STAYING IN
RISE OF THE ROBOTS Titanfall promises to set a new benchmark in multiplayer first-person shooters. As robots and soldiers fight for their lives, Henry Northmore checks out the future of warfare
A mechanised monolith lays down a barrage of machine-gun i re while a huge hulking robot runs for cover i ring off missiles in response. A squad of soldiers, tricked out with jetpacks and advanced weaponry, scatter. Drawing in closer, the two robots clash, monstrous metal i sts slugging it out, exchanging massive blows that shake the environment. Welcome to the world of Titanfall, the debut release from Respawn Entertainment, the videogame development company formed by Jason West and Vince Zampella, two of the creative team behind the world-conquering Call of Duty series. Their new project is a bulked out futuristic i rst-
person shooter in which you take control of the various Titan war machines. with the multiple strategies you can employ to take down the enemy forces.
Set on a battle scarred planet you play as either a member of the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation (IMC) or the Militia. You can run and gun on foot or leap into the cockpit of these imposing metal exoskeletons. This offers you two distinct types of game play, the fast agile tactics of the Pilots or the hard-hitting, heavily armoured Titans. A unique mix of stealth and speed vs stamina and artillery. The control schemes are almost identical so you can seamlessly switch from one to the other but it’s the interplay between the two that really promises to reinvigorate the FPS genre As with Call of Duty, the multiplayer experience is integral to Titanfall – in fact it takes things one step further as the game is online multiplayer only as up to 12 combatants enter the battlei eld. Non-player activity will be dealt with by Microsoft’s cloud computing services keeping the action fast and frenetic. They are also promising the plotting, graphics and production values you normally associate with a single player game in a multiplayer environment. ‘In addition to infusing the multiplayer experience with cinematic l avour, we’ve been rethinking fundamental combat
26 THE LIST 20 Feb–20 Mar 2014