Titanfall 2

Pre-Recap

Having just played through Titanfall 2s campaign on Master difficulty on Xbox One, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Suuure everyone on Reddit praises this game but mainly I only heard good things about that one time travel section of the campaign. Meanwhile I consider the whole campaign to be equally as good, it ends on a every so slight cliffhanger though, with the threat of a enemy Mercenary leader surviving and BT (Your personal Titan) potentially having survived by putting a part of himself in Coopers helmet (Post-Credits Scene). I gained access to Titanfall 2 by paying less than 50 Swedish Crowns for EA Access, and man was it worth it. I believe it should be around $4,99 in the US. If you haven't played Titanfall 2 at all, just get EA Access (Xbox One) or Origin Access if you're on PC and play through it, or just buy it outright, the choice is up to you.

Particular Missions

Mission 1 : The Pilot's Gauntlet (Training Mission)

Titanfall 2 starts you out with a well made training sequence with a beautiful backdrop. The training ends with another sequence called "The Gauntlet". In Short, it's a time trial that will have you swearing at your monitor for half an hour if you're trying to go for the achievement "...Becomes the Master" as you try and place in the top 3. In order to place within the top 3 requires you to beat the Gauntlet within 33.60 Seconds, this is very difficult especially with a controller. I managed to get a pretty decent score the moment I started up the game but I didn't return until I had finished the full campaign on Master, and boy was it still difficult then, It's difficult to put into words the feeling you'll get as you realise you might be on "the" run, something I have only felt while doing...well... other things....

If you're curious, 1.32% of Titanfall 2 gamers on Xbox have unlocked this achievement. On Xbox this makes the "...Becomes the Master" Achievement a rare achievement. Any Achievement with a completion rate of less than 10% recieves the rare treatment.

Mission 2: BT-7274 (Introduction Mission)

An assault gone haywire is this mission in a nutshell, supported by the fact that your teams main ship is crashed in the background throughout the mission. This ship gave me slight Halo 3 vibes, with it's lush jungles and ambush attack sequences. At first you have no double jump, don't worry eventually you'll get it back. At the end of the mission you recieve your Titan. This mission does its job in setting up the premise of the game well with its great cutscenes.

Mission 5: Effect and Cause (The mission you've heard so much about)

Not much to say here as everyone has already put it pretty nicely, you use time travel with your left bumper to switch between two different timelines. It is the only way you can progress through the missions and it is just pretty damn cool both visually but also from a gameplay standpoint it works amazing.

Mission 8: The Ark (My personal favourite)

This is the mission that made me actually install the game, I saw a glimpse of your character killing a bunch of dudes in a massive moving ship with many other ships in the background, I closed whatever it was that I was watching and just decided to get ahold of the game at that point, and oh boy this mission did not dissapoint. Visually speaking it easily beats the Effect and Cause mission by a mile. It has some fun sequences and the boss was fairly easy as all the other bosses in the game were. The thing is you have to simply figure out the moveset of the boss and then you're done. It's pretty simple. Furthermore, I love the taunting this boss does, it easily beats all the other boss taunts, especially Kane with his stupid "You scrub!". Viper is the name of the boss in this level, and oh boy does he love speed.

"Speed is life!" - Viper

Mission 9: The Fold Weapon (Final Mission)

Pretty cut and dry mission, the boss is simple and has a bodylaser, and she will use it alot. She spawns adds twice, at first some titans, later some reapers. If you fail here even on Master too many times you might have to run some more of the training mission :)

The ending cutscene with the [SPOILER] planteray body exploding in the background is amazing, it uses a similar technique Halo 3 used in the intro of the Cortana mission but less obvious. (I am talking about the background being painted as opposed to simply 3D models)

Finally, some more bits and pieces...

This game does checkpoints by using what I can only assume is magic, it will often checkpoint you while you're standing directly infront of enemies but thanks to your stealth ability that isn't really an issue, even on the Master Difficulty. The incredibly frequent checkpoints will help you alot more than it will hurt you, trust me. The writing in Titanfall 2 is also great, wether it is BT not being able to read human sarcasm, or Cooper spewing sarcasm at BT, the writing and overall dialogue is top notch throughout the campaign. I would also like to touch on the fact that I got many Halo 3 vibes in some missions. You'll often hear soldiers gladly shout that "They sent a Pilot!" or "We've got a pilot!" just like the Halo 3 Marines would say about the spartans, I liked it. I consider Halo 3 to be my most favourite game so seeing some of that here was very welcome. Finally, the soundtrack is pretty damn great as well.