GameSpot's The Lobby -- How does Titanfall 2 actually play?

[MUSIC] Ooh, I'm excited about this one. Rob Handlery, you have played the toot and fall, Titanfall 2. Yeah, I have. [UNKNOWN] crazy mech creation. Peter Brand, you did the second take review of Titanfall? Yes, sir. First, what did you give it in your second take review? And eight I believe. Yeah. That was a fun game. I had a lot of fun. Yeah, it was like it made me not have the buyer's remorse with the Xbox One for a little while there. That was like real solid game to play on that. I played a lot of it on 360 actually. You did? After the review Wow. Gosh. Yeah. Cuz I didn't have an Xbox One. I didn't own one. It felt like one of those first, as we talked about at the time, the Gears of War game. The one that where everyone was rallied around this one game, everyone online. You went to your friends' house on Xbox One and it was just Titanfall, Titanfall, Titanfall. A weird thing's kinda happened since where the movement mechanics that they were sort of showing off in that game have basically been adopted by Call of Duty and you could say we're so used to living in games like Overwatch now. Yeah. Even Battleborn and I guess the new Unreal Tournament as well. Hey Rob, you guys put out a really good feature last week about the single players and a new one today about the multiplayer. That's right. You You've played it. Yeah. As a fan, what do you think of Titanfall II? Is it interesting to you or does it feel like another, is it a shallow sequel or is it actually doing something interesting? It's really cool to see where they've Gone since the first game and I think they have filled in a lot of the missing elements from the first game .>> with these. Maybe like a, either way to find servers, like a new, networking features that actually we've known, we haven't really talked about to But basically it's like a nice way of lobbies and developing groups that you're familiar with. And getting into games quicker and easier with familiar players. That was definitely a problem, especially in the month after the game came out. Yeah, eventually I was playing by myself. Yeah. And then the progression system Is much more thought out this time around. No burn cards this time- Yeah, no burn cards. So burn cards have taken an interesting toll. So basically yeah, I mean a lot of the features that we've been working on today, there is definitely a swing away from the modern shooter which could be said to be like Call to Duty, everyone can do everything. Right. Now it's Heroes, more like the heroes shooter is more what they're calling it, or classes with abilities. And that's where this game is going. And that's what's actually really exciting for me was because you get a very strong character when you get into these titans now. As opposed to customizing your titan load-out, now these titans are specific And you know what you're getting into. So on the field if I see X Titan I know what he's capable of. Right. I know what his alt is. I know what his moves. Is he a close range? Is he a distant Titan? What's his And how did the element [get down?] the last name, where there was the one that was slower and bigger. And it was the speedy one goes all around the ramp. Right. But the move sets Were indifferent but now they have straight up [INAUDIBLE] and stuff like that right? Totally yeah so one titan's got a fat laser beam which was so awesome to use. Yeah you see it as a titan. You know what he's capable of. And as far as his weapons I think I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, prior Titans you could pick your own weapon, so, you weren't necessarily sure what weapon he had. Right. I don't think I can even remember. I'm pretty sure. Were there different classes for the actual pilots, as well as the enemies? Yes, so pilots also have, more or less, an ultimate, as well, ability. I guess they did have different [UNKNOWN] last time, as well, when I think of it. Yes, and this time around, and that's kind of where the burn cards have kind of shifted into He's like this ultimate. So, it's a ticker. Just like how a typical, all the watch games work. Hm-mm. That lead up to a your customized customizable [ultibility?]. So may it be amped weapons. Remember burned cars would have amped SMGs or something like that. That's kind of where it fits in. Okay. There's also, the only other one they showed were these kind of remote line picks that you throw down and you could kind of guarantee that they'll find a target and explode on them. Yeah, there are a lot of cool changes. I would say that it's very much, yeah, like class and character Shifting, you see even a player. Actually now your player's ability may be a cloak hologram. As of now, those are visually applied to each pilot. So I can see now a character that looks like the cloak character with texture and skin, and I know that that's what he's capable of. So, are there like, how does that manifest in terms of how you're playing the game because, you know, a lot of the times you're playing classes in different games, you don't care, you're just going to shoot the man in the face anyway. The extremity of that will be something like over [UNKNOWN] where you're like, " I am this person, and I'm going against this person. I need to kill them this way." When you're fighting the Titans, are there certain Titans which shouldn't go up against other Titans? Or certain titans that you should only attack a certain way. How is it manifesting in the battles? Yeah, I mean we only got to see two of the titans. They've mentioned this Ronan-type which is the sword-wielding titan who is Supposedly very much close quarters. Right. But you take, for instance, the Scorcher Titan. He has a very much an AOE type of attack. So he will throw down flames that will completely cover the ground. Hm-hm. So if you're gonna be attacking him even as a pilot- Right. get off the ground, get on the Building and then attack above. Ion is the other Titan with a red laser. He's very much a long distance, I would say, type of guy, who's throwing mines. I mean yeah, you are recognizing a Titan and you're behaving differently. And any difference in the sort of, the parkour-y elements to it? I mean, they was Is kind of first had to get with that stuff and now we're all used to double jumps and running on walls and all that. Just like well actually Brink was the first I was okay with that. Yeah. But. I'd say the speed is a little slowed down. Okay. That's not It just feels that way? It just feels that way. It felt like actually there was even more of a push to get momentum which would generate more speed by doing parkour moves and then what I had the best time with is this new grapple and I was really curious to know how this Fit in. Yeah. Because from the E3 trailer, it was like really, just taking on a grapple hook. Right. It feels so good. Better than almost any grapple I've had in a video game. It's not just Widowmaker. It's not like a teleport button that it is in that game. It's more or like in Quake I guess. This is more of like it's kind of like Bionic Commando or something. Yeah. You're using it Arcs, you can swing sideways and stuff with it. Right, and you can even feed or give slack. Cool, all right, yeah. Which is very interesting. [COUGH] But the biggest thing I found is you- Tighten it up? Yeah, you heard me. [LAUGH] As we know, Titanfall, from the first game, there aren't necessarily lanes. Titanfall. Titanfall. There are just Obstacles around you and you create your own lanes right, for as far as hard core. So many times there are things where it's like ooh that's pretty far away. Well there's where my grapple is. I can attach to a building and swing further and get to that wall that's further along and that was really cool with Being able to have a different mindset and fill in the gaps. Yeah, yeah. That'll be interesting people are totally going to break the levels. That's what I want to know about is the levels I guess. What are the map designs like? And aesthetically do they stand out from the first game, because as you're talking I'm watching footage behind you and I'm seeing Very familiar settings here for the most part. Maybe trees look new. [LAUGH] Right, go ahead. A lot of this I've seen before. Yeah, I would agree. It's not different [CROSSTALK] and that's fine because I never had a problem with it. No, I never had a problem either. I'm just curious if there's anything we're not seeing in here, because I would love to be surprised with some pretty, you know, outlandish environments. I think this game that we're looking at right now, actually is something to be worth noted is, it's called BountyHunt. And essentially it's [UNKNOWN] really surprisingly really fun. It's kind of got a war zone feel to it from Halo. Okay. Where they are like these events. Two enemy titans they are MPC will come down. And you attack those. You break up money. That is cool. And the thing is you then have to return points in the match. To get out of your tighten and cash in. All right, okay, yeah. So it is forcing people to go there. No time to learn the bank. Right, which is great because now you're vulnerable, right, because you get this empowerment in a titan. And I would say there's nothing better than getting into a titan, getting out of a titan, Like feeling unsafe but knowing you're being chased by someone and running after cashing in. And ziplining into your Titan and being like now what? [LAUGH] Like let's go. It creates a cool dynamic that was very strong. Cuz that's just You know and that's what they're really milking, your titan and pilot connection. Yes, actually let's get into that. Yeah. Because the single player stuff, did you play some of this? We just saw a demo. I think most people have seen some of the clips of it, but yeah that was pretty great. Where does your [UNKNOWN] you guys are having conversations like you're literally choosing between one or two. Two options yeah. Yeah. Knees, I guess. How did that stuff sort of look to you? I mean, the thing that I'm interested about this is that obviously Vince Zampella and Jason West were the masterminds behind what Call of Duty, the whole way up to I guess Yes, what was the last one, probably Modern Warfare maybe? No, maybe the one after that, maybe Black Ops, maybe was the last one. I forget, but some of the best single player narratives in what we would consider main stream shooters This is them doing that for the first, well [INAUDIBLE] doing it for the first time with respawn. How did it look to you? One of the things they did really good was not just have, they weren't just boring. They had interesting set pieces and they had interesting individual scenarios and takes. How did it look? Did it look just like down the nose shooting or was it more interesting than that? It looked pretty great and it's definitely a single player. Component, like 100%. What we talked about the guys, the devs, and they mentioned kind of like this interesting ratio which is as they were developing the single player they kind of broke it down to like what are you actually doing with a Titan. One being Titan combat, one being pilot combat, and then one being kind of the parkour nature of your pilot. Right. So he said that's kind of what the ratio is, which is like It's like two parts pilot combat, one part timed combat, and one part parkour. So, those interchange throughout the kinda layout of the entire campaign. Right. So, you start off, really, and what happens is, your Titan BT is down and he needs batteries. So, the first part is, okay. Well, he goes, you need to go find batteries. I scanned across the map this open world [UNKNOWN] setting, go find me batteries. So now you're using your pidon, your pidon. Your pilot skills to parkour around and find batteries. Right. It looks a bit like something like Dying Light or something, where you [UNKNOWN]. Yeah, totally But running on walls I guess, and platforming. Yeah. Like first person style. And that looked really great. So yeah, you're going into camps and you're using cloak. Cool. It's very open world-esq. And then they showed us another part where it's You're inside and you're kind of forced to get out of your titan in order to basically find your way and have kind of like a platforming puzzle aspect in order to get your titan through. Right. You can imagine all these different elements Like pop you or something over time. Or even like the comparison of a cast like two, you know. Or with Doug. Where's there literally, yeah, Doug, where there's even like a freaking going, kind of grabbing that grab a gun but, there's a gun, you get to like open up Platforms and you even, they even show this thing where you get into like a crane and you move wall around in order to then par-cord down. So it just goes back and fourth like that. Sometimes you can't have your titan. Sometimes you can. That's interesting it's almost like they're doing the one thing that Call of Duty never did which was you know for all the wonderful things it did in those combats it was very lane. They were very like blinkers were on you're going down this hallway go do it as opposed to like some of the best first person shooters of all time. You talk about how do you go okay here's Figure it out. You're a big fan of it, Peter. What do you think about Titanfall 2 sort of looking Rob's features and some of the gameplay we've seen today? I"m super excited. I mean, the first game had a wonderful foundation that I just felt needed to be expanded upon. And this game appears to be doing that. And honestly, that's exactly how I feel. As long as it gives me What I had before and then some. I am in. So far you seen it in action you have played the multiplayer, more or less interested now actually after going back from playing it? It is just it's super fun. I mean I felt like I just kind of rambled the whole time. No, no, no. There is so much to actually be said that they They've taken a lot of things from the first game, I think, that were missing, like a lot of team work elements like I've mentioned, like kind of the network and lobbying that kinda wasn't really present. There's a lot more team qualities that are implemented into the game play mechanics. For instance, I think one, a huge one which, I don't know if you caught this in the feature I did is no longer, you know, you could rodeo an enemy kind and shoot his weak spot and kill him. Yeah, yeah. Not any more. It's [LAUGH] you can basically, or what you have to do, is you have to remove a battery. Okay. From his top, which eliminates half his health. Or her health. We've got female Titans. Thank you. You're forced off the Titan. I can either get back on that Titan Throw a grenade in that empty slot. Yeah. That'll do it. The other part that is awesome. Is I now have a battery I can go up to a friendly Titan Yeah. And shove the battery in him boosting his shield. Right. And giving half his health. What's real? That's awesome. Awesome. [LAUGH] So literally I have the game footage where. As a spectacle, I'm seeing two Titans, my friendly Titan an enemy Titan going at it. I swing in, and I do just that. I get on the back, I find a good moment, I rip out the battery, and then I swing back, and I go to my buddy and put it in. And end up- You're like a medic. Yeah, and I end up boosting his shield. And he actually ends up winning the fight. It was freaking awesome. So it's You have these almost like rodeoing other friendly time. There's just these elements of team play that I really got a kick out of. There's nothing more fun to help out someone like that. That's awesome. Yeah. Last question, what do you play on? That was PS4. Okay, interesting. So that's even better. Right? Like now Playstation players can experience time fall. Yeah, PS4, Xbox One and pc. Sorry PC folks, but the Xbox One and PS4 people are getting a technical test for the remaining weekends in August. Are you laughing? It's a beta not a [INAUDIBLE] [CROSSTALK]. Because now the word beta implies a demo. It's all ****. They should have just called [INAUDIBLE] I don't know. Yes, there is a beta basically, going out. Apparently it's open this weekend, starting August 19th, and it will also be on the following weekend as well. So if you're interested you do not have very long to waste. [MUSIC]