Preview: Running On Walls And Giant Mechs In Titanfall

There were many great games headlining Gamescom this year, each billed to be a must buy on release, however there was only one title that I made a beeline for as soon as the gates were opened and that was Titanfall. Fast paced shooting, giant mechs and jetpacks, how could it go wrong? Obviously it didn't, so hold onto your butts as I drop some multiplayer info on you!

Titanfall was easily my favourite game of the show... now that’s out of the way I can dig into the more finer details surrounding the game. Before even getting to the booth I was greeted by a Titan itself which stood around 24 feet tall! I was ushered into a room and shown some of the promotional footage that's been doing the rounds since E3 and also a breakdown of the available classes of both pilot and Titan that were on offer. The demo was played on PC but being the noob I am, I used the supplied Xbox 360 controller.

Prince of Persia what?!

Selecting from the 3 available classes, each class has 3 weapons which gives you a choice between a sizable gun, a sidearm and a Titan killing weapon. This really gives you the edge when faced with a behemoth of a mech, should you ever have to step toe to toe with one. I selected the default soldier equipped with an assault rifle and a special grenade launcher designed to punch through Titan armour. Other classes offered a shotgun and lock-on rocket launcher, and the third pilot was a female who only had a side arm but the perk to this was you can target up to three enemies at once, holding your reticule over them long enough turns your bullets into tracer rounds that can fly round corners and score you an instant headshot. It seemed a tad overpowered, especially with the one hit kill feature, but I don't see it breaking the game and if you come face to face with someone, they normally get a beat down on you before you've had the time to lock on properly.

The Titan’s themselves also have loadouts. Your standard equipment on a Titan is a giant machine gun and vents on the top, these may sound pointless, but if a soldier jumps on your back he can do a lot of damage to you. The vents basically knock the dude off and then you can just turn around and stomp on him. As for other load outs, there was a heavy weapons Titan which had a massive rocket launcher arm and the third Titan was equipped with a scoped weapon for precision firing action. Titans can be called in by all players once they are ready to be deployed, just hit the down button on the D-pad and then look to the skies, you'll see your Titan crash down to the ground in front of you in which you can just hop inside it or set it to follow you. It’s pretty cool to have a hulking robot walk behind you as some armoured back up.

 A GIANT MECH! OH SHIT!!!

The map we played on was full of detailed buildings and scenery that was begging to be clambered all over. Even something as simple as an open window screamed “jetpack up here and run through the hallways”. I couldn't help myself as soon as I saw one, so I sprinted forward and hopped off the ground, and a double tap of the A button sent me sailing skyward. I was just short of reaching the ledge, but my pilot hit the wall, ran up the side and grabbed onto the concrete walls, launching me inside. It's such a small thing when you think about it, but the fact that everything just works so smoothly and just how you'd expect it to means a world of difference from your standard FPS. Control is one of the fundamentals that really make this game feel as good as it does and the simplicity of moving about makes the game flow perfectly.

Not only was the game full of human players and giant mechs, the world is also populated with NPC soldiers who will attack you as well, this means that there's always something to aim your reticules at if there's no opposing forces in the area. Another interesting twist being that if you do suffer the unfortunate fate of losing a battle, you still have a chance to redeem yourself. A dropship will come down to collect you saying that your team has been over run, this is your opportunity to escape from the other team and escape the battle alive, doing this will net you some heavy bonus points, so everyone gets a fair shot at gaining some. On the other hand, if you manage to win, you're tasked with taking out the other team as they try to flee. Catching anyone also gives you a larger sum of points than normal.

We obviously played this on high end PC's and I'm curious to see how this pans out for its XboxOne and Xbox 360 incarnations of visual aesthetics. If you've not seen Titanfall in action yet, the video below will give you just a taste of what you can expect, however you really have to play it for yourself to experience it fully.




If like me you can't shut up about this game, you can always catch me on Twitter @chaosriotzero and join in with the conversation or leave a comment below.