8 Things You Should Know About Titanfall

4. At first it feels a lot like Call of Duty.
The core controls when you aren’t in a mech are similar to Call of Duty. That’s not a surprise, and not just because these are the folks responsible for Call of Duty—that control scheme is close to the default setting for shooters now. You’ll fire with the right shoulder trigger, line up your weapon’s sights with the left shoulder trigger, push in on the left joystick to run and snap into the right joystick for a melee strike. It shares the blistering pace of Call of Duty’s multiplayer, along with the basic physics. When you’re running and shooting it’s easy to think you’re playing another Modern Warfare.

5. It quickly feels very different from Call of Duty, and not just because of the mechs.
Titanfall takes a tip from parkour-influenced games like Mirror’s Edge and the newer Prince of Persia titles, greatly expanding your character’s ability to move. You can now double-jump, a crucial maneuver when leaping from one rooftop to another. If you jump into a wall at an angle you can wall-run for a brief period. If you jump straight into a ledge you will automatically grab on and pull yourself up. It’s a very acrobatic game, and vertical movement is both easier and more important than in Call of Duty and most other shooters. Double-jumping into a wall, running as far as you can, and then double-jumping from the wall into the open window of a nearby building is more exciting than shooting a bunch of videogame soldiers.

6. It becomes a different game entirely when you’re in a Titan.
The Titan mechs are massive and imposing, and can cut down normal soldiers in an instant. They don’t imbalance the game, though, because it takes a few minutes for a Titan to be available for any player, and because they don’t last long in a battle with another mech. It takes up to two minutes of battle for you to gain the ability to call on a Titan, and once that Titan is destroyed it’ll take another two minutes for a replacement to be available. And yes, they literally fall from the sky—when your Titan is available, you hit down on the directional pad and the Titan drops a few seconds later, crushing any player underneath. When you’re in a Titan the game slows down considerably, even with the mech’s limited ability to surge quickly in any direction. Titans come with four main attack options—a standard primary weapon, an explosive secondary weapon that has limited ammo, a powerful punch and a special defensive ability picked from a small roster of options. Titans are useful for protecting locales in the “hardpoint” mode, but usually they seem to fight amongst themselves, battering each other with rockets and fists until one blows up.

7. It’s sympathetic to less experienced or talented players.
I am horrible at shooters. I’ve played every Call of Duty since the first Modern Warfare but I lack the reflexes (and often the interest) to ever be even halfway decent at them. I’m the guy you never want on your team. So I was surprised when I did really well on my first night in Titanfall. I was taking enemies out everywhere I turned. The next day I looked closely at the scoreboard and saw there was an entry labeled “minions”. My next round I noticed there was a drastic point difference between certain kills, with 20 experience points for killing some enemies and 100 points for killing others, and that many enemies just stood there passively as I shot them. It turns out there are AI-controlled soldiers on both sides of every battle. They can’t kill players, but players can kill them, earning a small amount of experience in the process. So if, like me, you can’t handle real live humans in your online competitions, every round is full of computer-controlled grunts and specters to help you feel like you’re accomplishing something.

8. It seems pretty good at what it tries to do.
Again: I’m not a big shooter guy. Call of Duty stalled out for me after the first Modern Warfare, the shooting was probably the worst thing about Bioshock, and the great Far Cry 2 would be even better if I didn’t have to mow down Jeeps full of mercenaries every five minutes. Beyond my real-life distaste for guns, shooters usually let me down for two main reasons: The single-player campaigns are repetitive and interested more in shooting gallery-style action than timing, pacing or level design, and the multiplayer modes are too frustrating due to my lack of skill and my lack of time to increase said skill. I have no idea what to expect from the full, final Titanfall package when it comes out next month, but I’ve enjoyed the beta without reservation. The distinction between play styles inside and outside of the Titan is significant enough to keep repetition at bay, and the AI-controlled soldiers make me feel productive even when I’m not really doing anything to help my team.

It’s easy to dismiss action games that fetishize gun violence and that are hugely popular with (and often marketed to) an audience that is younger than the game’s official rating. Sometimes it’s not just easy but correct to do so. It’s perhaps easier to dismiss heavily hyped upcoming games that are designed with that particular audience in mind—hype can be a killer, and the hype might be worse in games than any other medium. Nobody could ever mistake Titanfall for Papers, Please or Gone Home, but based on the beta it does what it set out to do with grace and a bit of ingenuity. Sometimes action blockbusters are well-made and enjoyable. Titanfall could be one of those times.