7) Titanfall (2014)
I’m not sorry about this. Titanfall is, in bite-size doses, an incredible game. Much like cherry-flavoured chewing gum, the sensation is initially exceptional, but then that sweet, sweet goodness is gone after about nine seconds. Developers Respawn had a fair old crack of the whip and did many things right – but was trying to make the game accessible to people who’d never even picked up a pad before one of them? I would argue not.
In part, it’s clear why they did it: Atonement. After all, they did “gift” us with one of the most frustrating franchises ever in Modern Warfare. Quickscoping, host migration, hideously unfair killstreak rewards. It had it all. And so with Titanfall, everything was reversed. Completely impractical sniper rifles, dedicated servers and unconditionally idiotic AI bots that you can slaughter at your leisure to feel good about yourself.
You can even do it with your Smart Pistol, too! A gun that quite literally aims for you. Yes, just point it in the vague direction of those enemies who are silently facing you and pull the trigger when you feel like it! Need to reload? Not a problem, they’ll just stand there missing you until you’re ready again. Maybe casually walk up to a group of five or six and slowly kick them all in the back of the head while they’re busy pondering what to have for dinner later.
It’s a good thing Respawn used Microsoft’s cloud computing to run the AI, imagine how dumb they’d be if they had to fit it on the disc with the rest of the game.
