Titan Drop Incoming - My Review

Remember a few months ago, when I said I was done with PC gaming? Well, Blackwalt was kind enough to gift me a 360 controller for PC and in the interest of putting it to good use, I bought Titanfall for PC last night. Here are my thoughts after 8 hours of gameplay.

1. I might live in the boonies, but I honestly didn't realize there was no single player campaign. None. So why am I paying $65 for an (online only) multiplayer. No local pan parties, etc. In fact, even in MP, there is no way to invite or play with your friends. Really? WTF is that?! The "campaign" mode is a series of game modes with a bit of narrative, but they are pretty much the same as the regular MP game modes. BTW, there is no matchmaking. It's a freaking free for all.

It's painfully stupid as well. 4-6 players per team. If one team has 6 players and the other has 4....you sit and wait until it can find 2 more. It won't move someone over. Also, there is a 90 second lobby timer. 90 seconds! It's a ridiculously long time to sit and wait. If one person drop, at 1 second, it resets and wait for someone to join.

I've waited, on average, 2-3 mins between matches. Doesn't sound like much, but coming form consoles, it's painful. Finding games/players is lengthy too. I spent more time staring at this screen than any others.

2. Origins. You know what? Origins sucks. Steam sucks. All these micro platforms suck. They take up more resources and add nothing to your experience. They are there for piracy protection and post purchase sales (in game items). I just want to install a game and play it. Those days are gone I guess. Remember when I bitched about installing 26GB for Batman? Well, Titanfall is 50GB. There's like 12 maps. 6 character skins. maybe a dozen weapons. WHY is it 50GB? I wanted to install on my OS drive, which is an SSD, but I couldn't give up 50GB.

3. Do you like Battlefield? If so, you might like this game. The sheer volume of deaths I suffered at the hands of invisible enemies feels exactly like Battlefield. You need to be good at watching that minimap. Actually, this game feels a LOT like Halo. Same level of customization (minor) same limited weapons/mods, same game dynamics (invisibility cloak, turbo jumps, dbl jumps, AI enemies) It feels much more like Halo than COD. Which is fun, but I get bored of Halo games fairly quick.

I've played 28 games. I won 2. These are team games. 6 vs 6. So my suckage shouldn't solely be the limiting factor to my game wins. This is where the rank up method of unlocks is brutal. I'm in games with guys who are level 50 and have all the toys. The rate to which you unlock is very slow as well. So I imagine I'd need over 200 games to get to those higher levels. That's a lot of time to invest in grinding out matches just to get a rail gun.

4. LAG. You know I was going here. Since this game is online only...your gameplay is at the mercy of your ISP. Since this was my PC, it was hard wired. You can choose which server you want to use, but it will autoselect the one with the best connection (lower ping). However, strangely enough, this connection tanks as soon as I'm in a game. I connect to central US server with a ping of 55ms.

As soon as I get into a game and I'm running around, I drop to 180ms. At least I can see everyone's connection. I'm not the worst, but i seem to be in the bottom half of users.

This means, of course, replays of my death that don't match what my screen showed. I'm shooting about 20 feet behind the guy who kills me, when I was actually leading him in a stream of bullets. The ONE thing I hate the most about COD is a defining characteristic of Titanfall. After about 10 games, I started routinely checking the ping numbers and could anticipate my shittiest games. Since this is a server driven game, I'm at a loss to why this is so bad.

5. It's all about the Titans. I get it, it's called Titanfall for a reason, but it would be nice if they gave us some variety. If you're not in a Titan, you're dying. You play as a pilot (regular dude) just to get your Titan. Then the dudes with the upgraded Titans kill you, almost immediately, and you wait to get another Titan.

As a pilot, you are very weak. Using a cloak and running around killing bots is one of your only ways to make points. Oh, and there is an auto-aim pistol. It's f*cking brutal. You only have to be in the same room with someone and the gun will track , lock on and kill people. Frankly, it's worst than drop-shooters in COD. The run fast, use cloak and auto aim pistol. LAME. Couple the auto-aim pistol with any level of LAG, and it's a gibfest. I will say this, if it wasn't for the bots, it would be exactly like Battlefield. You'd just keep dropping dead without knowing where/who killed you.

That's the problem. It's not enjoyable. I'm not earning any worthwhile unlocks. I have a KD of 0.2 and a game win/loss of 0.1. ANY amount of LAG renders my bullets into BBs. I can't play with friends. I can't play by myself. I can't record my games. I need 50GB of storage. It's $65 and I'm not getting $65 worth of game.

It is beautiful, the sound is epic, it's fast, some of the unlocks seem cool and unique (I just need to play for 300 hours to get them). I wonder how the 360 version has friends/party support, because the game simply isn't worth it if I can't share my pain with my friends.

Here's a short video of my game play. Sorry I had to record off the screen so the quality is not so great.

I'd honestly rate the game a 4.5 out of 10.

RAVE:
Graphics
Sound
Game mechanics (in/out of titans)

RANT:
no friends/lan parties
no campaign
ridiculous matchmaking setup / long lobby time
limited weapons/mods
huge time investment for unlocks
auto aim pistol...really?!

PS. The xbox controller for PC works like a champ! LOVE it. Thanks Blackwalt :)