It started with a midnight release. Milling around a dark parking lot at 11:45 pm on a Monday night anxious for my favorite flavor of run and gun that I have been deprived of since I burned out on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Four long years have passed since Activision, Jason West and Vince Zampella parted ways and in that time I have seen Call of Duty transform from a very fun, run and gun, military fps to a game where a dog is stronger than an attack helicopter. Other shooter series’s have kept my trigger finger spry but as far as fast paced action from a first person perspective … well, it’s been a long four years. Battlefield 3 and 4 are completely different from what CoD ever was and Halo, while a little closer, is not all that similar either. In fact I can’t think of one FPS that has been “casual” yet respectable since Modern Warfare 2. Nothing since has delivered that type of adrenaline in a ten minute capsule. A capsule that can be taken one at a time for a quick hit before work or 50 in a row during a full blown weekend binge. Standing in that parking lot on a cold Midwestern night I was more than ready for my fix.
At first I was intrigued by the prospect, I liked everything involved. I liked Jason and Vince, the guys that are selling it. I liked the old Call of Duty games. Something that was, in my mind, likely very similar to it. These two factors were enough for me to feel comfortable with the one time 60$ investment and try Titanfall. A quick midnight pick up of my copy and a free poster (can’t turn down paraphernalia now can we?) and I was speeding back to my gaming room to shoot up some opponents. Sitting at my desk I held my soon to be obsession in both hands looking at the case. The text on the back of the box assured that this game will “set the bar” and for me to “believe the hype”. Carefully I peeled back the wrapper, opened the case, and treated myself to the customary whiff of new game smell. Three discs awaited me inside, not too uncommon for Pc games these days. Enough of standing by and eager for titans to fall I slid the disc in my drive and followed the on screen prompts… and then the second disc… and then the third disc and then… What the hell?! 50gbs?! “How long will it take for this concoction to brew before I can sample it?” I wondered while impatiently watching a tiny animated file flutter over the words “unpacking audio”. A half hour is a long time to wait for a game to install and by the time all 50, bloated, gigabytes were primed anticipation had given way to annoyance and a mild fear that the game wouldn’t work or play properly much like another title from the same publisher recently (points elbow at Battlefield 4). Thankfully the negativity shed as it booted up without hassle and I was quickly queuing up my first round of “Attrition” (Team Deathmatch).
Jump, double jump, wall run, ride zip line, mount enemy titan… HOLY SHIT THIS IS AWESOME! I was spraying smg rounds 40 feet down while I floated through the air high as a kite. Fighting through the haze of my Titan’s electric smoke I deployed to thwart would be on-foot attackers. My adrenaline was pumping, I was leaning forward in my chair tapping WASD so fast it’s a wonder I didn’t start a fire from the friction. It was 9am launch day and I was a full blown addict.
Somebody once told me “When you go to sleep thinking about something and wake up thinking about that same thing it’s either really good for you or really bad”. I don’t know if I’d call it “bad” but 60 hours logged in less than 2 weeks is probably a bit excessive. It’s hard to put down is the problem, even when it’s bad it’s good. Even after 6 straight hours at four o’clock in the morning when a player’s twitch skill may start to recede the game still holds a firm grasp on me due to the fact that it’s entirely possible to MVP a match while only killing a handful of actual players and just focusing on the bots. The game is set up so you have some sort of enemy within shooting distance at almost all times. This creates a competition which less than average players can post a kill death ratio of well over 1.00 in. Yeah they’re just bots but running on a wall and throwing a piece of ordinance on the ground then detonating as you jet pack away admiring your 5 kills is pretty freaking sweet whether they’re the dumbest AI ever programmed or not.
After about a week my skill at the game had improved and my desire to play had grown with it. The one thing that will keep me playing a shooter aside from all the normal game attributes such as graphics, map design etc. is being good at it. Too many rage quits is 99.9% of the reason that a gamer will dislike a specific shooter. They may say it’s the motif or the guns are under-powered or whatever reason their mind has concocted to protect their ego from the true reason they don’t enjoy it which is that they suck at it. I don’t suck at Titanfall. I doubt you’ll see my gamertag on any MLG webpage but I am shooting more people than are shooting me and that is key in enjoying it. It is also key in becoming hooked. Just one more game turns to 3 or 4 when that one more game is a 12-0 kill fest with 40 bots slaughtered along the way. Eyes glossed over leaning so close to my screen my nose could almost touch it. “That was a pretty good round maybe I COULD tournament play”. The addiction is now creating delusions. A common side effect.
Every gamer has that one game. The game that they’ve played for countless hours. The game where they know every nook and every cranny of every map. The game that temporarily, or even permanently, obliterated their social life. You know which game I’m talking about. The one that gets brought up by a a friend or acquaintance and your eyes light up so bright they wish they wouldn’t have mentioned it. They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem so here it goes; My name is Ben and I’m addicted to Titanfall. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go play 20 rounds of Hardpoint Domination before bed.
