Topic: Titanfall -> Season Pass is now FREE on Origin + Xbox Live, go get it!

[MysterD]

IMPORTANT + URGENT!!! -- March 11, 2015
PC Gamer -> Season Pass for Titanfall has now been made FREE for its 1 Year Anniversary. Go get it!
GameSpot -> Titanfall Season Pass also made FREE today on XBox Live for XBox 360 + XBox One.

NEW -> 3-10-2014:
OWNet -> Compiled REVIEWS linked here.
PC Gamer -> Tweak Guide for Titanfall PC
Shacknews -> Massive PC Install Explained -- thanks for the link, Idol!
Titanfall PC requirements revealed + PC version requires Origin.
GameSpot -> Titanfall could get a DLC Season Pass pack; and Pilot Mode might come after launch

OLD:
VentureBeat -> Microsoft Exclusive for the "life of the title" (for XBox and Windows platforms
GameSpot -> Abbie Heppe of Respawn (former games journalist) talks about the Online Campaign and MP.
Rev3 Games -> E3 2013 Gameplay Walkthrough.
Vince Zampella explains why Titanfall has no SP

[W7RE]

This is one of my top games of E3 so far. It looks so much better than I expected. There was a rumor that the while still at Infinity Ward they wanted to make something futuristic and sci-fi, but I was thinking Halo (which has a setting I don't care for so much). This and The Division. Oh and Destiny.

[MysterD]

Vince Zampella explains why Titanfall has no SP:
http://www.gamesradar.com/titanfall-creator-explains-lack-single-player/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=emp

"And how many people finish the single-player game? It's a small percentage. It's like, everyone plays through the first level, but 5 percent of people finish the game," he said. "Really, you split the team. They're two different games. They're balanced differently, they're scoped differently. But people spend hundreds of hours in the multiplayer experience versus as little time as possible rushing to the end [in single-player]. So why do all the resources go there? To us it made sense to put it here. Now everybody sees all those resources, and multiplayer is better. For us it made sense."

[sirean_syan]

They had a budget and put their resources where they felt it mattered. Good on them for making the call and being honest about it.

[Cobra951]

Yep.  Better than a 4-hour SP campaign that would only makes me feel ripped off.  This way, I know to stay away altogether.  Honesty much appreciated.

[MysterD]

GameSpot -> Abbie Heppe of Respawn (former games journalist) talks about the Online Campaign and MP.

[idolminds]

Sorry, PlayStation 4: Titanfall exclusive to Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC for ‘the life of the title'

MS must have opened their wallets wide to grab that as an exclusive.

[MysterD]

Sorry, PlayStation 4: Titanfall exclusive to Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC for ‘the life of the title'

MS must have opened their wallets wide to grab that as an exclusive.

Translation:
"The life of the title" = "As long as this game's servers are up w/ its always-online DRM."

[MysterD]

[MysterD]

Titanfall PC requirements revealed + PC version requires Origin.

Origin requirement on PC version

UPDATE 05/02/2014:

As expected, the PC version of Titanfall requires EA's digital platform Origin to play.

The news was confirmed by Respawn chief Vince Zampella on Twitter overnight after a follower said he wouldn't buy the game if it used Origin.

"We'll miss you " was Zampella's response. Then: "I'll also ask that you give origin a try for the beta, costs you nothing."

Of course, you don't need Origin for the Xbox One and Xbox 360 versions.

PC System Requirements

ORIGINAL STORY:
Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella has tweeted the minimum PC system requirements for the highly anticipated first-person shooter Titanfall.

It will require:

    64-bit Windows 7, 8, 8.1
    AMD Athlon X2 2.8GHz or Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz
    4GB RAM
    512MB VRAM, Radeon HD 4770 or GeForce 8800GT

[W7RE]

I'm so glad I can play this on Xbox One and don't have to worry about Origin.

[Pugnate]

To be frank, I love Origin. Lighter than Steam.

[W7RE]

http://www.titanfall.com/beta

Beta singups are available

[PyroMenace]

I've been watching streams of this on twitch and it looks fantastic. I really like how fast and chaotic everything is, infantry move really quick and jump around the map super fluidly, then the titans come in and it turns into an awesome mech fighting game. I have yet to see a next gen game look this good yet not be bogged down by technical issues of some sort *cough* BF4 *cough*, it seems to run much more stable than what you would expect from a beta these days. Anyway I would love to check it out, may look into getting it down the road if I can somehow afford it.

[Xessive]

So the beta is awesome fun!

The gameplay mechanics set it apart from other military shooters but at its heart it really feels like Call of Duty + Wall-run & Mechs. The rest of gameplay compounds on that and transforms it into something greater and more exhilarating.

[W7RE]

Yea, "Call of Duty with mechs" makes it sound bad, but it's really not a lot more than that, but still insanely fun. Just the pilot movement stuff is fun as hell, then jumping in a mech mixes things up so you're not doing the same thing the whole time. Also, all my friends that have tried it had the same experience as me: first match or two it feels hectic and you might not do so well. After that you start to get the hang of it and it just gets more and more fun. The wall-running stuff makes it seem like map familiarity will be a much bigger deal than in other shooters, because you'll discover and remember parkour paths to get from point A to point B faster and less noticeably.

I also really like the addition of auto-sprint. You can set it to never, delay (start sprinting a second or two after you start moving), or always sprint. In Call of Duty I find I'm pretty much always sprinting, so setting it to delayed means I don't have to click the stick in every time I start moving. It's a small thing, but I like it.




I've been trying to remember to grab some clips with my Xbox to link here, but keep forgetting lol. Also every time I could get on my Xbox and upload the clips to SkyDrive, I decide I'd rather play the game than wait for clips to upload on my slow connection. I'll probably do it after the beta is over.

The beta is now OPEN for Xbox One BTW. Anyone can download and play it.

[sirean_syan]

So I didn't know this was coming to Xbox 360. For all the talk and trumping up the game is getting that seems like a bad idea. It's sort of being billed as the system seller for the Xbone but that doesn't work when you can just get it for the system you've had for years.

[W7RE]

So I didn't know this was coming to Xbox 360. For all the talk and trumping up the game is getting that seems like a bad idea. It's sort of being billed as the system seller for the Xbone but that doesn't work when you can just get it for the system you've had for years.

It's coming out 2 weeks later for the Xbox 360. It's probably been delayed to boost sales on Xbox One (and sales of Xbox One systems). Jeff Gerstmann was saying that people who have seen the 360 version say it's fine, so it's probably not because that version is having issues.

[Xessive]

Haha yeah, I don't mean to knock it down like "it's just Call of Duty + mechs" but it really is! If I didn't know that Respawn was formed from former Infinity Ward members I would still wager they were involved in the Call of Duty games in some way. There's just some signature style they have.

Tech-wise it's not "next-gen" in any way, really. Visually it looks alright but nothing awe-inspiring. Based on the beta, the visuals are nothing new or mind-boggling; especially on PC, there are instances where you still see low-res textures. I'd put it on par with CoD Ghosts in terms of technical graphics but Respawn are a bit more creative with the artwork and overall visual style by comparison.

What will set Titanfall apart is definitely the gameplay. The player traversal, the titan superiority battles, the frequent ace-switching between on-foot and titan combat, it all comes together to make for a veritable diversity in gameplay.

[W7RE]

I took a few videos with the Xbox One game DVR. I uploaded a few to OneDrive (SkyDrive). The compression is so bad on these, lol.

3:22 - Has a mix of pilot and titan action
4:43 - I go on a streak using the Aural Implant burn card. It changes you action ability (stealth, speed boost) to a thing that pulses to show where enemies are through walls
0:29 - I jump on top of a titan to kill it, then escape to a rooftop using the speed boost ability
0:10 - You can hack the Spectres and they become minions that follow you around

I had a cool one that was nearly 5 minutes long. It included a cool killing spree that went from pilot to titan, and included me ripping someone from their mech. I screwed up and deleted it though, lol.

[W7RE]

Pretty decent montage tweeted by @Titanfallgame:

[MysterD]

GameSpot -> Titanfall could get a DLC Season Pass pack; and Pilot Mode might come after launch

[idolminds]

WTF

[Pugnate]

OK that's a lot.

[scottws]

Textures, sounds, and video.

[MysterD]

Titanfall -- REVIEWS


METACRITIC:
PC
XBox One.
X360

Scored out of 10:
EGMNow -> 10
GameTrailers -> 9.3
GameSpot -> 9
Polygon -> 9
Machinima - Inside Gaming Daily -> 9
NowGamer -> 9
Metro UK -> 9
Total XBox.com -> 9
AusGamer -> 8.7
OXM -> 8.5
Videogamer -> 8

Scored out of 5:
Revision 3 -> 5 stars.
Joystiq -> 4 1/2 stars.
Toronto Sun -> 4 1/2 stars

Scored out of 100:
Venture Beat - Games Beat -> 82

No score -> These are waiting to score game for once it to hits Retail shelves so it can be played on "Retail" Live servers:
Eurogamer
GiantBomb
PC Gamer.

[MysterD]

I won Titanfall PC in a Twitter Contest from Peter Moore of EA.

Anyways, took a while - but it's download + installed now.

49.99 GB in size, in total.
35 GB of that above-said total was audio files!

[idolminds]

So they are all just WAV files for no reason?

[W7RE]

Sort of sucks that you can pick it up at midnight on the east coast, but have to wait until 3:00 am if you want to buy it digital on Xbox One. then I still have to wait for it to download, because of no pre-loading. =/

Yea, none of this will matter by tomorrow, but seeing all these streams and not being able to play sucks right now.

[idolminds]

Yup, uncompressed audio. For compatibility, so lower end machines can run the game.

Suuuuuuuuuuure...

[scottws]

I can't access that link at work.  Is it really uncompressed PCM?  Or did they at least use something like FLAC (which still probably wouldn't have helped you)?

Strange.  I doubt a machine that would struggle to decode FLAC could handle the visuals.

[Cobra951]

I can't access that link at work.  Is it really uncompressed PCM?  Or did they at least use something like FLAC (which still probably wouldn't have helped you)?

Strange.  I doubt a machine that would struggle to decode FLAC could handle the visuals.

It's pure BS.  My 9-year-old PC tech can handle any form of audio compression without skipping a beat on anything else.

[Xessive]

That sounds like half-assed excuse.

From a technical standpoint, the game is not so graphically intensive either. No more than the CoD games anyway. On the highest settings the texture quality is adequate and I still frequently see lowres textures. The game's visuals are nothing out of the ordinary. If your system can run them it would have no difficulty decompressing audio simultaneously. So why are they concerned about low-end machines now?

[MysterD]

Yup, uncompressed audio. For compatibility, so lower end machines can run the game.

Suuuuuuuuuuure...

I'm wondering if we have more than one language pack downloaded in here, as well.

[Xessive]

I just looked at the files (VPK) and, yep, I've got multiple language packs in here: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Traditional Chinese.

Nearly 35GB can be attributed to a set of files entitled "Client_mp_common.bsp.pak###.vpk" which, according to various online sources are the audio alone.

[W7RE]

I just looked at the files (VPK) and, yep, I've got multiple language packs in here: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Traditional Chinese.

Nearly 35GB can be attributed to a set of files entitled "Client_mp_common.bsp.pak###.vpk" which, according to various online sources are the audio alone.

And how much smaller is the game on Xbox One? 33.6GB smaller. It's a 16.39GB download.

[Xessive]

I think it's the same, actually. I recall reading somewhere that people were shocked about the download size for Xbox One, particularly the people who bought the Titanfall bundle, the game is not included in the box, you get an online code.

I'm beginning to think the uncompressed audio might have something to do with the Xbox OneI version.

[scottws]

The Xbox One surely can handle compressed audio as well.  I mean heck, the Xbox 360 can decode H.264 which is a pretty demanding video compression algorithm, even for decoding, and it is also decompressing some form of audio at the same time too.  I also read in an article yesterday that Titanfall on the Xbox One is only running at 1408x792 (weird resolution), so it can't be that it is trying to run 1080p at 60fps and it's just got no more headroom for anything else.  Besides, wouldn't graphical struggles be mostly limited to the GPU?  The CPU would decode the audio.

[Xessive]

The Xbox One surely can handle compressed audio as well.  I mean heck, the Xbox 360 can decode H.264 which is a pretty demanding video compression algorithm, even for decoding, and it is also decompressing some form of audio at the same time too.  I also read in an article yesterday that Titanfall on the Xbox One is only running at 1408x792 (weird resolution), so it can't be that it is trying to run 1080p at 60fps and it's just got no more headroom for anything else.  Besides, wouldn't graphical struggles be mostly limited to the GPU?  The CPU would decode the audio.

Yeah, weird resolution. It's no doubt capable from a technical standpoint. I mean my phone is capable!

I suspect there's something in the infrastructure which Respawn noted. It could even be that it's because they're building it simultaneously for the X360, Xone, and PC. Whatever the reason they opted to minimize on the CPU load (by a minuscule measure) with uncompressed audio. The X360 version should be released soon and we'll see how much storage space (if any) it requires.

[W7RE]

Long installs are probably a mix of a day 1 patch, and just long install times on Xbox One in general. Something about installing from disc and patching at the same time seems to cause it to take forever with any game. I hear game installs from disc are way faster if you disconnect from the net to install, then reconnect and let it patch.

I didn't buy the boxed copy though. I bought it digitally from the storefront on the console. There it lists the game as 16.39Gb in size, and my Xbox One is telling me it's 16.3GB in size. My hard drive space on my console changed accordingly, and the download time was appropriate. (I get about 1MB/sec, and it took close to 5 hours, which is about right for 16GB.) So yea, I'm pretty sure it's not huge like on PC.