Titanfall 2 isn’t a new game by any means, but I hadn’t played the campaign until recently. The production of the game went into the multiplayer, as that’s what it revolves around, but my brothers and I nagged me about playing the campaign until I finally sat down to do it. I’ll talk about the campaign first, then add a little bit at the end about the multiplayer and the new mode: Frontier Defense. There will be spoilers ahead, but they will be more about gameplay than story. Honestly though, this isn’t the sort of game you should care to have spoiled. The fun of the campaign isn’t the story, it’s the map design and gameplay mechanics.

That being said, the campaign wasn’t what I had anticipated in the slightest. With my brothers wanting me to play it so badly, I expected it to have an epic adventure with plot twists and awesome characters. But really, it doesn’t have that. There are no interesting twists, and you can guess what happens at the end of each mission if you have enough familiarity with the action genre in any form.

But the Titanfall 2 campaign is awesome. It’s simply awesome in a way I haven’t experienced. It wasn’t Halo, that had you jumping onto a Scarab or looking for Cortana on a Flood-infested ship. It didn’t have insane moments. But the map design took heavy advantage of Titanfall 2‘s gameplay, where you can double-jump and run on walls. This game is by far the most fluid and mobile FPS I’ve ever encountered, and the campaign matches it perfectly.

And then the game throws you for a loop and introduces time shenanigans. You find a device that warps you back in time, and then you have an entire level where you can go back or forward in time at will. There are obstacles that bar your way that may not be there in the past/future, or enemies trying to kill you that might be in both parts of the timeline simultaneously. For about half an hour the game almost stops being a first-person shooter and instead shifts into a puzzle platformer. Now, the puzzles aren’t complicated, but it does require you to think a bit. Not to mention the incredible aesthetic change of shifting back and forth between pristine science facility and apocalyptic rubble looks amazing.

This one level makes the campaign worth playing.

It actually makes me a little sad that that idea isn’t used more. There should be an entire game based on shifting back and forth on a timeline. It could easily be implemented into a multiplayer system, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it actually has been done before. In the campaign it made me feel like a superhero. Way more so than any actual superhero game I’ve ever played. So I think that’s saying something.

So, enough about the campaign. What does this game feel like? Well, I will admit that it is a lot like the less socially acceptable games like Call of Duty and, now, Halo. You’re in an arena with some teammates and some enemies, and you try to shoot them before they can shoot you.

But Titanfall has two unique things going for it. First, the mobility I’ve already mentioned has a perfection I’ve never seen before in a game like this. If you’ve seen professional gameplay of somebody running around in Pilot mode, you can really see how quickly you can move across the map just by the mechanics the game has provided to you.

The second is the game’s namesake, and that is Titans. It’s amazing how they can give a player a giant robot and have those robots feel powerful while also making them balanced gameplay wise. The game has two different modes: Pilot and Titan. You can shift back and forth several times in one game, but you can also perform just as well with no Titan.

The new game mode, Frontier Defense, is especially enjoyable for me for two reasons. One, playing against other players is stressful, and with this mode being co-op, it alleviates that. It also lets you pick a very specific style of play and stick to it. The enemy AI won’t really adapt to it, so it could be easy, but if you play on harder difficulties you better be really good with the gimmick you’re going with! Frontier Defense, surprisingly enough, also has progression! You can level up your specific Titan and unlock new abilities, and I love that sort of thing.

So, all-in-all, the game is awesome. The way I see it, it is objectively superior to a game like Call of Duty in virtually every way, and it’s a fun experience any way you play it. I would certainly recommend it if you’re into first-person shooters.