I don't know if it's because I came into this with too much hype (likely) or because I'd just finished Doom (also likely), but this campaign just really let me down. It's short like most AAA shooter campaigns, but I was expecting a little more substance based on all the praise it was getting. Yeah, there are some cool gimmicks like the time-travel bracelet, the platforming, and so on, but these gimmicks are so fleeting that I barely had the time to get used to them before they were gone. These mechanics could have been fleshed out into a much more meaningful game rather than the tease they end up being in a 5 hour campaign that whisks you through set pieces before you have the chance to really master them. Honestly, I think the game would be better if the time bracelet were a primary mechanic throughout the whole game and the Titans were just a one-off gimmick.

I'm sure multiplayer is really where you get good at the platforming and stuff, but I mostly bought the game for campaign. For multi, pilots only is the only mode I really like, and I'd rather just be playing COD at that point. I don't know. I guess the game just isn't for me, though I see flashes of brilliance and can understand why Jeff and others hold it in high regard.

I think the praise was high in so far that it was better than expected rather than amazing. I think it being short and not worth the price for it alone was always the major critique it got even from its highest praisers.

yea, that one level is really awesome and it has some impressive moments scattered throughout(like that platforming bit in that factory) but its a pretty standard fps campaign with a god awful story and voice acting. also, the AI in that game is really, really bad.

I thought the first third of the campaign was ok. Some fun stuff. But the last 4 or so levels were all really enjoyable. I freaked out a little at the part I would call Titan D-Day. Did not expect that many Titans on screen at once. Other than that, it's not that especially great. Still pretty good. Just nothing amazing.

Have you played any game in the last 5 years from the same genre?

I thought it was awesome. The Titanfall 2 campaign is exactly what I wanted it to be - an exploration of what Titanfall's mechanics in single player would be like. I spent a whole lot of time running on walls, sliding, jumping, and shooting dudes without stopping. There was such an incredible freedom of movement unmatched by any other single player shooter I've played, even Doom, although I still think Doom is a better game overall. It felt so goddamn good to just play, and that was backed by some level design and set pieces that I loved (that whole assembly line level was brilliant).

It's short and I'm not bothered by people who level that complaint at it, but I just shrug my shoulders. I don't care. I came out of Titanfall 2's campaign very satisfied with something I had been thinking about since playing the original Titanfall shortly after it came out.

I will say that, as in Titanfall 1, the actual Titans are an unfortunately locked-in part of the experience. You can't make a Titanfall without Titans, but piloting Titans isn't so great. Fortunately, that aspect of the game never outstays its welcome, so that's not really a complaint for me.

Two observations here. If you're not playing the game with the evolved control scheme, you'll never enjoy the movement as much as those who do. Seriously, try it. And not to be flippant, but if you didn't want to play a game that features giant mechs, you probably shouldn't have purchased a game that features giant mechs.

"Honestly, I think the game would be better if ... the Titans were just a one-off gimmick" and "pilots only is the only mode I really like" are not statements that anyone who enjoys the idea of a Titan-focused game should be making. If it sounded fun originally, I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the game as much as you were hoping you would. Hype can be good for sales, but bad for reasonable expectations. I went in hoping for a campaign as good as older COD titles, and ended up very pleased with the game.

I bought this game on PC, played the single player, and immediately got my Origin refund once it was over.

OP is 100% on the money, it was shorter than I expected. Multiplayer holds minimal appeal so there's nothing for me there.

Big improvement over Titanfall 1 (a game I couldn't get a refund for...) but just not enough to lock me in, in any way really

Honestly, I think people (myself included) liked it because the mechanics are level-specific. It's like Half-Life 2 not only because it's on the Source engine, but also because HL2 also did the same thing where every level has its own game mechanics associated with it. I agree that Titanfall 2 is a little too short (I think I finished it in 3.5 hours), but any one mechanic wouldn't have the legs to be stretched throughout a whole game. What would be great is if they had the budget to keep introducing new levels with larger scales, the way the Half-Life 2 games did. I don't think any other's game done something like this since Episode Two, which came out 9 years ago! (Coincidentally, on the same year the first Modern Warfare came out.)

You're not the only one drawing this sort of conclusion:

I definitely wasn't disappointed by it but I do think it might have been hyped up too much by people. That being said I don't even think the time travel level is the best level in Titanfall 2, let alone some amazing milestone in fps level design history.

They certainly took a bunch of separare mechanics and gameplay ideas and made a separate level out of each of them. If you're not a fan of a campaign structured like that and you want something more organic or with a steady progression I can see how you would not be a fan of it.

Also, if you don't like the mechs at all I do think you might just be better served by other fps games.

I think that would be a wrong conclusion to make since the gravity gun in HL2 accompanies you through most of that game. Sure it changes a bit towards the end but it's hardly a per-level type of experience. It does do similar things with stuff you find in the levels though. (Vehicles, earthquake devices, etc.)

It was better than expected. I liked it from a "oh, this actually isn't shit" angle. It's completely fine, but not a standout campaign by any measure.

I think this is the same case as when Uncharted 2 got a lot of praise for its multiplayer. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, it had some great new ideas. However, you shouldn't compare it to a multiplayer focused game.

As i said before it is the same case but just switch the word "Uncharted" with the word "Titanfall" and "Multiplayer" with "Singleplayer".

What I loved about the campaign the most was how much platforming it had. The set pieces are great (and I do adore Effect and Cause), but Titanfall 2's campaign at times felt like the Mirror's Edge game that I've always wanted. Not saying OP's assessment is invalid, but that's just what I liked about it.

But yeah, if you're not digging the multiplayer, the campaign alone may be a hard sell.

Weird I kind of felt the same way about DOOM (hearing it hyped to unreasonable levels didnt help) and my problem with that is for all the emphasis that's put on speed I felt like I needed to scour each area for weapons and pick ups after every ecounter, which to be fair has always been a part of Doom but I never found the enviroments interesting enough to enjoy exploring. And unlike the original Doom I cant just run through rooms and dodge encounters.

Titanfall just moves and that's what I love about it. Gimmicks aside the mixture between action and platforming felt great, but as has been said you kind have to be on board with mech combat to enjoy the game. Respawn have already gimped the Titans to try and appeal to more people but a lot of twitch FPS fans dont even seem to want current COD either.

@hassun said:

The easy equivalent to the gravity gun would be the Titan, or the movement mechanics that stay with you through most of the game. Another comparison I would make is the blue gravity gun level with the SERE kit level in Titanfall 2. The SERE kit level is practically the same idea at a much faster pace.

The Half-Life games did change the experience pretty wildly from level to level, from the water mechanics in Route Kanal to airboat driving in Water Hazard, then the iconic trap-filled Ravenholm, level-specific bugbaits, flashlight mechanics in Lowlife (Ep 1), and so on. Even the first Half-Life had memorable level-specific things such as the aforementioned Surface Tension, On A Rail (trams), and the Xen levels that had different movement mechanics almost every level. The main difference is that they are on a larger scale and at a slower pace than in Titanfall 2, so maybe it's not as obvious.

I thought it was the best FPS campaign I've played this generation. That's because FPS aren't doing campaigns anymore (Rainbow 6, Overwatch), they're not that good (Halo, COD), or they're an afterthought (BF1). Whether someone thinks its because the game is the tallest midget in the room or it's really great on its own, it's still better than just about its peers.

@audiobusting: Don't get me wrong. I totally agree Half-Life 2 shakes things up from area to area but I just see the gravity gun as something very different from that. I wouldn't equate the Titan to the gravity gun either since Titans are one of the series' core (gameplay) elements. It would be more apt to relate it to the Half-Life flashlight. :V

It was definitely a little overhyped. The few moments that people claim are "oh man THAT part" are really nothing more than mere moments in a campaign full of rather droll combat sequences with mindless AI. I mean apart from the funny cartoonish villain intros, the bosses are all a complete joke as are all the enemy encounters. They're more like tiny speedbumps between you and those fleeting platforming moments.

I loved it. The experience intensely reminded me of Half-Life, which I was very thankful for.

• You're a loner with a rare skillset
• traveling across a sparse exterior cliffside terrain
• with a huge robot companion who can get you places you can't go, and with whom you form an emotional bond
• having run-ins with weaker AI units who heap reverence on you for what your skillset allows you to do
• making stops at clinical mechanized/scientific outposts which serve specific, obvious in-world purposes (the levels)
• at which there are unique navigation techniques specific to the setting:
  • this one is a house factory (verticality on moving platforms),
  • this one is an abandoned laboratory (the 'oh shit' moment),
  • this one is a foundry (wall running)
  • this one is a series of flying warships (getting tossed between them)
• and for most of the game, you are 'late to the party'

The Half-Life comparison is particularly important because, for whatever reason, Half-Life isn't an oft-imitated campaign model. For me especially, Titanfall 2 made me realize how much I miss Half-Life games, and did an incredibly good job giving me that experience.

I too, don't quite understand the unending praise for the campaign. There are neat set piece moments, notably near the end, but the rest is mowing through a bunch of brain-dead AI in a bunch of less than interesting environments.

The idea of having named Pilots you encounter as boss fights is wonderful conceptually, but those encounters don't play out all that differently than the other Titan encounters in the game. It feels like a campaign held back by its production budget.

Personally I liked TF1's multiplayer campaign way more. The increased NPC chatter made the matches feel huge and important, whereas now the multiplayer matches just feel like multiplayer matches.

My praise doesn't come from the set pieces, but just how often Respawn was not afraid to break a levels pacing with platforming sections. Honestly it felt like the movement mechanics were a ton more satisfying than the shooting mechanics, which were already top notch. It helped that the platforming sequences were semi challenging too

My only complaint is I wish it was longer because it was so awesome. I found it more fun the Doom.

It wasn't bad, but the overwhelming praise didn't make a lot of sense unless it was coming from someone who hadn't played Doom, Infinite Warfare, or Battlefield 1.

It was a good collection of level mechanics. Not really something I've seen a lot of lately, so refreshing in that regard. But I dunno, everything outside of that felt completely forgettable.

The story is Star Wars-lite, and the bigger conflict is briefly touched on but you never really get a sense of the scale of the fight. After the time travel level (which was pretty awesome), I figured the whole game would just be on Typhon, which was kind of a bummer. I guess the story was more about you and BT, but there was really nothing there to get me to care about the Militia and IMC stuff at all.

So the story kinda sucks, but again, it's about the levels, and most of em are kinda rad. I personally liked the assembly line level the most. Half-Life comparisons are pretty interesting. Thinking about the plot of Half-Life 2, there kinda isn't much until we get to the Episodes, and even there most of what makes the game's story interesting is the amount of intrigue around it all. I guess your relationship with BT was supposed to be the thing that carries you through, but it never felt significant enough to do that. I dunno, it was a bit disappointing, but I had fun with it. Would definitely like to see a bigger and more involved story next time, if there even is a next time.

I will say though, the amount of story-critical fastball specials is pretty awesome.

My two gripes about the campaign is how much platforming is done. I fucking hate that shit! I even saw some pilot's helmets in places that required some tricky wall running and what not. Upon seeing those ones, I said, "fuck that!" and continued on. The other gripe I have is that shitty Viper boss fight. That's some total bullshit right there. Oh, and fuck those fucking tick mines!

Positives: Hearing the voice of Handsome Jack with his hilarious asshole personality intact. :) Richter was taken from Total Recall, looked and sounded quite a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I instantly knew what the title of the achievement was going to be upon killing him.