Probably because I had just played Doom 2016 and CoD: Advanced Warfare, which Titanfall 2 blows out of the water in the gameplay department. Unlike the latter, it actually builds its entire gameplay around using these futuristic technologies and isn't afraid to be a fun power-trip. And unlike the former, it doesn't just throw you into areas with lots of verticality and expect you to run/jump around them, but has actually well-designed platforming sections. The amount of freedom you get from having the abilities to jump over enemies, wallrun, slide under them and perform other various acrobatics adds a lot of mechanical and strategic depth to the gameplay, far more than any Call of Duty ever had.

The Titan sections are a little bit weaker. While there is a variety of weapons and skills that have their own strengths and vulnerabilities, I'd say the whole process is more an elaborate game of rock-paper-scissors than chess or even checkers. Not to mention, with the Titans being slow and unwieldy, it takes away that freedom of movement, which I consider the main strength of the game.

But it all works really well for a while. The levels, despite being linear, for the most part don't let you feel that. The environments are built from surfaces designed for acrobatics, making you constantly recognize familiar patterns. This extends to the battlefields, allowing you to circumvent obstacles to ambush your opponents or flee in an unorthodox manner. Every level has its own quirks, and so do most weapons, letting you develop your own playstyle.

However, despite all the praise I've given (and lots more I could give) to Titanfall 2's gameplay, I had absolutely zero interest in anything else it had to offer. I found the setting, story, visuals and music absolutely bland, generic, uninspiring, boring. If Titanfall 2 was a movie, it would probably be a Disney one or one directed by Michael Bay or JJ Abrams, with its lifeless characters that keep cracking jokes or spouting try-hard one-liners, an over-reliance on explosions and other such spectacles. I understand that it's competing with Call of Duty, but Call of Duty is practically an interactive movie, and even when the story in it sucks, it does a much better job at presentation and style. Titanfall 2 did not need all that, and it's worse off for having it because it can't do anything even remotely interesting with it. Sure, some set-pieces kinda made me go "whoa" a couple of times, but those are fleeting sensations you forget as soon as you turn the game off.

The entire time playing it, I kept thinking of Monolith's Shogo, which I played as a kid. The similarities are obvious, both are first-person shooters that have on-foot sections and mech-controlling sections. Though my memories of it are vague, I do recall the gameplay being flawed, but the memories still stayed with me to this day because it had a really creative art-design. Titanfall 2 is probably a much better "game," but after playing it I can barely remember anything. In fact, I dropped the game on the last mission because the longer I played it, the more it felt like a chore, and my passion just ran out.