Mid game - terrible port.

What was something I was just going to bother with on Game Pass became a birthday gift from a close friend, meaning I tried quite hard to see something in this game and finish it. Sadly, Boltgun is almost everything you shouldn't do in a modern "boomer shooter;" borrowing all the worst ideas from the genre's past and delivering a poor PC port on top of it all.

There is no nice way to say that Boltgun is boring, but it's really boring. Map designs are samey mazes with little visual distinction in either color or structure, leading to the player traversing the same rocky cliffs and military bases over and over again. While the enemies offer a decent variety, the AI pathing is stupid and almost every enemy either stands in place to get blown to bits, or rush you like they have no reason to live, anymore. Spending hours running around the same-looking corridors and cliffs, fighting the same enemies over and over again, all in these giant mazes I get lost in half the time is not my idea of a good time.

Guns are largely a non-starter, either, with no weapon I picked up in my six-hours of playtime grabbing me like anything from QUAKE, DUSK, AMID EVIL, Ion Fury, etc. The drip-feed of weapons is solely that: a drip-feed. There is nowhere near enough variety in the weapons to begin with, but having still not unlocked all weapons at over six-hours of playtime is frustrating for a game like this. I understand the idea of slowly delivering all the surprises, as you don't want to "blow your load early," but it leads to Boltgun feeling like there are no substantial rewards for exploring or just playing normally. This issue is typified with Boltgun not offering any new weapons for nearly three-hours, then giving me two back-to-back; you really couldn't have spaced those out? I would never say I could design/create a game better than this, but I want to know the thought process on the genius who thought that up.

Lastly, I will just be complaining about the PC port, because it's one thing to be playing a "mid" shooter, but to have it run as poorly as it does on PCs that blow far past system recommended specs is unforgivable. As is usual with Unreal 4/5 games, Boltgun suffers from obnoxious stutter struggle with massive frame hitching and performance dips in both predictable and completely random locations. While I am not running a "top of the line rig" by any stretch of the word, my PC should be running this game better than the goddamn Nintendo Switch.

I will never forgive EA for sending Titanfall 2 out to die. As a die-hard fan of the original on the Xbox One, seeing the game expand further with a more robust multiplayer offering and a lean, exciting single-player campaign was a dream come true. Unfortunately, the ass-hat executive decision-makers at EA decided to release that year's Battlefield game the week before.

On replay on the PC, Titanfall 2 truly comes alive with the objectively better control scheme for the speed of combat, and the online community is still alive and active. Being able to boot into a (nearly) eight-year-old title and still find reliable matches without any major botting issues (from what I have seen in May 2024 that is) or server struggles.

Every "hardcore" FPS fan has waxed poetic about how important Titanfall 2 was in livening the mostly stale "advanced mobility" shooters of the 2010s. Though wildly different from its competitors, TItanfall 2 would have easily stood out from the crowd and could have been a long-term success if not for the shit-brain business decisions that caused its failure. We still feel the sting of this to this day with constant reminder that Respawn had been attempting to work on a follow-up and was canceled in favor of the safety of the Star Wars brand and the insane recurrent revenue of Apex Legends.

Another season wrapping up and another one that didn't set the world on fire. Collaborations were fine but having almost all meaningful rewards restricted behind additional $10+ passes was highway robbery, not to mention the time, money, and effort clearly split between all the modes. For example, this year's Star Wars event was lackluster compared to last year to put it nicely.

The loot pool was fine, overall but the wings were nerfed a bit more than I would have liked, the bowcaster wasn't that great, and waterbending can go straight to hades. The chain whip was the only consistent, seasonal weapon I enjoyed using.

Lastly, this season's skins were not great. I usually don't "keep" every skin from the battle pass but archiving all but 2 shows this is one of the weak ones.