IGN Editors React to Playing Titanfall for the First Time
"Stand by for Titanfall."
by Ryan McCaffrey
August 23, 2013
At the Gamescom convention in Cologne, Germany this week, the IGN team got to play
Titanfall, the new multiplayer-centric first-person shooter from Call of Duty co-creator Vince Zampella and his largely ex-Infinity Ward co-workers at Respawn Entertainment for the first time. Regular IGN readers know how excited we've been about
Titanfall ever since its official E3 reveal, where we and
pretty much every other media outlet on planet Earth awarded it the
E3 Best of Show. Now that the time had come for us to finally play it, the question was: could it possibly be as fun as it looked? And could it live up to the hype that we ourselves helped to create? We all played it for the first time together in the same room and in the same match (we played to a 1-1 draw with the Europeans, for what it's worth...), and afterwards we sat down and shared our favorite moments from our first Titanfall hands-on.
Keza Macdonald, IGN UK Editor
As a longtime fan of big stompy robots (I've spent many of hours playing things like Armored Core and Mechwarrior), it's not exactly unexpected that my favourite thing about Titanfall would be the Titans. That visual HUD effect you get when you step in to pilot one is very, very sexy. I did a lot of boosting around and punching other big robots in the face. The contrast between the huge, powerful mechs and the super-nimble on-foot pilots is invigorating, too -- it feels like you're alternating between two very different games.
It's been a long time since I was seriously excited by a multiplayer FPS; it feels like we've been enjoying variations on the same theme for a long time now. But Titanfall feels completely different to play from anything else. The ease of movement afforded by jet-jumping and wall-running mean that you have to completely relearn how to think about the map. It reminded me of the first time I played a Halo multiplayer match; different, novel, and extraordinarily exciting.
Scott Lowe, IGN Tech Executive Editor
Titanfall already had my attention with the simple promise of its massive scale mech and infantry combat, but I was cautiously optimistic about the player experience. After all, how do you preserve balance, intuitive directives, and team strategy when there tens of players leaping onto and over buildings and piloting multiple titans at any given time? Admittedly, the prospect was pretty overwhelming during my first round, but within minutes, I had a clear grasp on the combat mechanics, the flow of maps, and found myself seamlessly traversing buildings, taking out mechs, and performing takedowns.
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The frenetic, fast-paced FPS action paired with an emphasis on varying play styles, vehicles, and team play could be more accurately described as an ideal blend of the best elements of Call of Duty and Battlefield.
Titanfall builds upon Vince Zampella's and the former Infinity Ward team's expertise in crafting fluid, yet incredibly precise controls. In many ways, running down alleys and narrow interiors feels remarkably similar to the Call of Duty franchise, but the same nuances are also carried over to vertical climbs via jetpack and downing mechs.
Unlike other shooters that require precise, timed action to successfully make a leap or grab a ledge, Titanfall is forgiving but in the best way. Vaulting from an elevated window before engaging my jetpack, hovering to a nearby wall, and running alongside it to another ledge felt like one smooth, calculated movement. Prior experience had taught me to expect an on-screen prompt or button-mashing combo to jump on and hijack a mech, but in Titanfall, all you have to do is get close enough to it and jump. The game takes it from there.
On paper, it might sound like Titanfall's lenient movement and combat mechanics may cheapen the experience, but it's all for the sake of keeping players engaged in the action and stringing together a series of kills. There's still plenty of emphasis on skill and, more importantly, strategy. And really, that's what stuck out at me — while Titanfall shares DNA with the team's previous works, it's not a wholesale Call of Duty competitor. The frenetic, fast-paced FPS action paired with an emphasis on varying play styles, vehicles, and team play could be more accurately described as an ideal blend of the best elements of Call of Duty and Battlefield. And as an long-time fan of both franchises, I couldn't be happier about it.
Andrew Goldfarb, IGN News Editor
Titanfall is going to make it very hard to go back to other shooters. The pace was insane. I never stopped moving. Nothing on the map was ever off limits. I could run up a wall, see a guy shooting at me from across the street, jump across, kill him, enter a window on the next floor. Everything was a single fluid motion, and it was easy to pull off. That’s rad, and something that I imagine will make most other games feel sluggish by comparison.
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I guess you could say I Titanfell in love.
Running around as a pilot is great, but my favorite moments came while controlling a Titan. At one point I lucked out by coming across a cluster of enemies gathered together that I decimated with a rocket launcher blast, and even that was nothing compared to Titan vs. Titan combat. Also, stealing a Titan from the other team makes you feel like the world’s greatest badass.
More importantly, nothing ever felt forced or too heavily scripted. It’s like the game anticipated what I wanted to do, and it let me do it quickly and easily without any complicated quicktime events or long animations or unnecessary clutter. Respawn just
gets it, and it felt like Titanfall took everything good about all of my favorite shooters and married them into one frantic, gorgeous, visceral playground.
We played Attrition (which is basically Team Deathmatch), but the prospect of other modes is what really makes Titanfall exciting to me. Can you imagine a Titans Only mode, or some unique new variations on Search and Destroy, Capture the Flag, etc.? The possibilities are endless.
There’s still a ton we don’t know about Titanfall, but after a few matches, this is easily my most anticipated next-gen game. I guess you could say I Titanfell in love.
Ryan McCaffrey, IGN Previews Executive Editor
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I clapped my hands together and shouted, "Again!" like a two-year-old being tickled.
I've already gushed for 1200 words about what it's like to play Titanfall, so I'll keep this brief. When I looked around at my fellow IGN editors as we all sat in a row waiting to play Titanfall for the first time, I could see the giddy anticipation.
Destin later admitted on Podcast Unlocked that had the good kind of butterflies in his stomach before the match started. Keza was visibly trembling after our match was over, quivering from the rush of adrenaline the game had elicited (she said so herself when we stood up!). I clapped my hands together and shouted, "Again!" like a two-year-old being tickled (trust me, I have a two-year-old).
The fact is, we are all so fortunate to play so many great games these days that an exceptional few of them are able to generate these kinds of Christmas morning-level reactions. Titanfall is something special, so treasure that first moment you get to play it, whether it's at Gamescom this week, a PAX convention, or on Xbox Live next year. And bring friends, because you'll want to share this experience with them. You're not going to forget it for a very long time.
