After the debacle of last month’s Warriors Loot Crate War, I took matters into my own hands. I picked the game and also watched over WallE’s shoulder while he was editing. If I was going to lose this Loot Crate War I would be doing it on my own terms. While the whole problem could be easily solved by ordering a second Loot Crate to Whiskey & Waffles HQ, there’s just really no fun in sharing.

This month, Loot Crate’s theme is Titan, or more specifically Attack on Titanfall. A mashup box of two popular Titan titled properties with Attack on Titan, a manga/anime/game, and Titanfall which is pretty much the most talked about game out so far on the XBox One. While keeping it spoiler free, I will say the items in this crate were definitely the most focused on a topic thus far and would really be appreciated by fans of one of or both series. That said, if neither of the two appealed to you this month probably wasn’t a month you were clamouring for although they do a great job of giving an introduction to one of the series *hint hint*

Taking a cue from the designs of Pacific Rim, The Art of Titanfall shows the titans as less than beautiful pieces of hardware that feel like lumbering hulks meant to take a beating as well as delivering them. With only three basic units, there is a great balance in diversity and design of each titan. During the fast paced battles of the Titanfall game, it’s incredibly challenging to try and notice these details but the art book allows you to really appreciate it from the pulled back perspective.

The Art of Titanfall does an awesome exploration of the maps as well. Though not giving a full breakdown as if it was a strategy guide, The Art of Titanfall allows a player to again appreciate the care put into each map that they’d never get to during the heat of battle.

These kids today have it too easy. Back in our day there were certain aspects of being a gamer you just had to deal with. Polygons could be maxed out on screen. You’d have to use your imagination to see what the little collection of blocks represented. And one thing we all knew was that if you made it into the beta testing phase of a game, things were bound to be broken. But that was to be expected. A beta wasn’t a finished product and you “paid” for the early gameplay by dealing with the bugs. Kids today don’t get betas. They just get an extended demo and that’s why they don’t know the pain we went through growing up.

What brought on this jaded old man tirade you ask? The Titanfall beta of course. Don’t misinterpret, there is nothing wrong with the Titanfall beta. Between the beta and the awesome art book I got today (don’t worry, a review is coming soon), I am going to be picking up Titanfall on launch. But when playing it, it hasn’t been a beta experience. The game runs smooth, controls great and looks fantastic. The only limits are some of the maps and weapons not being fully unlocked. It’s basically a smaller version of the final product. And that’s not a beta. It’s a demo. But they’ve changed the name because beta access is a better buzz phrase for marketing.

As we all know, things at E3 can be a tad hectic and unfortunately since the Flickcast isn’t a massive team of contributors, sometimes things do slip through the cracks but if it is important enough, we’ll make sure to circle back and cover it. And one of those trailers we are happy to revisit is Titanfall. In addition to the fantastic trailer below there are a ton of reasons to actually care about Titanfall.

The first is the game’s pedigree. Titanfall is the first game from Respawn Entertainment. And while most people would hesitate to jump to a studio’s first game, others remember that Respawn Entertainment was founded from those who left Infinity Ward, the studio behind Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, after disagreements with Activision.

That means that this multiplayer only shooter is being created by the team that perfected modern online FPS gameplay. While the Call of Duty games always tried to push for a single player story, it was the online multiplayer that kept the games amongst the top played games online at all times. Even though there will be some single player style elements such as NPCs, the goal is still multiplayer.