Titanfall

[replayme]

So the embargo has been lifted, and reviews are pouring in. Judging by the 8s and 9s, it's not quite the XBone saviour like how Halo was for the original XBox. Still, word on the street is that it's pretty good. And of course, people will be playing this tomorrow.

[Acid King]

This looks cool but the lack of single player means I won't be buying it, though I don't blame the devs for doing that. I had a good chuckle when I saw a whole gaggle of people on mainstream gaming sites complaining about that choice and developer's statement that most people don't finish single player campaigns. Like it or not, unless it's an open world game like GTA, a first person shooter is dead in the water without a competitive multiplayer component and I'm sure Respawn had access to reams of data supporting their decision.

[replayme]

I never play FPS games for the MP. I go solo...

[Some-Mist]

I primarily play team fortress classic (been playing 7-9 years), quake live, and hidden: source... and if you couldn't tell, I prefer MP-only FPS games. I'd rather the developer focus on one aspect of the game instead of tacking in a MP mode in a SP game or vice versa.

having said that, I haven't tried it but it doesn't really seem like my kinda game. It does seem pretty popular and it seems that it will get a bunch of great reviews based on it being a big title. I do have some friends that are enjoying it tho..

[Vexorg]

Looks interesting, but I can't be bothered to install Origin on my PC to play it.

[TransatlanticFoe]

No single player, no buy. Great concept, shame they couldn't come up with a full plot for a campaign.

Where's my open world Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries?

[eatdogs]

COD + Prince of Persia + Tribes = Titanfall

It really isn't that interesting to me. Just by watching some review videos today I can tell I'd be bored of it quickly. It really is COD but with mechs. It just makes me reminiscent of Tribes which is an awesome fps.

[Skykid]

No solo campaign? Wat?

Not interested.

[replayme]

No solo campaign? Wat?

Not interested.

I'm still interested, but let's be honest here... Titanfall is not the second coming, although it doesn't need to be. Just another feather in MS's cap.

I'm looking forward to the X360 comparison, and depending on parity, will buy it for my little bros (who are twins). I've already gotten (one of) them Battlefield 3 Premium Edition. So that should keep them away from CoD for some time.

[ZellSF]

A lot of the game relies on killing bots. Since bots need cloud power there are no player hosted servers. Microsoft has no servers in Australia or South America.

Why has multiplayer infrastructure gotten so terrible when we had perfect solutions in 2000?

[eatdogs]

A lot of the game relies on killing bots. Since bots need cloud power there are no player hosted servers. Microsoft has no servers in Australia or South America.

Why has multiplayer infrastructure gotten so terrible when we had perfect solutions in 2000?

They're not even going to release it in south Africa because they said that part of the country had bad internet connections. I guessed they had really bad results from the so called "beta" which was really just a demo. Most betas are these days when it comes to these triple a titles.

[ZellSF]

So, Xbox Live goes down at popular game launches. So much for the infinite power of the cloud.

[captain ahar]

i bit the bullet, installed origin, and applied for the beta. the access period was quite short, something like 3 days.

i played a little, and a friend played a LOT. it was pretty fun, he was quite fond of chain-rodeoing the titans to death. i was kind of surprised it ran as well as it did on my computer, but it uses Source, so i guess it is not so surprising.

[Captain]

Lol joking, I'm not playing this, its just adding mechas to alot of other cool stuff I already play.

[Moniker]

i bit the bullet, installed origin

How is Origin these days? Any BS drawbacks? Or is it basically Steam: EA Edition? As a note, I won't even install iTunes on my PC, because once you let Apple in, they never get out.

[Damocles]

Killing bots, eh? Funny. I just spent most of this last weekend killing bots in Nightfire, Rising Sun, Star Wars: Battlefront, Timesplitters 2, Future Perfect, XIII, etc. No net connection required (or possible). Hell, the best part is the "no people required" part.

[Udderdude]

Titanfall more like Totalfail.

(I got nothin')

[Ed Oscuro]

You know, I feel pretty sure that if Halo launched in this day and age, it'd be a 7 or 8 at most. Review scores just reflect that we're creeping up to some kind of creative impasse with a lot of these games. Probably should do what Hideo and co. would, and just throw in a lot of random stats and Harvest Moon-style minigames to make people feel more involved. Wao~

This looks cool but the lack of single player means I won't be buying it, though I don't blame the devs for doing that. I had a good chuckle when I saw a whole gaggle of people on mainstream gaming sites complaining about that choice and developer's statement that most people don't finish single player campaigns. Like it or not, unless it's an open world game like GTA, a first person shooter is dead in the water without a competitive multiplayer component and I'm sure Respawn had access to reams of data supporting their decision.

Not many developers make single-player campaigns worth playing - the ground has shifted under our feet. Yeah, I'm sure that's absolutely right. All you need to do is look at Steam stats to see that barely 1/3 of people get through two or three chapters of the Left 4 Dead games (something crazy like that, last time I looked).

What I think needs to happen is get some better fusion of multiplayer and single-player campaigns going. Something to allow people to play in different styles without being forced too far out of the paradigm they prefer. I don't think that really cautious old tactical / HL school FPS players are going to go along with any kind of FPS where stuff is happening outside their control (and that kind of thing makes narrative structure harder as well; I'm sure Valve has thought about tackling this problem though) but surely more can be done in this area too.

No net connection required (or possible).

Nightfire surely has a multiplayer mode on PC, though as usual for Quake-mindset developers it was some kind of deathmatch, and apparently not very good deathmatch at that.

I think cooperative modes would help a lot of classic games lingering in purgatory, but eh, whatcha gonna do?

[Friendly]

For the lulz:

TitanFail on Xbone:

the Xbox One version simply cannot sustain the required 60fps. The consistency in performance just isn't there and so the gameplay often doesn't feel quite right. [...] we see Titanfall frame-rates on Xbox One dip into the mid-30s [...] there's still too much of the 'adaptive' and not enough of the 'v-sync', resulting in an obvious tearing that impacts visual consistency. [...]
in the middle of pitched battle, with the player spinning around to tackle new threats, the tearing is very obvious and highly distracting. [...] we can well imagine that if all 12 Titans were let loose in a confined space, frame-rates could plummet to a noticeably unacceptable level.

TitanFail on PC:

[KAI]

The game looks ugly (Non-jap mecha designs are shit). Can't believe there's people saying this is GOTI.

[ColonelFatso]

Xbone fps drops, tearing: not surprising.

Shitty textures: also not surprising for three reasons:

1. simultaneously developed for 360
2. people who tend to play modern FPS games aren't used to inspecting textures, even in PC versions
3. people who actually care that much about texture detail even in an ostensibly visuals-driven game are a miniscule minority not really worth pandering to.

That said, those textures look like 256x256 at best, and I'm sure we can do better than that in the year 2014 (hell, even Tribes 2 had 256x256 terrain textures).

You know, I feel pretty sure that if Halo launched in this day and age, it'd be a 7 or 8 at most.

That's really all it deserved in 2002 in the first place. The game is essentially Unreal with a two-weapon carry limit, vehicles, and a hastily-scrawled Ringworld fanfic for a plot.

[system11]

3. people who actually care that much about texture detail even in an ostensibly visuals-driven game are a miniscule minority not really worth pandering to.

I'm feeling this way about it, too much graphics whoring and it's killing the industry meeting the expectations of image quality fascists.

[Krooze L-Roy]

3D graphics reached "good enough for me" status right around the launch of the Dreamcast.

Going forward though, I wish game companies would realize that graphic fidelity should always be secondary to framerate. 60 fps should be industry standard, and people can tell the difference. There's no reason a game should herk and jerk like the memories of a night of drinking, just so Solid Snake's pockmarks can have their own shadows.

[eatdogs]

The game looks ugly (Non-jap mecha designs are shit). Can't believe there's people saying this is GOTI.

I challenge that by suggesting metal warriors on the snes.

[Damocles]

The game looks ugly (Non-jap mecha designs are shit). Can't believe there's people saying this is GOTI.

Heh. I find most Japanese mech designs horrible, especially Gundams.

I had a chance to run through quite a few games of Titanfall. It's solid, with gunplay highly reminiscent of COD. No surprises there, considering who is at the helm. As many others have probably noticed, it is often more entertaining to take advantage of the acrobatic abilities when on foot instead of hopping in a mech. I found the game most fun when using the titan as a guard dog and staying on foot. Surprisingly, the mechs aren't what you would call overpowered and generally mesh well with the on-foot gameplay.

Killer app? Maybe, but probably not as much as expected. The total package felt incomplete simply due to the lack of single player. Not that 99% of people playing these games care about such things. I can't say I stopped and looked at the graphic detail for any length of time. It looked, and ran, good enough for me.

Take all that with a grain of salt, considering that I actually enjoy both Halo, COD, and others in the FPS category that seem to be beneath teh hardcorez.

[Skykid]

3. people who actually care that much about texture detail even in an ostensibly visuals-driven game are a miniscule minority not really worth pandering to.

I'm feeling this way about it, too much graphics whoring and it's killing the industry meeting the expectations of image quality fascists.

It's incredibly nitpicky to say the least. I had a go on Titanfall at the shopping city yesterday and it was perfectly fine. I don't really notice frame drops, screen tearing and the quality of textures when leaping through windows and spraying gunfire at things.

That said I was expecting the game to be marginally more groundbreaking for an FPS. It's got a few bells and whistles and the mech idea is neat, but otherwise it's just reskinned COD + the same basic action with a few new vantage points. I didn't have enough time to learn the acrobatics fully however. I'm sure expert wall running is where it's at.

[eatdogs]

3. people who actually care that much about texture detail even in an ostensibly visuals-driven game are a miniscule minority not really worth pandering to.

I'm feeling this way about it, too much graphics whoring and it's killing the industry meeting the expectations of image quality fascists.

It's incredibly nitpicky to say the least. I had a go on Titanfall at the shopping city yesterday and it was perfectly fine. I don't really notice frame drops, screen tearing and the quality of textures when leaping through windows and spraying gunfire at things.

That said I was expecting the game to be marginally more groundbreaking for an FPS. It's got a few bells and whistles and the mech idea is neat, but otherwise it's just reskinned COD + the same basic action with a few new vantage points. I didn't have enough time to learn the acrobatics fully however. I'm sure expert wall running is where it's at.

It all just makes me wanna play tribes. The space jumping really.

[BobbyNewmarkiii]

Played it and I like the whole lack of any single player mode. If anything I think it is still a bit story heavy - the campaign mode tries a bit too hard to be carachter driven. I wish they hadn't bothered with that. The take it or leave it story is very akin to shmup storytelling, really, in that, if you really want a story it's there for you, but if not just dive in and enjoy the action. Oh, and the action is quite decent as well!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

3D graphics reached "good enough for me" status right around the launch of the Dreamcast.

Going forward though, I wish game companies would realize that graphic fidelity should always be secondary to framerate. 60 fps should be industry standard, and people can tell the difference. There's no reason a game should herk and jerk like the memories of a night of drinking, just so Solid Snake's pockmarks can have their own shadows.

This. So much. I don't care how fancy your textures look at high detail settings - it should be running most of the time at 60 FPS, and if you've capped it at 30FPS to make it playable, that's unacceptable. 30FPS just feels wrong for video games.

[Marc]

I don't really notice frame drops, screen tearing and the quality of textures .

Thank fuck, I really thought I was on my own in not really giving a shit about stuff like that.