy kills loved character, player kills baddies, and then player takes the main villain down, and then they saved the world. Yippee.

The relationship between BT and Jack is something I have to praise. It is short, but it is straight to the point and wholesome. It is also explored quite a lot, and you’ll soon come to love these two and their every interaction. I’m telling you, they made you love BT so that you will be touched by the ending too. The dialogue choices are hilarious sometimes too, as BT never gets Jack’s humor. I guess they’re going the safe route, after the feedback they’ve gotten from players who played Titanfall.

In this game, you get to control both Jack Cooper and the Titan BT-7274. As Jack Cooper, you get to use a variety of guns, use numerous skills such as double-jumping and wall-hopping, as well as time-travel. TIME-TRAVEL IN A ROBOT SHOOTING GAME. That sounded pretty awesome, and yeah, it is.

I love playing as Jack Cooper. Hopping from wall to wall in cool places like lairs or laboratories, punching the hell out of the enemies, and gunning them down with sick-looking weapons. I can feel like John Wick while I try to shoot the enemy soldiers in the chest and head. When can you say ‘I jumped off a ship and wall-hopped off the side of another ship before flying meters in the air and landing on a big ass ship’ and mean it? I don’t know, ‘The Ark’?

Some of the guns I loved are the R-201, R-97, and CAR, because they were very easy and fun to use. Others like Double Take and Spitfire are quite good to use too. The L-STAR…wow. The moment these beams come out of the gun and hit the enemies, you get to see them disintegrate into body pieces. Very satisfying. Also, I don’t know why they made it very detailed, but it’s cool, so I’d let it slide.

Onto the Titan. Jack can hop into BT-7274, and now you get to control the robot. It has a slew of abilities. First off, their primary weapons. The more you progress in the game, the more weapons you will obtain. Eight in total, if I remembered correctly. I love to use the Tone a lot. Your normal bullets creates a target lock-on on the enemy, which then allows you to shoot rockets that they can’t dodge, dealing a good amount of damage. Easy and efficient. Funny that it is literally the second Titan gun they introduced, and I never really changed it until later on.

The graphics and visuals for this game are astounding. I know it’s not a very old game nor is it a recent one either, but the graphics are pretty clear here. There are details in every environment it’s honestly a bit surprising for me. Every chapter, it brings me to a different place. It is never the same. Even its training grounds has its own map.

One big good point about this game is that it’s EXTREMELY smooth. I don’t know how the developers did it, but this game runs so goddamn smooth on a very old Xbox One. There is no lag, no 300 ping, no 30 frames per second or any of that sort. The game would not freeze or hang or boot me out back to the Xbox home screen.

When I do the wall jump, I don’t glitch into the forbidden universe on the other side. When I shoot, the bullets don’t just go through the enemies and pretend like nothing ever happened. The controls are responsive too, and at times, it feels good too. Especially at the parts of the game that has time-travel. Man, I really love the controls here. That’s something every game should have. What is a fun game without responsive controls?

I did have some difficulty completing this game. “Blood and Rust” had this two to three minute battle where you have to fend off multiple enemy soldiers and ticks. Words can never describe how much I hate ticks because they’re really, really annoying. Don’t even get me started on Viper, one of the hardest boss battles I’ve ever faced in my history of gaming. I remember the first time I went against this boss, I raged so hard because this bitch was just flying EVERYWHERE. It took me 4 hours. ON NORMAL DIFFICULTY. I might just have skill issue, but we don’t talk about that.

Overall, the campaign mode is AMAZING. Excellent quality, fantastic controls, wonderful graphics, and a mediocre but heartwarming story. This should be the baseline standard for story or campaign modes in other games. I’m looking at you, Crew 2.

There’s still one more thing about this game that I haven’t went through, and I’m sure you know what it is.

Multiplayer.

Oh boy, if you think you’re an expert in this game just because you beat the campaign mode in the hardest difficulty, then you might want to think again. The skills difference in you and the people in the same lobby as you are WAY TOO BIG. Even if you have mastered the controls in the one-player mode, you’ll still have difficulties fighting against some of these players.

The first time I tried multiplayer out, I was like ‘This game’s almost a decade old. Surely the players playing now are all like me, who’ve bought the game because it was on a big discount, so they are abut on the same level as me, right?” I was proven so wrong.

I got shot left and right within seconds. Died too many times I even considered just not playing the mode any more and just go back to shooting enemy soldiers in campaign mode to make myself feel better. The players you are going up against are some of the best. They’re veteran players who really love the sport, and it’s because they’ve played for so long, they know the mechanics in and out.

However, I got to give the multiplayer mode credit. It is fun after I got used to it, and it is like every multiplayer shooting game, chaotic, but in a great way. Also, this mode is SO smooth. Again, no lags, no glitches, no bad things. Very fluid, which shocked me because I was expecting it to lag a lot more. I mean, yeah, it does lag here and there, but majority of the time, it is really smooth. I have no idea how the multiplayer servers are able to hold all of this and not crash, but I liked it.

The grapple is not something you use in the campaign mode, but it is available in this mode, and man is it really satisfying to use. This tool saved me from getting gunned down quite a lot, and it got me to places fast.

Frontier Defense has to be one of my favorite parts of this game. You get to team up with three other players to defend the Harvester from IMC forces, with each wave getting harder and tougher. You can play this mode with your friends too, and any game played with your friends can turn into an enjoyable session with everyone just laughing at each other over the stupid crazy mistakes made.

In conclusion, Titanfall 2 is a game done really well. It exceeded my expectations and it made me get into shooting games more. The Finals, Cyberpunk 2077, and sometimes even Valorant (although I still suck at this, like a lot). It is such a unique experience and I would definitely go back to the first time I’ve played this game to get back that surreal, enlightening experience. I love Titfanfall 2 and I’m glad to have discovered it.

It’s crazy how this game has longevity, in this era of games popping up and disappearing. Even after almost ten years into its lifespan, this game is still going relatively strong, with its multiplayer servers constantly active and running. The game is currently in the stores, and it goes on discount from time to time.

It’s hard not to see why Titanfall 2 is still standing strong. It’s such a magnificent masterpiece, be it in its gameplay, campaign mode, or controls. The people of Respawn put in their utmost effort to create this, and it clearly shows. Sadly, they won’t get to work on Titanfall anymore, as Titanfall 3 was announced to be cancelled after years of hope and pinning from fans all over the world. Sad occasion, indeed. I was kinda looking forward to it too.

It definitely isn’t the first, nor the last shooter game that is good in both their single-player and multiplayer modes, as well as has smooth controls, but Titanfall 2 will always be one of the best in this category, and it is a very good example of what games should be like.

’Til then, I’ll see you soon, Pilot.