For more on Titanfall 2, check out our full Titanfall 2 review. Or, for more of the best Playstation 4 games for an 11 year old, why not try our Family Game Finder
What is Titanfall 2?
Titanfall 2 is a first person shooter, set in a sci-fi universe, that plunges you into the midst of a battle between two warring factions - the IMC (or Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation), and the militia, who are vying for control of a series of planets. Whether on foot as a nimble pilot, or by taking control of a hulking, heavily armed mech known as a Titan, it's up to you to take the fight to the IMC - and finish the mission your captain started.
How do you play Titanfall 2?
Whether you're playing online, or working your way through the game's single player story, Titanfall 2 mixes together two very different types of gameplay. Pilots - the term the game uses to describe the infantry you play as - are nimble, quick, and immensely agile, and can take advantage of this on the battlefield. Feeling like a first person platform game at times, you'll need to perform wall runs, double jumps, and cover huge distances at high speed if you're to find your way around the game's expansive levels.
Jumping inside a Titan, meanwhile, offers a total change of pace. Strapping yourself in to a huge, hulking war machine, you find yourself in charge of a veritable arsenal of weaponry, whilst towering above the same infantry you were once facing off against. Slow, yet incredibly powerful, Titans can be the difference maker in any battle - but you'll regularly find yourself coming up against enemy Titans from the IMC, and have to engage in an explosive confrontation.
In the single player story, your game will repeatedly switch between on foot, and in Titan sections - and both are a lot of fun.
How easy is Titanfall 2 to pick up and play?
In terms of accessibility, Titanfall 2 is a game aimed at experienced shooter players. The game expects you to already know the basics of a first person shooter, and offers little in the way of a helping hand - instead, you'll need to learn by yourself, and pick up all the new bits through experimentation.
Most of the complexity here comes from actually getting around. As the game is part shooter, and part platformer, the levels are much more open than you may expect. You aren't just moving down one narrow corridor to the next, instead finding yourself faced with vast caverns, open plains, and cavernous factories that you'll have to navigate - and there's very little here that'll give you a hint about where you're meant to be going next. While you can check your objective at the touch of a button, which sometimes brings up a marker to show where you need to go next, it's also suitably ambiguous, as it only shows you as the crow flies - and sometimes doesn't show you where you need to go at all.
Instead, you'll need to look around for yourself, as you try and figure out how to reach your destination through relying on your own wit and observational skills. As the game places such an emphasis on wall running and platforming, the "right" thing to do is often something that simply wouldn't be possible in other games - like running down a pipe that looks like it leads nowhere, or legging it up a wall, so you can jump through a dark, half open hatch that just happens to lead where you need to go. With nothing to flag up, or often even hint at which the "right" way is to go, you'll need to keep your eyes peeled, and learn quickly.
On the plus side, when more complex wall running is involved (if you have to run up one wall, leap to another, and then leap to your destination), the game will usually give you the option of watching a "ghost pilot" hologram make the run for you. Combat is also fairly standard for a shooter, with grenade markers warning you of nearby hazards, a red marker flashing up when you're hit to show you where the fire's coming from, and recharging health that will see you totally healed if you stay out of the line of fire.
Some enemies, however, are incredibly powerful - particularly the little spider-like explosive robots, that will pretty much kill you in a single hit if they get near enough. Luckily, the game mostly uses a checkpoint system, meaning you'll never lose too much progress if you die.
Titanfall 2 features strong and bloody violence throughout. While for the most part, enemies will only give off a small amount of blood, some weapons create a lot more gore than others. One causes your enemies to explode after they've taken too many shots (leaving behind chunks of flesh), while taking a direct shot from a Titan will effectively vaporise an enemy. On shooting an enemy with a powerful weapon, blood splatters will be left behind on walls.
If you sneak up behind, or stun an enemy, you have the option of performing an execution. This switches the view to a third person perspective, and give you a close up of one of several different execution animations - one features your character throwing the enemy to the ground, before stabbing them in the face with a knife. When in your Titan, you also have the option to perform an execution, which will see your mech pull the enemy pilot from the cockpit, and squeeze until they explode in a puff of red mist.
In terms of swearing, the game is much more mild, featuring the words b*tch, sh*t and damn. There's also nothing in the way of sexual content.
In keeping with most shooters, Titanfall 2 does not have a mature content filter/disable option to allow you to disable the violence, gore and swearing.
Age Ratings
Format Reviewed: Playstation 4
