Barker? I hardly know her!
The fact that titanfall 2 exists and is not one of the most dominant ongoing franchises is a crime.
I mean it's not even a trilogy? What kind of sick world do we live in? Apex does not count!
This aint my first time playing Titanfall 2 and it won't be my last, but I suddenly got the bug to play it again after my youtube algorithm started showing me titanfall shit. I decided this time I owe it to this game to 100% the achievements. I'm not a completionist normally by any stretch of the imagination, in fact I often don't even finish a lot of games. But if I love a game enough, and I already have like 75% of the achievements, and they aren't that hard to do, I'll become an achievement hunter for a bit.
I love this game so much, when it first came out I didn't even play the campaign even though I heard it was great. I simply didn't believe it. Most fps game campaigns in those days other than halo were just hallway shooting galleries with set pieces sprinkled in. When I finally played the TF2 campaign I was shocked. It was structured like a real ass video game. Every level had its own unique gimmick or mechanic. The environments were all super different and interesting. To top it off the story and characters were actually memorable even without that much screentime. The game never really sits you down part way through to explain the lore, shit just happens and you keep up. It almost makes the game feel like the original actually had a real campaign rather than some videos that played during multiplayer.
There really isn't any part of the campaign that I dread going back to. I played on master this time around for the achievements and even that felt well balanced. I was expecting to get bounced off of it by bullet sponge enemies, aimbot ai, harsh checkpoints and getting instakilled. But the master mode pretty much functioned as if you had multiplayer health. You just had to be mindful of your surroundings and keep moving.
The level design of TF2 is impeccable. Instead of a shooting gallery from set piece to set piece it's built like a real ass video game. It has a new mechanic or gimmick per level in addition to the level itself being an interesting location. One of the earlier levels has you go through an active factory where as you traverse it you slowly realize the factory is making houses. Which ultimately culminates in a platforming sequence where you scale a sideways town and end up fighting in an artificial town made by the factory you just ran through. The most obvious example everyone talks about, that you gotta play to believe is Effect and Cause.
Effect and cause has got to be one of the most technically impressive levels to this day and is one of the best missions in an fps hands down. You could base a whole game off of a mechanic where you seamlessly switch from past to future at the press of a button and its just a one off level gimmick. I have no idea how they made the switch so seamless and not slow your fps to a crawl.
The next mission I want to highlight is Trial by fire. Nothing too complex here, just a mission that is almost exclusively titan focused. Its just fuckin Mech D-day and there is nothing i love more than smashing my big robot toys together. The fact that it's as fun as it is, while only really utilizing half of the gameplay loop shows how well designed and polished the titan and pilot gameplay are on their own. Again either of these elements separately would still make for a great game, so the fact they are combined and are both as polished as they are is hard to believe.
This is followed up by another great set piece mission, the ark, which opens with my best friend BT hurling you onto a ship moving at fighter jet speeds. And from there you continue to platform your way to the front of a massive moving battleship, where you meet the 64 squad who are only there for like 5min total but prove themselves to be as competent and cool as the lore implies in such a short amount of time. Which is a great segue to one of my favorite assholes that shows up on screen for just 5 to 10 min (depends on how long the fight takes), Viper. He's a super cocky asshole but in a way that he isn't annoying about it. Cuz he has the skills to back it up. He talks shit to you the whole time with the cool relaxed tone a an airline pilot talking about expected landing times. Had to hill his ass super hard for ripping off BT's arm tho.
The final mission I wanna gush about is the final mission in the game. The Fold weapon. BT is effectively dead for now and you hold his robo soul in your hand. But within his head is the SERE kit. Which contains the incredibly busted smart pistol from titanfall 1 (can't believe you could just use that in multiplayer), but now with infinite ammo. So now you get to experience the best of being a pilot and go fast as fuck while aimbotting everyone without the need to ever think about aiming. When you eventually wrap the on foot section you get to put BT's robot soul in a new improved BT body that has the Legion Loadout from multiplayer. Which leads to a great power fantasy moment where you end up in a narrow ass hallway filled to the brim with escaping enemy infantry and you get to just turn them all into a soup with your minigun. Of course this victory lap ultimately ends a final dismantling of the doomsday weapon via self sacrifice. But not before BT enacts protocol 3, protect the pilot, and throws your ass into a final parkour sequence through the debris of a collapsing planet and into the safety of a drunk driver.
It's unclear to me whether or not BT is a true intelligence but he is real to me damn it. This one does have a soul.
That's it for my campaign review. The only real complaint from 100%ing it is that the helmet collectables felt a little tacked on.
As for multiplayer, it still kicks ass and has plenty of people still actively playing it at least on PC. It's surprising how high the skill ceiling can be and yet I as a scrub can still have a great time. If you end up getting outskilled by pilots you can always focus your attention on farming the ai mobs. It's crazy how often I felt like I was dominating only to look at the score board and see myself in last place on the team. I was at least not dying too often.
What's also refreshing for a multiplayer shooter is the weapon diversity. While you have your standard normal bullet shooting guns, you also have some more fun ones for people like me who rely on big dumb splash damage. Like the EPG, which is one of my fave anti titan weapons i almost exclusively use on pilots. Basically 2 shots of splash damage for a kill or one direct hit to gib them. Really evens the playing field unless they are a god at movement. It's also surprisingly good with campers cuz the projectile is so slow they almost don't even think to dodge it.
On to my favorite titan. Honestly, I like scorch even though he kinda sucks. I just like being big and setting big areas on fire, and a lot of people tend to forget about DOT damage when they are dealing with other more immediate threats. Also love me some north star, very fun to snipe mechs with a big ass rail gun then rain down shitloads of missiles. I haven't played ronin in a long while cuz it makes me feel dirty, but it is really fun to phase into a group of enemy titans, whack em with ur sword, do a nuke eject, get a bunch of kills and have enough points to call in another titan before landing.
I will probably come back to this game over and over till no one is left playing it. But I am sure there will always be a tight community for this game, even if it means setting up your own servers. It's a true travesty that we will probably never get a titan fall 3, but maybe one day we will get a real spiritual successor.
I give titanfall 2,