3 Things Titanfall 2's Campaign Does Better Than Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare
Respawn Entertainment and Infinity Ward's AAA first-person shooters have both made their way onto the marketplace for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC, and naturally, it's caused a lot of gamers to compare the two shooter games on several fronts, including how they both handle the campaign modes.
There are raging debates about story and characterizations between Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Titanfall 2, with most people giving a leg-up to the former when it comes to story-scope. However, when it comes to how the campaign modes actually play, there are three spoiler-free things that Titanfall's 2 campaign does better than Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare when it comes to playability, replayability, and mechanical diversity.
No. 1: Gameplay Diversity
What Titanfall 2 does with its campaign mode is constantly mix things up in each level. There's some standard boots on the ground gameplay and Titan combat, but there's also a lot of crazy stages and challenges thrown at the player in each level. For instance, there's an awesome area that requires scaling through a constantly-changing production facility that creates mock battlegrounds, just like there's a challenging level involving running high atop in the sky across disjointed and moving platforms in order to fix a beacon while soldiers attempt to flank you from all sides. They still manage to keep it themed around running and gunning, but they also focus on challenging players with unique environments, combat challenges and even some time-warping traversal similar to what was featured in Dishonored 2.
Some people might say that Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare offers gamers diverse gameplay with its space combat and zero-gravity segments. And it's true that it's definitely more diverse than some previous Call of Duty titles, but a lot of times the actual campaign gameplay is just a mix of corridor shooting, space flying and then more corridor shooting. There are a couple of on-rail stealth segments, but a lot of it is basically repetitive corridor shooting and space combat, which makes up for most of the six to eight-hour campaign. Infinite Warfare's campaign is definitely longer than Titanfall 2, but far less diverse when it comes to level design and how the gameplay mechanics are utilized.
No. 2: Fast-Paced Story Without The Filler
There's a lot of comparisons between Call of Duty and Titanfall 2 when it comes to how both games handled their stories. The biggest criticism for the latter is that it was too short. It's true that in Titanfall 2 the story is pretty straight-forward and doesn't waste any time. However, the straightforward story is what helped it move along at a very brisk pace, giving gamers the core gist of events while keeping the gameplay fresh. It didn't bog gamers down with lengthy cinematics, or any sort of filler mission to lengthen out the campaign. Everything was designed to keep players on the move while also prompting for a lot of replayability to try out the different difficulty settings, similar to the original Halo. The story was streamlined with the diverse gameplay levels so there was never a dull or boring moment to plod through.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has a much longer campaign than Titanfall 2 but there's a lot more filler thrown in to stretch out the play time. A few of these missions recycle maps and combat scenarios, bringing the excitement down a notch, and the side-missions also don't really further the story along in any meaningful way. They are required if you want to unlock some of the new weapons and upgrades, so you have to choose between doing repetitive side-missions or missing out on upgrades. The reason for the filler missions is mainly because the actual primary missions in Infinite Warfare mostly consist of one long cat and mouse game between two massive carriers, and they needed something to stretch out the campaign.
No. 3: Character Movement Exploited For Fun
A lot of people have said that Titanfall 2 has the greatest and smoothest movement in a first-person shooter ever made. It's hard to argue with them once you see the game in action, where the gameplay and movement is so smooth you would think that you're watching a stick of armored butter being slung across a futuristic ice rink. The best way to describe the movement in Titanfall 2 is that it seems like gliding with the wind across smooth surfaces. Respawn Entertainment uses this naturally organic movement feature to the fullest, having players explore different ways to get around the environments with little to no restrictions. It gives gamers a reason to replay levels, experiment with traversal and try new jetpack-parkour techniques to reach new areas.
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The movement in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is largely unchanged from the last several entries, and even though they still have wall-running and some zero-gravity segments, the movement is not as fast-paced or smooth as Titanfall 2, and they don't really have any meaningful platforming challenges or segments to make extended use of the wall-running and anti-gravity. There are parts where you jump around but nothing like what was featured in Titanfall 2. It's also easy to forget about sliding in Call of Duty since isn't really required. The cramped corridors and lack of creative use of the zero-gravity areas meant that most times there was no way to really stretch your legs and take advantage of the movement options in Infinite Warfare, which is a shame because there was a lot of potential to exploit movement in the game that was missed.
Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.