Originally bought on Origin and now re-purchased here, because i'm that much of a steam fanboy.
Upon first launch you are prompted to link your Origin account, which means you get to keep all the progress you've made in the origin version if you had it. Which is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ relief, because i woudn't survive grinding all the gear to open the black paint again...




Ever since i got a taste of the original Titanfall this automatically became one of my all-time favorite franchises. The concept behind the game is basically "big anime robots, but with western style of semi-realism like Call of Duty". The original game was everything i could ever want from a first person shooter game and more, and this is the improvement of the original formula.



This game features a single player campaign - something that wasn't present in the original.
The original made a fascinating experiment, where the solo-campaign style story was intertwined with PvP experience - with NPC's talking in the background as the players ruin each other. But this game separates Campaign and PvP.

Solo campaign is great and is very solid gameplay-wise. While the story is very cliche, very straight "this good - this bad" ("Spec Ops: The Line" forever ruined my experience of military shooters) and personally i found the main character to be very uninteresting and, at times, even annoying (the voice actor was definetely not paid enough to show some EMOTION in his lines), but... The gameplay alone is worth it.
Developers really tried to not have the player be bored by making him just shoot same copypaste enemies for 5 hours and instead every level has some kind of gimmick that adds a special flavour to the experience.
Its a relatively short, action-packed, almost arcade-style ride of childish fun from start to finish.
And it also works as a tutorial for PvP mode of the game. Which is where the real game lies.



The Gameplay is effectively separated into 2 different parts: Pilot Gameplay and Titan Gameplay.

Pilot Gameplay is fairly simple: first person, aim-down-sights, press-shift-to-run, COD-like military shooter. Except you have jetpacks! You can double-jump, you can climb roofs, you can run along the walls and just generally parkour all over the place, so its pretty intense.
Some guns require aim, some guns - not so much (SMGs can be just sprayed from the hip with quiet an astonishing accuracy for example). Some guns require lots of skill. Some less. Some guns shoot slow projectiles that require target-reading. So you'll definetely find how to have some fun (or challenge).
There are also pilot classes which grant the player special tactical abilities, like grappling hook, invisibility, speed boost, etc. You'll figure it out.

Titan Gameplay is a different experience. If pilot combat is a matter of who is the quickest draw in the west, the titan combat is a slow, methodic, surgical fight of attrition.
Titans are pretty durable so a titan-on-titan fight is often a test of not only aim and reflexes, but well executed abilities and strategies. Hiding behind cover, setting up traps, avoiding said traps, disengaging and so on.
Pilots can fight titans too. A little bit too well in fact... One can make entire loadouts dedicated to specifically make a titan's life miserable. So it's not like pilots are no longer an issue once you get a titan. If anything, they just become more annoying. Those pesky parasites...

Somewhat a downgrade from the previous game - the titans now have classes too. In previous game you could combine available titans, primary weapons and auxilaries into whatever build you liked the most.
In Titanfall 2 you have access to 7 titans (3 mediums, 2 lights and 2 heavies) who use predetermined weapons and have specific sets of skills. And while you do have access to so called "kits" - they rarely change the gameplay of relevant titan in any major way, usually acting is QoL improvements to compensate for weaknesses, or taking advantage of your particular skill / gameplay style. Good enough i suppose, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ do i miss my 40mm-wielding heavy titan...



Alright. Pretty good so far. Is there anything wrong here? Weeeeeeeeeell...

One word: BALANCE.
Some guns are better than others. Some titan kits are better than others. Some TITANS are better than others.
The fact that there are titan kits that are LITERALLY WORTHLESS truly baffles me. Nothing angers me more than something so clearly disfunctional, yet nobody cares and intends to fix it.

The skill difference is also an issue. Pub-stomping can get very real in this game if one of the teams gets a particular player or two who are just way too good and can effectively carry the entire game by themselves while the rest act as cannon fodder. So you can equally get either a match of your life, or the most miserable "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, i died to this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ again!" 10 minutes of your life.

Thankfully, if you just wish to relax - there is a COOP mode called "Frontier Defense" where you and 3 other players are defending an objective against waves of NPC enemies. And it can actually get pretty intense on higher difficulties too.



A genuinely good and fun game that doesn't take itself too seriously and can provide a plenty of memorable moments and good times.
What a shame that EA threats it as the irrelevant child and does not shows any desire for making a new game.
Oh well, at least we do not run the risk of ruining the franchise with a 3rd installment, right "Dead Space"?