Preview - Titanfall

Whisper it, but this could - could - be the long-awaited game that finally knocks Call of Duty off the top of the first-person shooter tree. That Activision's behemoth has managed to shift millions upon millions of copies every year despite sticking to the same tired old formula is a resounding success story, but every story has to come to an end sometime. Titanfall could be that end.

The big selling point of Titanfall? Why, the mechs that you can summon from the sky and roam around in, of course. Stomping around the battlefield and blowing your adversaries away is uniquely empowering in this genre of gaming, where you're often made to feel inadequate by staying alive for roughly ten seconds following a respawn in other games. That isn't the case here, and you'll usually find yourself wandering the maps for a while before being treated to a kill cam.

There are three different classes of Titan at launch: Atlas, Ogre and Stryder.  Ogre is for those who like to be equipped with the heavy artillery, Stryder is the speedy option, while Atlas is being labeled the all-round mech. You can choose which class of Titan you'd prefer to call your own before each match, and you'll probably be experimenting quite a bit before you find the one you're most comfortable with.

Titans fire lots of bullets, they fire rockets and they can also dash by using small bursts of movement and thus evading enemy fire. That's especially useful, because you'll pretty much be a walking target when you step inside a Titan, with suddenly the whole focus being placed on making sure you don't last for too long. Pilots have special weapons that they can use to take Titans down, including rocket launchers and special blaster guns, but it'll still take a lot of firepower to destroy one as they're so tough.

When a Titan is eventually defeated, players will be able to hit the eject button to go soaring into the sky. While in the air you can attempt to land in a relative safe spot, although that might not always be possible as the maps can get pretty hectic. It offers some lovely, high-adrenalin gameplay moments when your Titan is destroyed, you eject out of there, land on a roof and then quickly begin getting your own back on the Pilot or Titan that attacked you.

But even though the Titans are a game-changer, the biggest difference appears to be the agility and nimbleness of the Pilots that you'll be controlling. Jetpacks allow you to double jump, great for getting to that second-floor window and into shelter. The ability to wall-run will have you experimenting with all kinds of crazy, parkour scenarios. You don't just feel like a walking target anymore, and being cornered by two enemies is no longer a death sentence.

Pilots also have the useful ability to jump up on top of a Titan's back to try and destroy it. Getting up close and personal with a Titan is tricky, and if they walk on you they will crush and kill you, but it might just be worth the extra effort as this seems to be a much quicker way to take down a Titan instead of unloading all of your ammo onto it.

So the gameplay is fast and furious, but what about that multiplayer limit of six humans per side? Respawn got a lot of grief in the build up to Titanfall's release when it was revealed that only 12 humans could be on the maps at the same time, but you needn't have any fear. It seems like the perfect numbers for balance, as each player can also set their Titan to free roaming instead of getting inside them, and added to the AI bots running around there's always plenty going on and never a lack of action.

We played through three different modes in our hands-on: Attrition, Hardpoint Domination and Last Titan Standing. Attrition is basically team deathmatch with a cooler name, as teams battle to rack up their kill counts against the clock. Fraction involves teams fighting to control points A, B and C on a map for the longer times. And Last Titan Standing has every player on each team starting out a match in their Titan, and the losing team is the one that gets all their Titans destroyed first. It was all incredibly fun, and our three-hour preview session felt like it lasted little more than an hour.

We also saw the introduction of burn cards. These haven't been seen before, but they're basically perks that you can unlock as you level up. At the lower levels you can only attach one burn card to your Pilot, but eventually you'll be able to equip three, and they offer various benefits such as faster running and a faster cool down period between summoning your Titan.

As Microsoft has managed to snag a console exclusive deal, meaning the first Titanfall won't be arriving on a PlayStation system at all, the game's arrival probably won't threaten the Call of Duty machine just yet. There are potentially 80 million or so players that will be left out in the cold as they hold onto their PlayStations, but that doesn't mean the hype generated by this product can't help out future iterations.

Titanfall is fast-paced. It's innovative. It gives us a fresh perspective on a genre that's been growing stale for a while. But most importantly, it's seriously fun to play. If Respawn can add enough maps into the final game to make sure they don't get too boring too quickly, and the single-player elements in the multiplayer blend together well enough to justify excluding a campaign altogether, then Titanfall could easily be an early contender for game of the year. This will be a reason to own an Xbox One.