Titanfall Review

Respawn's debut has the best first person movement anyone had shipped in a decade. Wall running chains into a double jump into a slide, and the maps are built vertically so momentum is the actual skill rather than a trick you perform. Titans drop from orbit on a timer, and the decision that makes the whole thing work is that a pilot on foot is never helpless against one, because riding a mech's back and emptying a magazine into its intake is both viable and hilarious.

AI grunts fill out the map, which sounds like a crutch and instead solves the old problem of a shooter where weaker players never feel useful. What is missing is everything else. The campaign is multiplayer matches with radio chatter layered over the top, there are perhaps six weapons worth using, and the content ran dry inside two months, which is why the population collapsed. Respawn fixed all of it in the sequel. This one is the proof of concept, and the concept was right.