I know what you’re thinking.
I’ve been really boring lately.
2kliksphilip has always played second fiddle to his brother and even more so now that he’s
shifted away from fun stuff like gaming and towards more boring stuff like… making them.
Maybe I’m out of ideas!
No. nononono.
Coming up with new ideas is easier than sticking with older ones for me.
And I’ve committed to a lot of long-standing projects that have sapped my motivation for
other stuff.
I swear that it will all be worth it in the end.
But right now I can understand your disappointment.
But here, allow me to extend an olive branch to you in the form of a BEAUTIFUL and LONG
4K video about gaming!
More specifically, Titanfall 2.
Before booting it up today I didn’t know anything about the series, other than that
it runs on Source but some how manages to look really pretty.
I didn’t play the first game and at first thought this one would be multiplayer with
a bit of singleplayer tacked on for the sake of it.
But it’s not like that!
Any way, the reason I’m playing it is because EA contacted me and me specifically, rather
than my brother.
This impressed me that they cared about getting the right person, rather than the biggest.
They provided me with a game key and the only requirement was that I don’t release any
content too early.
Which obviously isn’t a problem for me since I barely release anything at all.
And that’s it!
I was left to do what I wanted.
I realised how boring I was when my first thought was to do a video comparing this game’s
graphics to Valve games.
Like, what the hell, Philip.
But believe it or not it would have made sense, since this game runs on Source, the same ancient
old engine that powers all Valve games including Half Life 2, Global Offensive, Left 4 Dead
and so on.
But there’s absolutely no way that you’d know that from playing this game since it’s
gorgeous and doesn’t seem to suffer from the thousand weak-points of the engine it’s
based on.
It’s pretty much Source 2.
Which reminds me, it annoys me when people argue over which is better, Unreal 4 or Cryengine
3.
Like, do they even think that most companies are even going to max out these engines?
The largest determiner of a game’s graphics these days is the developers and how good
they are, not just at crafting detailed stuff, but also at piecing them together and lighting
it all in an appealing and convincing way.
But even with that, the Source engine is a strange choice and is only greater testament
to how talented the makers of Titanfall are.
I have no idea what the thought process was behind the decision to use Source… but it
seems to have worked.
A confession: I didn’t play the first game.
Multiplayer doesn’t really interest me.
The last thing I need in my life right now is another multiplayer game with no ending.
But I’m happy to say that the sequel has a dedicated singleplayer campaign and that
it’s really, REALLY good fun.
It’s not some half-arsed warmup to the multiplayer element of the game.
It’s polished, professional and a HUGE amount of fun.
I did a bit of research into Respawn Entertainment, the makers of Titanfall 1 and 2.
That’s all they’ve done so far.
But the founders used to work on Call of Duty and it shows here- but in all the right ways.
Because like it or loathe it, you know what you’re getting with Call of Duty.
You don’t get them expecting something new and exciting!
You get it because you enjoy that annual, supremely polished campaign.
Or maybe you enjoy the most toxic multiplayer experience on the planet.
And it always delivers!
When it comes to single player games I’m a little bit behind the times.
With Call of Duty for example, I completed 1, 2 and 4 and loved all of them.
World at War was a bit boring and I didn’t manage to finish it, then I took a break until
Modern Warfare 3 which I really did enjoy, but I guess I did look at it from a different
perspective.
The general consensus is that the Call of Duty games are the same thing every year but
if -like me- you take a break for a while, those small improvements with every title
really do add up and I was impressed by how good MW3 was.
I then didn’t play another one until that one with that evil president dude and really
enjoyed that too.
So what’s this got to do with Titanfall 2?
Not a lot.
Just gives me more time to showcase some of the gameplay really.
But I guess I’m saying that perhaps my standards are a little lower than others since I don’t
gobble up every single player game the moment it’s released.
And I can happily say that Titanfall 2’s single player campaign is the most enjoyable
single player campaign I’ve played to date.
The shooting feels like Crysis 3, but the movement’s like Mirror’s Edge and the
weapons remind me of Borderlands.
It’s all very meaty feeling, I’m not a fan of enemies requiring a hundred shots to
go down and sure enough, a well-placed headshot with almost any weapon will fall almost any
enemy almost immediately.
And your melee attack is hilariously OP, causing enemies to ragdoll dozens of feet, accompanied
by a splatty ‘WOOMP’ noise.
Most of the game is go to this button here, find a way into that room there and so on,
upon which more enemies will be spawned and you fight your way through to the next.
None of this is particularly new but it’s very well done and I have complete faith in
the control system.
Some of the jumps you do are downright terrifying, but whenever I messed up it was certainly
my fault, rather than the game’s.
A lot of the time you’ll approach something that looks unclimbable, but mashing the spacebar
tends to get you to where you want to be and you get all proud of yourself for having ascended
such a challenging bit of scenery.
Must look hilarious from some one else’s perspective.
I never found myself getting lost in the game either, which was surprising since some of
the environments are huge and sprawling.
A lot of the time I’d think I was taking a detour off the beaten track but I’d still
find myself reaching where I was supposed to be going.
Your progress is saved with pretty much every room.
As long as you don’t rush too quickly or land in the middle of a crowd of enemies then
it’s never too challenging, though I did play the game on NORMAL difficulty.
I know, I’m such a noob.
It might be flashbacks to the original Call of Duties, where things were a bit more unfair,
but I don’t enjoy difficult playthroughs.
At least, not the first time I play them.
I play these games for fun.
Sorry.
You can only hold 2 weapons at once but the system is very well designed.
I felt that I could stick with the same one for a while but the game does encourage you
to try others by gradually depleting your ammunition reserves with certain weapons.
Or maybe that’s just some crazy conspiracy I think’s going on.
I don’t know.
And to be honest…
I don’t really care.
It’s fun.
But yeah I don’t think I’ll be getting bored of the weapons any time soon, there
are plenty of them and they’re all fun and different to use.
I particularly like the grenades, there’s one that fires thermite in all directions
for a while causing HUGE damage.
A bit like those firework videos you find on Liveleak.
But as fun as this part of the game is, it’s only half of the story.
This is TITANFALL and for a lot of the game you have some mega OP robot sidekick.
Even when on foot you feel like a capable warrior but once you hop into this thing you
become unstoppable!
It feels very different from standard combat.
Very weighty, but not slow or boring.
And there’s a surprising amount of depth to this combat, too- you can shoot, you can
automatically target everybody with rockets, you can deploy electrical smoke clouds…
you can even stop incoming projectiles like Neo before hurling them back at your attackers.
And that’s just one of many different weapon systems you can choose from!
And occasionally you’ll be pitted against other titans in some kind of mini boss battle.
It feels very different from the rest of the gameplay… but is still just as fun.
Plus you can get out of the robot and fight on foot whenever you like, leaving the AI
to fend for himself.
Which he can, very capably.
I found myself getting rather attached to my Titan.
He’s one of the least annoying characters I’ve encountered in a game, calmly stating
important information or stroking my ego by saying how talented a leader I am.
Same can’t be said for the enemies you face, though.
Don’t think that sticking to single player will spare you from childish taunts and insults
from other pilots.
They’ll tell you how you’re SOOO GOING TO DIE, will laugh at you whenever you eat
one of their rockets, and when they’re about to be defeated they’ll blame it on their
robot or whatever.
It really does a good job of representing what multiplayer games are like!
Occasionally you’ll get to talk to your titan about pointless stuff, though a lot
of the time I didn’t even notice the text options popping up.
I dread to imagine of what my poor Titan must think of me, any friendly attempts to get
to know me simply being met with abrupt silence.
But then again, a lot of the options are so cocky and childish I think I’d rather be
a rude mute.
No one thinks badly of Gordon Freeman, right?
What I also like is how alive this game feels.
I guess there aren’t many examples to base it on but I’ve always found Source games
to feel a bit lonely.
But here there’s always something exciting to look at, be it flowing water, jets of steam,
moving platforms or creatures straight from Avatar gnawing on your foes.
You’ll also frequently encounter friendly squads of humans and robots that fight alongside
you.
This game just crams so much into every minute of gameplay in a desperate bid to hold your
attention for as long as it can before you close it and go back to browsing dank internet
memes or whatever.
I haven’t played too far through just yet so hopefully the gameplay you see here doesn’t
reveal anything too important.
Not that this is the sort of game where it matters much.
I was really hoping for something bad to say about it since I didn’t want this video
to sound like shameless endorsement but nothing really pops to mind.
Maybe that it’s a first person shooter and that it’s all been seen before, only not
all at the same time.
Maybe the campaign gets rubbish later on.
But right now I’m really enjoying it.
So much thought and effort has gone into every bit of it, I feel rude not stopping and appreciating
all of it.
But who’s got time for that.
The highlight for me so far has got to be a level that could have been ripped straight
from Portal.
Like a modern and very intelligent take on those old platformers that didn’t make much
sense.
You start by seeing strange items hanging everywhere.
But if you’re like me then you don’t think much about it, just a misstep by the designers
or something.
But then it’ll slowly click in your head that you’re on some weird large-scale production
line, controlled by some Machiavellian Glados-like figure.
Not a single word has to be spoken, you see it all coming together as you venture through
it and it’s only at the very end that you realise what it’s all about.
It’s a hugely unnecessary, bizarre and surreal sub-story that concludes very satisfyingly.
I really think it’s going to be remembered as one of THOSE LEVELS that goes down as being
one of the greats.
But like I said, I haven’t played through it too much just yet.
It keeps one-upping whatever it did before and I’m looking forward to playing through
more of it.
I was hoping to get a video on Deus Ex out but everybody I know has the same sort of
experience as I do with it.
It’s GREAT fun, probably my favourite game of all time, and yet it requires so much thinking
I rarely bother to load it up and still haven’t completed it!
Which is why that video is taking so long.
But I’m getting there.
Don’t expect anything quite so intellectually challenging with Titanfall, a game where beating
enemies can be achieved by mashing the fire button, or a jump puzzle completed by mashing
the jump button.
But the prospect of loading this game up again is more inviting to me right now than Deus
Ex.
And if I do get around to completing the single player campaign it will be because I enjoyed
doing it and not because I felt obliged to.
2016’s turning out to be a good year for single player games.
Both Doom and Titanfall 2 have exceeded my expectations.
I feel that rushing through it for the sake of it would be doing a disservice to how much
thought has gone into it, but I can’t help but play through this game like it’s a Quake
speedrun.
It’s just the way it plays and it’s fun to do.
So, Titanfall 2’s singleplayer campaign is a welcome and unexpected surprise.
So far.
I mean, if I play through the rest and it’s just a bunch of dicks then I will come back
and retract this statement.
I still don’t feel that I’ve described it that well but it gets everything good about
existing games and rolls them all together in a very action-packed and smart way.
I’ve heard rumours that this game’s not selling too well, perhaps cos it’s released
so closely to the likes of Battlefield and Skyrim or perhaps they’ve been too generous
in giving out keys to everybody.
I dunno.
But I’ve got to say that it would be a shame if this game of this calibre goes down as
being a failure.
I hope it does well, not just because it deserves to but because of what it stands for.
We don’t all want to play every game for thousands of hours.
As time has gone on I’ve begun to appreciate short, sweet and memorable singleplayer games
more and more.
And as much as I want to love Deus Ex, I suspect it’s Titanfall 2 that I’ll be completing
first.