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With the benefit of more time, we can confirm that the grappling hook changes the Titanfall formula for the better. Double jumps and zippy wall running are still nice, but they're not always a feasible way to gain the height you need to clamber on to an enemy mech or gain an advantageous shooting position. The grappling hook is often just a simpler way to scale a multi-story vertical wall or gain a little speed boost while trying desperately to dash to a far off objective (or even to rocket forward toward an unsuspecting enemy to score a quick jump-kick kill).

The hook is so useful that we found ourselves cursing its limitations—after a couple of uses in short succession, you have to wait a few seconds for the hook to recharge. This is a necessary limitation to stop players from simply grappling around the map with nonstop abandon, but... actually, that nonstop abandon sounds like a lot of fun!

Even with its limitations, though, the grappling hook already seems to be much more popular than wall-running early in the technical test. Part of this may have to do with the map design on offer, which features a surprising number of open areas with little to nothing in the way of convenient walls for zippy parkour. Given that, it's understandable that players would end up double jumping in open space and then grappling to the ground to speed away. We're hoping for more narrow hallways that allow for successive wall runs in the final game.

The technical test highlights the new Bounty Hunt gameplay mode, which provides some welcome tweaks from the standard team deathmatch. On the surface, the goal of the mode is to race to kill waves of automated, relatively benign AI grunts before the opposing team can, gaining points for each one.

In practice, though, killing off the enemy team members ends up being just as important. That's because killing real people steals away half of the bonus points opponents stored up from all that grunt killing. Whoever manages to survive long enough to bank those bonus points in between waves of enemies can gain a decisive advantage.

It's an interesting idea, but it runs into a few implementation problems. Only the last person to score a hit on a massive computer-controlled mech ends up getting the sizable point bonus for the kill, for instance. Another competitor that did 75 percent of the damage could walk away empty-handed if they don't score the final blow. It also feels like there's a bit too much time between the grunt waves, leaving players to putter about impatiently for minutes after they've already deposited their bonuses.

The technical test also shows off two new mechs. Ion's chain guns and bullet-reflecting barrier should feel pretty familiar to fans of the original Titanfall, though a chest-fired laser cannon makes an immediate impression. Scorch is much more distinctive, a lumbering, tank-like mech with a powerful artillery attack that packs a punch but requires a lengthy reload between each firing. Scorch can also pound the ground to throw a line of fiery plasma in front of him, which is great for taking out clustered groups of grunts in a single shot.

On a technical level, everything about the test seemed silky smooth so far, with consistent high frame rates and no discernible lag on the PS4 (we'll see if that performance holds up once the test moves from a few hundred early players to thousands of public testers). The environments themselves are rendered with impressive detail—and some especially pretty water effects—though the muted color palette can make it tough to make out brown-toned human figures against brown-toned backgrounds.

It's way too early to give even a partial evaluation to Titanfall 2 as a whole, but this early test reminded us why we had so much fun with the original in the first place. We're eager to see how the full game shakes out, including the newly promised single-player campaign.