Titanfall Beta - Adventures of an FPS Noob

The first thing you should know about me is that the last first-person shooter I played was Unreal Tournament 2003, actually in 2003. Since then my gaming time has mostly been spent in World of Warcraft with occasional dabbles into real-time strategy or sim games.

Titanfall is the first FPS to capture my interest in years. As a news writer I have been following the game since its announcement. The sneak peeks we have seen were enough to get me excited and I signed up for the beta. Huge excitement followed when I was given a beta key on the first day. After a couple of teething issues (thanks EA for that Xbox One key I couldn’t use) I was finally past the server fails and into the game.

The first thing I noticed was the amazing quality and smoothness of the game. Despite still being a beta, the game (mostly) runs and plays far better than I anticipated. My six plus year old PC often throws fits on newer games but as you can see from my screenshots Titanfall has some nice graphics going on. I was amazed that my aging hardware could produce such a smooth game at this level of detail and quality. So far so good. However, a game is more than its visuals so how does it play for the FPS noob?

I loaded up the tutorial ready to rock. The controls felt nice and intuitive, standard FPS stuff but with a few twists. My favourite part is being able to scale the walls and jump like I’ve got rocket boots on. This level of craziness adds a whole new dimension to finding random places to hide and snipe people from. Once through the tutorial I felt equipped enough to deal with the game.

I headed into Attrition, which is a free-for-all type game, and prepared to kill some noobs. (I really hoped there were noobs or this would end badly). The aim of Attrition mode is simply to kill the enemy. Two teams of six go head to head and points are scored based on damage done, accuracy and damage taken. The team with the most points wins. Once the match is over if you lose you have a minute or so to find an evacuation point and get the hell out of there. If your team wins you can spend this time trying to sabotage any escape plans your enemy has.

Usually in these kind of games I die, almost instantly, and never seem to recover. However, the maps in Titanfall are more forgiving than most and places to hide are easier to find. I was able to cloak (also an amazing feature), dodge and run enough to find some decent vantage points. Don’t get me wrong, I still died (a lot) but this was not the frustrating constant respawn I usually face. I actually managed to stay alive for the entire first half of one of the matches.

There are three types of pilot I had access to within the first few levels but I’m not the person to explain the differences. All I know is that choosing Assassin made me die less and was more fun so I went with that. I had a gun which, given a few seconds, will auto-target and can remove several enemies with a single click. I also had a more traditional machine gun-esque weapon and a nice meaty Anti-Titan gun. Speaking of Titans, these things are the most enjoyable addition to an FPS I’ve ever seen.

Again there are several Titans but I picked the one which was the most fun, Assault. You can spawn your Titan approximately every two minutes. This time is reduced however by doing damage to the enemy. Once your Titan is ready you simply hit V and in five seconds this piece of awesome will fall from the sky like something out of a Michael Bay movie. Hit E to jump onboard and get ready for fun times. As a Titan you are far less squishy and as well as having guns aplenty you can also squish people with your big mechanical feet. This is every bit as cool as it sounds. If you prefer to go it alone you can have your Titan run around like crazy trying to kill people on autopilot whilst you hide in the shadows and pick off anyone foolish enough to try and take it down. For these reasons and many more, Titans add a huge element of unpredictability and craziness to the game.

Once I had found my feet I decided to head into Hard Point mode. This is a capture the base game with four checkpoints. Simply stand by the terminals to tick over the capture of the checkpoint. Usually on these type of modes I never get near a base but because of the game’s unique physics, wall running, mad jumping and general gravity defying madness and the design team’s decisions to put checkpoints in slightly random places, I managed to capture a few and help my team to victory. For the first time in a long time I felt like my little noob self had helped achieve something. I even have a glorious screenshot of me NOT on the bottom of the score chart to share with anyone who questions my abilities (just don’t look at the “pilot kills” stats…) I’m pretty sure just seeing me was enough to make them run in fear.

As I tend to flail around shooting randomly and running into walls in my Titan, I’ve not yet been brave enough to attempt the “Last Titan Standing” mode. However, there’s still a whole day left to summon the courage for that one and this game is so much fun I’ve definitely got my FPS mojo back.

So for anyone who is unsure about this game, don’t be. Titanfall looks to be a fun, exciting and very promising game. Equally fun for veterans and newbies alike, this is the most fun I’ve had gaming in a long time. Here’s to hoping the final version is even more engaging. I for one can’t wait. Bring on the Titans!