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Port Report: Titanfall Review
Today we look at Titanfall, not the newest game by any stretch but is easily one of the most popular titles of the last few months, especially if your are an owner or interested in next generations consoles.
How does Titanfall cope on the PC?
Game settings and performance
Titanfall is easy to run, my R9 290 easily maxes this game out at 1440p at 60FPS, which is not exactly an easy resolution to run, and my HD 7870 XT ran these settings at +45FPS during the public beta without optimized drivers.
Compare this to the Xbox One where it runs at 792P at 60FPS, any decent gaming GPU will easily beat this. I would almost say that you could max this game out at 1080p with a £400 gaming PC, but I cannot confirm without testing this theory.
Moving into the game setting we find firstly control options; fully rebindable PC controls, mouse acceleration and sensitivity controls and even a inverted mouse control, if you are crazy enough to use it.
Moving along to game video controls we find everything you could ask for (see image above). We find a wide range of resolution options, a selection AA options, an Field of View slider (which is great for those who have simulation sickness) and the ability to change setting from textures to lighting and even Ragdolls.
The only setting missing from this game is a frame rate setting, where you can specify your monitors refresh rate (IE 60 or 120) as some people are having issues where the game is capped to 60FPS in 120Hz monitors.
As I said before Titanfall is easy to run, so most players could simply max it out, perhaps lower the AA if you have any FPS dips and your good to go, but lower end PC or even laptop gamers have a great deal of options to help improve their games performance. It is always good to see a developer provided such a wide range of options for PC player, as choice is always a good thing.
Gameplay
The basic premise is simple, there are 4 enemy types; Grunts, Specters, Pilots/human players and Titans (either human controlled or AI, the player doesn't have to drive his/her Titan). Players/Pilots earn a Titans by killing members of the other Team, Grunts and Specters are Easy to kill and rarely kill the player, they serve to make the player feel powerful and give easy points for your eventual Titan Drop.
Human players and Titans are the main challenge in the game, both being harder to kill and being able to deliver much more damage, the Titan in particular, this is offset by the fact they are worth more in-game points, XP and help your player vs player kill death ratio (if that is important to you).
Titan piloting is very different to playing as a pilot, the Titan is too large for in door location and cannot perform parkour, which restricts them to certain locations. Combat will range from powering through Grunts and Specters to hunting Players before they rodeo and destroy your Titan or escape, Titan on Titan combat or even a mixture of the three, all of which is fun.
The Maps are very well designed, offering many routes to every given location, on the ground through building or even on rooftops, with wall running and other parkour elements being very important to quick map traversal.
The one of the most unique additions to Titanfall, apart from the Titans themselves is the addition of Burn Cards, single life power ups which can add more powerful weapons, extended tactical abilities, reduced Titan timing and more. These perks could be considered imbalanced, but they only last for one life in one game and are limited to 3 per game and every player can use and earn burn cards. They can make the difference in a particularly close match or help get you out of a series of quick deaths.
Character and Titan Customization is very similar to the System used in Call of Duty, which is unsurprising given most of Relic games is Former Infinity Ward developers. There is the usual weapon choices from Assault rifles, pistols, sniper rifles and uniquely an auto aiming pistol, which isn't as powerful as it sounds. Anti-Titan weapons are typically rockets or grenade launchers, and other abilities range from a cloaking ability to increased grenade count to increased Titan shield Time upon deployment.
Titan Customization is Much the same, with a selection of powerful primary weapons, secondary attacks to replace the pilots grenade slot and abilities ranging from an explosive ejection upon destruction to a faster shield regen time.
Here is some Gameplay Footage below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S44JqAHifUc
Game Modes
Campaign
Titanfall is a Multiplayer only game, apart from the in game tutorial modes, which is split up into two main sections; Campaign and Multiplayer modes.
Campaign is essentially normal multiplayer modes, either Hardpoint or Attrition modes (which I will detail later), with a loose and forgettable storyline which only serves to give you a reason to and setting to fight in.
You will progress through the story regardless of whether you win or lose the match, where the game either tells you that your team, either IMC or Malitia, wasn't fast enough or your team just managed to do well enough to meet your objectives.
The campaigns are played in a fixed order of 9 out of the 15 maps, so you rely upon there being enough players to continue where you left off or even play, which may become problematic at a later date as less new player are added to the servers.
I would say forget about the Campaign mode but the two campaigns unlock two of the three Titan Chassis upon their completion, so you will have to beat them both to have full access to your characters customization.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer is the true bread and butter of Titanfall, no need for a story to get in the way of your fun. There are four modes on Titanfall, none of which are exactly unique.
Attrition can be summed up by calling it Team Deathmatch, where there are added NPCs and of course Titans to add to the carnage. The objective of this mode is for your team to kill the most stuff, whether Grunts, Specters, Titans and human opponents/Pilots. This is easily where the most fun is to be had in Titanfall.
In Last Titan Standing all players start off in their Titan, rather than earning it in the other modes, here the objective is simple... KILL ALL THE OPPOSING TEAMS TITANS! While Robot on Robot action always sounds fun, Last Titan Standing isn't. Most Matched tend to go one way, One team loses one or two Titans and then it just Snowballs from there. It is a good mode to practice your Titan wielding skills, but not much else.
Hardpoint is essentially Domination mode, where each team must capture and defend 3 points on the map. The winning Team will have hold the most points for the longest time. It is a good mixed mode as hardpoints are located in both indoor and outdoor locations, making both infantry and Titan players very important for capturing and holding the map.
Capture the Flag is the same as it always is, Capturing the enemies flag while holding your own. Here the infantries parkour is most important as speed and mobility are king. Here you will notice just how well the maps are designed for Titans and players, with the Titans being great attackers and defenders but Pilots being the only way to traverse the map fast enough to quickly capture the enemies flag.
Map design and Graphical fidelity
Graphically Titanfall isn't the best game I've ever seen but not by any means ugly, the maps are very well designed and are distinct from each other with plenty of room to explore and fight.
Some maps, particularly the desert style maps are where the games graphics suffer the most, looking very similar to Modern warfare maps (visually not spacially), but given Relic's previous... lets say affiliation with Infinity Ward this is unsurprising.
The maps change greatly depending on how you play; if you stick to the ground it will feel a lot like Call of Duty but if you utilize the wall running and parkour elements of the game you get so much more out of the maps opening up the rooftops and greatly speeding up map exploration.
Unlike most other shooters all the maps are great to play, with none of the maps being either hard to play or hard to learn for newcomers, while featuring a large amount of things to learn about the maps making them highly replayable. I cannot say I even have a favorite or least favorite map.
Players inside Titans will will only have access to the outdoor and larger indoor areas in the game, making the player feel larger and more powerfull than the infantry below but also wary of the levels verticality where other players can potentially rodeo or otherwise attack your Titan as well as to other Titans and other infantry on the ground.
Back onto graphics the games textures are mostly done to a high standard, with only the occasional bad texture (inside of titans for example) but you spend little time standing around in Titanfall, so you don't often notice this.
Shadows are an area where Titanfall does great, where we can really see this games roots in Valves source engine, where shadows have always been one of the highlights. Otherwise the graphics are good but not spectacular, but then again this is a multiplayer game so do we want something ridiculously demanding?
Conclusion
All in all Titanfall is a fun, unique and enjoyable Multiplayer gaming experience with well disigned maps and a very forgettable story mode. Titanfall is a very fun game to play, but does not have as high a level of customization games like Call of Duty or Battlefield have but at the same time is very friendly to beginners, even this long after launch.
As far as the PC port goes, it is fantastic! It offers great performance on a wide range of hardware, fully rebindable controls with the only disadvantages being the 50.5GB install and the EA Origin requirement.
At present I wouldn't pay the £40 EA asking price for this game, but it is definitely worth the price of £25 which most retailers sell it for, or even lower if you shop around.
Titanfall is a great game for casual shooter fans, offering something unique and very re-playable. I give Titanfall my own personal Gold Reward.
What do you guys think of My review on Titanfall? Would you guys like to see myself or even see OC3D look more into gaming as well as hardware and accessories? Please comment below.
Today we look at Titanfall, not the newest game by any stretch but is easily one of the most popular titles of the last few months, especially if your are an owner or interested in next generations consoles.
How does Titanfall cope on the PC?
Game settings and performance
Titanfall is easy to run, my R9 290 easily maxes this game out at 1440p at 60FPS, which is not exactly an easy resolution to run, and my HD 7870 XT ran these settings at +45FPS during the public beta without optimized drivers.
Compare this to the Xbox One where it runs at 792P at 60FPS, any decent gaming GPU will easily beat this. I would almost say that you could max this game out at 1080p with a £400 gaming PC, but I cannot confirm without testing this theory.
Moving into the game setting we find firstly control options; fully rebindable PC controls, mouse acceleration and sensitivity controls and even a inverted mouse control, if you are crazy enough to use it.
Moving along to game video controls we find everything you could ask for (see image above). We find a wide range of resolution options, a selection AA options, an Field of View slider (which is great for those who have simulation sickness) and the ability to change setting from textures to lighting and even Ragdolls.
The only setting missing from this game is a frame rate setting, where you can specify your monitors refresh rate (IE 60 or 120) as some people are having issues where the game is capped to 60FPS in 120Hz monitors.
As I said before Titanfall is easy to run, so most players could simply max it out, perhaps lower the AA if you have any FPS dips and your good to go, but lower end PC or even laptop gamers have a great deal of options to help improve their games performance. It is always good to see a developer provided such a wide range of options for PC player, as choice is always a good thing.
Gameplay
The basic premise is simple, there are 4 enemy types; Grunts, Specters, Pilots/human players and Titans (either human controlled or AI, the player doesn't have to drive his/her Titan). Players/Pilots earn a Titans by killing members of the other Team, Grunts and Specters are Easy to kill and rarely kill the player, they serve to make the player feel powerful and give easy points for your eventual Titan Drop.
Human players and Titans are the main challenge in the game, both being harder to kill and being able to deliver much more damage, the Titan in particular, this is offset by the fact they are worth more in-game points, XP and help your player vs player kill death ratio (if that is important to you).
Titan piloting is very different to playing as a pilot, the Titan is too large for in door location and cannot perform parkour, which restricts them to certain locations. Combat will range from powering through Grunts and Specters to hunting Players before they rodeo and destroy your Titan or escape, Titan on Titan combat or even a mixture of the three, all of which is fun.
The Maps are very well designed, offering many routes to every given location, on the ground through building or even on rooftops, with wall running and other parkour elements being very important to quick map traversal.
The one of the most unique additions to Titanfall, apart from the Titans themselves is the addition of Burn Cards, single life power ups which can add more powerful weapons, extended tactical abilities, reduced Titan timing and more. These perks could be considered imbalanced, but they only last for one life in one game and are limited to 3 per game and every player can use and earn burn cards. They can make the difference in a particularly close match or help get you out of a series of quick deaths.
Character and Titan Customization is very similar to the System used in Call of Duty, which is unsurprising given most of Relic games is Former Infinity Ward developers. There is the usual weapon choices from Assault rifles, pistols, sniper rifles and uniquely an auto aiming pistol, which isn't as powerful as it sounds. Anti-Titan weapons are typically rockets or grenade launchers, and other abilities range from a cloaking ability to increased grenade count to increased Titan shield Time upon deployment.
Titan Customization is Much the same, with a selection of powerful primary weapons, secondary attacks to replace the pilots grenade slot and abilities ranging from an explosive ejection upon destruction to a faster shield regen time.
Here is some Gameplay Footage below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S44JqAHifUc
Game Modes
Campaign
Titanfall is a Multiplayer only game, apart from the in game tutorial modes, which is split up into two main sections; Campaign and Multiplayer modes.
Campaign is essentially normal multiplayer modes, either Hardpoint or Attrition modes (which I will detail later), with a loose and forgettable storyline which only serves to give you a reason to and setting to fight in.
You will progress through the story regardless of whether you win or lose the match, where the game either tells you that your team, either IMC or Malitia, wasn't fast enough or your team just managed to do well enough to meet your objectives.
The campaigns are played in a fixed order of 9 out of the 15 maps, so you rely upon there being enough players to continue where you left off or even play, which may become problematic at a later date as less new player are added to the servers.
I would say forget about the Campaign mode but the two campaigns unlock two of the three Titan Chassis upon their completion, so you will have to beat them both to have full access to your characters customization.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer is the true bread and butter of Titanfall, no need for a story to get in the way of your fun. There are four modes on Titanfall, none of which are exactly unique.
Attrition can be summed up by calling it Team Deathmatch, where there are added NPCs and of course Titans to add to the carnage. The objective of this mode is for your team to kill the most stuff, whether Grunts, Specters, Titans and human opponents/Pilots. This is easily where the most fun is to be had in Titanfall.
In Last Titan Standing all players start off in their Titan, rather than earning it in the other modes, here the objective is simple... KILL ALL THE OPPOSING TEAMS TITANS! While Robot on Robot action always sounds fun, Last Titan Standing isn't. Most Matched tend to go one way, One team loses one or two Titans and then it just Snowballs from there. It is a good mode to practice your Titan wielding skills, but not much else.
Hardpoint is essentially Domination mode, where each team must capture and defend 3 points on the map. The winning Team will have hold the most points for the longest time. It is a good mixed mode as hardpoints are located in both indoor and outdoor locations, making both infantry and Titan players very important for capturing and holding the map.
Capture the Flag is the same as it always is, Capturing the enemies flag while holding your own. Here the infantries parkour is most important as speed and mobility are king. Here you will notice just how well the maps are designed for Titans and players, with the Titans being great attackers and defenders but Pilots being the only way to traverse the map fast enough to quickly capture the enemies flag.
Map design and Graphical fidelity
Graphically Titanfall isn't the best game I've ever seen but not by any means ugly, the maps are very well designed and are distinct from each other with plenty of room to explore and fight.
Some maps, particularly the desert style maps are where the games graphics suffer the most, looking very similar to Modern warfare maps (visually not spacially), but given Relic's previous... lets say affiliation with Infinity Ward this is unsurprising.
The maps change greatly depending on how you play; if you stick to the ground it will feel a lot like Call of Duty but if you utilize the wall running and parkour elements of the game you get so much more out of the maps opening up the rooftops and greatly speeding up map exploration.
Unlike most other shooters all the maps are great to play, with none of the maps being either hard to play or hard to learn for newcomers, while featuring a large amount of things to learn about the maps making them highly replayable. I cannot say I even have a favorite or least favorite map.
Players inside Titans will will only have access to the outdoor and larger indoor areas in the game, making the player feel larger and more powerfull than the infantry below but also wary of the levels verticality where other players can potentially rodeo or otherwise attack your Titan as well as to other Titans and other infantry on the ground.
Back onto graphics the games textures are mostly done to a high standard, with only the occasional bad texture (inside of titans for example) but you spend little time standing around in Titanfall, so you don't often notice this.
Shadows are an area where Titanfall does great, where we can really see this games roots in Valves source engine, where shadows have always been one of the highlights. Otherwise the graphics are good but not spectacular, but then again this is a multiplayer game so do we want something ridiculously demanding?
Conclusion
All in all Titanfall is a fun, unique and enjoyable Multiplayer gaming experience with well disigned maps and a very forgettable story mode. Titanfall is a very fun game to play, but does not have as high a level of customization games like Call of Duty or Battlefield have but at the same time is very friendly to beginners, even this long after launch.
As far as the PC port goes, it is fantastic! It offers great performance on a wide range of hardware, fully rebindable controls with the only disadvantages being the 50.5GB install and the EA Origin requirement.
At present I wouldn't pay the £40 EA asking price for this game, but it is definitely worth the price of £25 which most retailers sell it for, or even lower if you shop around.
Titanfall is a great game for casual shooter fans, offering something unique and very re-playable. I give Titanfall my own personal Gold Reward.
What do you guys think of My review on Titanfall? Would you guys like to see myself or even see OC3D look more into gaming as well as hardware and accessories? Please comment below.
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