So. The Titanfall beta has ended. I decided to post my thoughts thus far. I'll start by reposting what I said in a previous thread.
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I love it.
It's nonstop action almost all the time. I'm hearing everyone complain about the NPCs that fill the battlefield. "They're not even a challenge" etc.. They aren't supposed to be. They're there for 2 things: 1. To provide atmosphere. 2. To add to the gameplay. For example, in the Attrition gamemode, they add to your teams overall score. Aside from that they also give you experience and reduce the wait for your Titan. And if you get careless, they CAN kill you.
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Movement is spectacular. As a Pilot I was double-jumping, wall-running/jumping, and rodeoing titans like it was nobodies business. And it. Felt. Great. Combined with the Stim ability that increases your movement speed and health regeneration for a few seconds I was able to zigzag past a Titans fire, double-jump onto a building wall, wallrun, and then jump off to rodeo said Titan and take it out single-handedly. The satisfaction was immense.
As a Titan you aren't quite as free, but still have great mobility for a walking hunk of metal. You can sprint as well as dash in whichever direction you choose (the amount of dashes are limited by which Titan chassis you have selected, of which there is only one in beta at the moment). This can make for quick-paced battles, as well as speedy getaways if you find yourself in trouble.
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Gunplay is pretty good. As a Pilot you have the standard stuff. Grenades, pistols, rifles, shotguns, snipers, sub-machine guns, and melee (jump-kick). The addition of the smart pistol is negligible in my opinion. With scopes and other add-ons to customize your gun, you have a decent range of weaponry to fit your playstyle. Running and gunning is especially fun with the mobility of the Pilot.
As a Titan, you are just that. A Titan. You got rockets, a cannon, a machine gun, and a hell of a punch. You also have a Vortex Shield, and an Electric Smokescreen> The Vortex Shield can be used to catch enemy bullets and rockets Matrix style mid-air and send them back. The Electric Smokescreen, aside from being a smokescreen, after deploying for about a second, creates a field of electricity that damages anything inside. It's a good countermeasure if an enemy is rodeoing your Titan. Now I want to talk a bit more about the Titans survivability. You have an energy shield that can be depleted with relative ease, and armor (which is essentially health). The shield can regenerate, but damage to your armor is permanent. Once your armor is completely depleted, Your Titan enters a state called "doomed". At this point your health bar is replaced with a yellow and black striped bar that depletes over time, and can also be depleted outright by enemy fire. You have the option to either eject, or keep fighting and die with your Titan. If you melee a doomed enemy, you can rip them out of their Titan, and toss them to their death. These mechanics combined with the mobility of the Titans makes for some intense and satisfying battles.
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Burn cards add some variety to the action. To the best of my knowledge, they only last one life. They can give powered up weapons, respawn you where you died, increase movement speed, reduce time needed to wait for your Titan, or increase the amount of points/exp you get from certain enemies, among other things.
And that is what I think of Titanfall. I love it, and I can't wait to play more of it.
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I still agree with everything I said previously. Though I want to add on a few things.
This is my take on the glaring "recoil" issue. I think it was a design choice. Pilots are incredibly agile, in or outdoors, so combining that with too much gun recoil could have potentially ruined the feel of the game, especially with Titans. This coincides with the "future realism" idea. Of course, you may feel differently. This is simply my hypothesis.
Level design is great so far. I love being forced to find new ways to move through the map when I'm running away from being shot at.
All in all, I would say this was a very successful beta. Aside from some downtime they had early on (which they made up for), everything went pretty smoothly, even after they completely opened it. The matchmaking system could use a little work, as it would often leave me and my full team in an empty lobby while searching for another match to join, with no success.
I very much look forward to playing this again as soon as it becomes available. I'll likely preorder it once there's a decent discount for it, because $60 for any game is simply too much.