To actually go into detail about the specific gameplay tricks and one-shot gimmicks that Titanfall 2 employs would be doing an injustice to anyone looking forward to ploughing through the game, but the one constant that ran through my mind as I played was 'this is like a Nintendo game'. Or, should that be, a Nintendo game developed by the hands and minds behind Call Of Duty at its finest.
Like the best Mario games, Titanfall 2 picks a trick, themes an entire level around it, and then drops it the second it threatens to become overfamiliar. And just like Mario, it's all backed up by those rock-solid fundamentals that mean when you are just in firefights, or are asked to navigate a chasm using wall-running, everything feels nigh-on flawless.
The raw mechanics of Titanfall 2's shooting, and the combination of Pilot and Titan gameplay and the scale changes that leads to would be enough to sustain a serviceable campaign, but clearly Respawn isn't interested in being simply serviceable. There's some of Half Life 2's DNA here - not necessarily in how it feels in the hand, but in the variety of environments, playstyles and even the connections you make with the other characters. In particular, between you (the so-dull-the-name-has-to-be-deliberate Jack Cooper), and your Half Life 2 DOG by another name, BT.
Much of the prerelease talk about Titanfall 2's campaign focused on the relationship between Pilot and titan, which sounded pretty weird at the time. By leaning on all the right buddy-movie tropes, though, and executing each one with panache and - crucially - brevity, Titanfall 2's succeeds in making you care about a twenty-foot robot more than I've cared about almost any action game character in recent times.
Nothing in the story is original - it's all seasoned tropes used effectively - but how rare is it to play through a first-person shooter where you actually know what's happening, let alone one where you give a damn.