14 DAY TRIAL // Titanfall was the big launch of the past few weeks, the first title delivered during 2014 that can become a blockbuster in terms of sales and can be in contention for the Game of the Year awards that will be given out at the end of the year.
The first-person shooter from developer Respawn Entertainment and publisher Electronic Arts has a number of unique gameplay mechanics and ideas and it might also have a long-term influence on the evolution of the genre.
But the most interesting aspect of its release is that it is basically multiplayer-only, a game that a player cannot enjoy on his own in any true way.
Sure you can buy the game and jump into random matches, simply looking to take out enemy pilots and mechs, with limited thought given to the way teamwork can improve the performance of a team or any other social element of the experience.
But Titanfall requires at the least a small group of friends to play with, enough to form a team and try to coordinate in some way, achieve objectives, and learn new tactics in order to have a shot at victory.
The game is even better for the gamer who has access to a larger community and can experience some of the more social aspects of the title.
Titanfall represents the logical evolution of the current trends seen in its biggest rivals, Call of Duty from Activision and Battlefield from Electronic Arts.
Both are heavily focused on their own multiplayer modes but they still have a single-player campaign that feels like a vestigial artefact from an age when gaming was not as connected as it is today.
The big question is whether a title that drops that campaign can achieve roughly the same amount of sales and can become a franchise.
We will not know for sure until sales numbers are offered for Titanfall and until we see how they compared to those of Ghosts and Battlefield 4.
My self-centered hope is that the new title from Respawn is slightly disappointing initially and all future installments in the franchise include a sort of single-player.
This way I might be one day able to enjoy mech-on-mech combat and the free movement of the pilot without having to worry about the group I am playing with and about how they will react to my poor performance.