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After my first few rounds of Titanfall, hearing the “Your titan is now ready” notification began to induce a Pavlovian adrenaline-rush response. I still catch myself looking up to the sky as I press down on the D-pad to call it in, because watching my 20-foot-tall robot exosuit fall onto the battlefield, seemingly from Heaven, is a glorious sight that I still see replaying when I close my eyes at night.

 It’s a signal that I’m about to transition from the liberating mobility of a jetpack-powered, wall-running soldier (called a pilot) to the ego-swelling walking tank that punches enemy players midair as they try to leap on its back and squashes AI-controlled minions with heavy metal feet. It’s more than a “Call of Duty with mechs” gimmick –Titanfall turns out to be an invigorating multiplayer first-person shooter that melds fresh mechanics with familiar ones, creating a new watercooler moment almost every time I play. I only wish there was more of it, and that it was easier to fight my friends.

Unlike a Call of Duty or Battlefield game, Titanfall is purely focused on its excellent 6v6 multiplayer. It cannot be played alone, except for the optional (but helpful) tutorial, or via system link – you’re completely dependent on a connection to Microsoft’s dedicated servers. There’s a laudable attempt to infuse a two-sided campaign into the multiplayer through a fixed set and order of nine of the 15 maps, in which NPC faction commanders give context to the goals and game modes of each battleground. 

Having played through it on both sides, though, I couldn’t tell you what it’s about, other than that theIMC and Militia factions are at war. Trying to stay alive in a brawl with human-controlled bad guys is too distracting, and without controllable lulls in the fighting, most of the story is reduced to background noise.

Meanwhile, there are two economies behind Titanfall that are each as finely balanced as they are smart. One is the nearly ubiquitous XP-based grind that unlocks new gear and perks. By the time you reach level 50 (where you can then reset to level 1 by “regenerating,” sacrificing all of your unlocks in exchange for a faster XP-gain rate and a fancy tag in the matchmaking lobby), you’ll have many more options at your disposal – but not necessarily more inherently powerful ones. An anti-titan grenade launcher is certainly a different tool with which to try bringing down the big guys when on foot, but it’s not fundamentally superior to the Sidewinder rocket launcher you have available from level 1.

Progression in Titanfall brings more options than advantages, even when factoring in the “burn cards” – single-use perks that last the duration of one life, earned for completing various baked-in challenges and scenarios. For instance, one card might grant you unlimited frag grenades. Another could reduce your titan build time by a whopping 40 seconds.

Burn cards can tip the scales in battle when played correctly, but they never turn you into a demigod. And in today’s microtransaction-obsessed world, I have to commend developer Respawn for resisting the urge to charge us for them (or anything else in Titanfall).

The other economy fuels the titan delivery system in each match. Killing the multiple classes of utterly braindead AI-controlled minions that fill out Titanfall’s conflicts shaves a couple seconds off of your titan deployment timer, while offing pilots hastens it even more. Felling titans, of course, gets you into your mech the quickest. The sooner you’re able to get your titan back on the battlefield, the more powerful you become. And yet, you’re never invulnerable. So while it may seem like the AI soldiers are worthless fodder that rarely pose a threat, they do play a valuable role.