Xbox recruits titans for the clash of the consoles

Microsoft is hoping its exclusive rights to 'Titanfall', a futuristic shooting game from the team behind 'Call of Duty', will help its latest-generation Xbox One console catch up with Sony's PlayStation 4. Can giant robots and multiplayer battles make 'Titanfall' a "system seller" despite its lack of story or characterisation?

'Titanfall' for Xbox One (Rating: 4/5)

The launch of Grand Theft Auto V last year gave the video-games industry another opportunity to congratulate itself on becoming a grown-up form of entertainment. Indeed, GTA's storytelling has far more in common with Hollywood's best than it has with gaming's plumber-rescues-princess cliches.

So the game tipped to be this year's biggest hit is something of a throwback. Titanfall is a sci-fi shooting game for Microsoft's Xbox consoles in a much more traditional mould.

If GTA echoed the films of Quentin Tarantino, Titanfall is all Michael Bay: as in his Transformers movies, there are giant robots, huge explosions and only the faintest whiff of a plot. But this is a lot more fun than watching the film.

Don't get me wrong: as a thirtysomething male who grew up with games, I'm delighted to see them enter the cultural pantheon. But, as a thirtysomething male who grew up with games, I also appreciate the lowbrow allure of jumping on to a tanklike walking robot and blowing it up with a well-timed grenade.

Titanfall is set in a future where the colonisation of remote planets has led to some sort of intergalactic peasants' revolt. At least, I think that is why one gang of humans with giant robots is fighting another identical group.

Respawn Entertainment, which developed it for game publisher Electronic Arts, has not really bothered with a coherent storyline for solo players. Instead, the designers put all their efforts into the online multiplayer battles that made their previous Call of Duty games for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 so popular. Respawn was formed by several members of the team that developed COD at Infinity Ward.

The last time I was really good at a first-person shooting game was GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64. With Call of Duty in the last console era, I showed my age in shortlived and disheartening experiences in its multiplayer melees. By the time I worked out where I was and which way I was meant to be going, better-practised soldiers known by names such as "L33tHaxx0r69" would take me out.

The arrival of a new generation of consoles, with their superior graphics, powerful processors and a fresh format presented the opportunity for me to press the reset button.

It turns out that I am pretty awful at Titanfall too, usually finishing towards the bottom of the rankings of the 12 people who join up via Microsoft's cloud to play each game. But whether it is because Respawn is better at matching players or just because everyone so far is new to the game, it is still tremendous fun.

Most of the game is spent on foot as a fast-moving, high-jumping "pilot". Every couple of minutes you can call on an air-support team to drop down a robot "titan" that picks you up in its giant hand to thrust you into its chest. Titans are slower moving but deal out heavy-duty destruction, including a Matrix-like ability to halt incoming missiles and throw them back.

It is a very satisfying concoction. The worlds into which your titans fall may not take full advantage of the Xbox One's graphical capabilities, since development of the game began before the console was even announced, but there are plenty of wide-open arenas for titans to battle in or hidey holes for pilots to dive into. Civilian spaceships, futuristic drones and, inexplicably, dinosaurs sometimes pass by in the background.

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Reversion to my teenage self was complete when after a particularly frenzied exchange of gunfire, my next-door neighbours' patience ran out and they banged on the apartment wall. Only then did I realise it was midnight and I had not looked up from the screen for four hours.

On its own, Titanfall may not justify spending hundreds of dollars on a new games console but it could provide an excuse for other lapsed gamers such as myself to indulge their inner teenager. It is a far more engrossing form of mindless entertainment than the Transformers movies and their ilk.

These days it is the Hollywood blockbuster movies that need to play creative catch-up with games such as Titanfall.

Planet of the Apps

What it is: Klutch, free for the iPhone

Why you should try it: For those of us without executive assistants to plan our lives, negotiating where and when to meet up with a group of friends can be a labour-intensive process. Klutch, which launches for iPhone this week, promises to replace endless email threads or multilateral text chats with a single app for everyone to suggest dates and places. The group then votes for the best ideas.

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