Preview - Titanfall

Let's rewind back a few months to E3. Microsoft's recently revealed Xbox One was already getting a lot of hate for its always-online features and the scrapping of second hand game sales. The platform holder was also criticised for focusing on TV shows and movies instead of what a console should be designed for - videogames. Microsoft promised to make it up to fans by showcasing several Xbox One titles at E3, and one such game was Titanfall. Little did we know how important that game could turn out to be.

Created by Respawn Entertainment - a new studio made up of former members of Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward - Titanfall is looking to inject new life into a genre dominated by one or two big players. After getting hands-on time with the shooter recently and experiencing it for ourselves, we can't help but draw comparisons between this and the thing that Respawn developers once helped create - Call of Duty.

Jump into a game and straight away you can feel the COD influence. The gameplay is fast-paced and frantic while the shooting is solid and responsive. Even the map that we played on resembled something that we'd seen before in other shooters. But then you add on the new layers of gameplay that haven't been done like this before, and it really turns Titanfall from promising outsider to heavyweight contender.

For starters there's the ability to double jump around the map. An interesting feature, you might say, but one that really makes a difference? Incredibly, yes. Suddenly buildings and objects that stood in your way in other shooters like a giant barrier are now no problem. Likewise the wall-running mechanic is also a game changer. Any map is now your playground as you athletically charge around the battlefield looking for enemies.

And then we come to what this game is all about - the Titans. Earning enough points allows a player to call down a Titan from the sky, a giant mech that you can get in and use to wreak havoc upon the opposing team. It really is as fun as it sounds, and though the Titans are slow and plodding they more than make up for it with their ability to cause massive amounts of damage in seconds.

The beauty of it all is that you don't have to jump into a Titan at all to be king of the battlefield. Tactics and strategy matter in Titanfall, and players can team up and use their brains to take down Titans. In fact on the map we played, we found it best to jump to the top of a big building with a good vantage point, then shoot down the Titans from above before they had any idea what was going on.

"We play a lot for balancing," Respawn community manager Abbie Heppe told us. "I think that's really where the challenges sort of arise, and they worked really hard to make sure the pilots have enough weapons against the Titans, and the Titans have enough weapons against the pilots. That agility that the pilots have gives them the vertical advantage a lot of the time while the Titans have the scale advantage. We really wanted to make sure that that was right and it fit together."

Respawn are also using Titanfall to experiment with the way matches finish. Traditionally after an objective is completed in other shooters you might get a short cutscene showing off the winning team before going back to the multiplayer lobby. That is not the case here as Respawn has added Epilogues, short mini-games taking place after a match has ended.

In the Epilogue that we played the losing team had to run back to a dropship to escape the punishment, while the winning team hunted down the remaining members and tried to kill them off. Escaping or killing earns you another chunk of bonus XP, so even if players are on a losing team they can still be rewarded with plenty of points. It's only a tiny piece of action in the grand scheme of things but it adds another twist to what you're used to.

It's still far too early to claim that Titanfall is a Call of Duty killer, but it isn't too early to see that this will be one of the early highlights of next-generation gaming. Microsoft has done a tremendous job of securing Titanfall as an Xbox title and keeping it out of the hands of Sony, and it will certainly be a factor in the decision making of gamers as they decide between the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.