8. Titanfall
When Titanfall was announced at the Microsoft conference, everyone was buzzing about it. It seemed to cause a big splash, but was one I was just not crazy about. A prominently multiplayer experience in a dirty and gritty sci-fi setting just fails to excitement anymore. There was certainly an interesting germ of an idea with the contextualisation of multiplayer but I needed to see more to really get jazzed about it. So I went down to the EA booth and got myself a closer look. The game comes from Respawn Entertainment, founded by Vince Zampella and Jason West, the brain trust of the Modern Warfare series, so you don't have to second guess their multiplayer pedigree. What Respawn showed me has me significantly more excited about what Titanfall could be than what was shown at the press conference. Even though it was the exact same skirmish, the atmosphere was much different as it was just several of the developers playing through a match with each other and clearly having fun. There is an interesting dynamic between the inter-fighting relationship of just being a soldier running around and being in one of the hulking Titans. The Titans that you can pilot are key to matches but being a pilot can be just as valid of an approach as you can run around the scenery being an incredibly maneuverable unit. While you run around in the world you will pretty quickly realise that the multiplayer deathmatch is also trying to tell a story. A narrative driven FPS multiplayer is one that has been on the cards for a while. On one hand, it is surprising it has taken so long for a AAA game to really try and explore the idea on this scale before. However, on the other hand, my main worry for the idea still remains. When you are trying to construct a narrative thread in multplayer, especially an FPS that shares the same DNA of Call and Duty's run and gun approach, players who are only concerned with score getting could ruin the experience for other players trying to immerse themselves in the world. Existing in an interactive plot requires a fraction of roleplaying that I doubt a large portion of players will be willing to participate in. Putting it into a practical example, if you were playing a game, trying to enjoy what was going on in the plot and all the NPC broke character, started running around and shooting everything that moved, it would probably ruin your experience. It is a tough problem to overcome but I am excited to see how Titanfall deal with it. After being walked through the demo, I am certainly more engrossed in the game's development. We need another multiplayer centric military sci-fi shooter like a hole in the head, but Titanfall at least has some ideas of its own to make it worth consideration. If it realises all of its potential, it could be a massive boost for the Xbox Ones image as it is an exclusive. From what I saw, while it is a game that doesn't fully excite my personal tastes, I could see it being a console seller and that is something that the Xbox One sorely needs.