Fall of Cybertron

[NaitoKage]

Demo is now out for the public on PS3 or X box 360. Story modes aren't bad, though I'm annoyed Bumblebee lost his voice, clearly something for bayformer fans. Multiplayer is just like the old one, but alot more editing (even with things like Dinobot and insecticon animal heads) and the editing even effects the vehicle mode look for tires, wings, and so on. Weapons now can receive upgraded parts much like Call of duty, and color pallet while more deverse, isn't to the level that people wanted. Play style is same as last time with the four classes.. which to be honest I never really liked how the fliers are shafted as "healer/drone user/spy" and the Titan class starts off with a Shotgun that leeches health from victims which.. is kinda broken.

Also there's credits and a store feature in the story mode for buying things from Teletran1 store.. makes no sense, but eh.

I think I'll hold off on getting it as well, maybe get it later on PS3 since I don't care about multiplayer.

[Beastbot]

Demo is now out for the public on PS3 or X box 360. Story modes aren't bad, though I'm annoyed Bumblebee lost his voice, clearly something for bayformer fans.

Actually that's to bring this Bumblebee more "into phase" with Prime Bumblebee, since this is the early part of that same "Aligned" continuity (even though they may not look it). I imagine we'll find out how/why this version of BB lost his voice over the course of the game.

Play style is same as last time with the four classes.. which to be honest I never really liked how the fliers are shafted as "healer/drone user/spy" and the Titan class starts off with a Shotgun that leeches health from victims which.. is kinda broken.

Actually healing is much easier this time around-- it has an auto-lock on, for one thing. That by itself makes the scientists better. Heck, I hear people saying the Scientists might be OVERpowered since a now-popular tactic in MP in the demo is to keep your tank in front while the scientist sits back and heals them from behind.

Also, High Moon Studios has confirmed that later DLC will add the Dinobots and Insecticons as playable in multiplayer (Whether this means that the Dinobots will be one class and the Insecticons another, or if they'll both be the same "beast" class but you'll be the Dinobots if you're an Autobot and the Insecticons if you're a Decepticon, is unclear from the wording.)

Also there's credits and a store feature in the story mode for buying things from Teletran1 store.. makes no sense, but eh.

You're right in that department (particularly since upgrades affect every TF you play as from that point onwards), but it's still a cool enough gameplay addition I can forgive that.

[NaitoKage]

.... Transformers Prime? How does War for Cybertron have ANYTHING to do with Transformers Prime considering it was made years before that show was a glint in it's creator's eye? Ug.. Seriously Hasbro needs to stop with this "All resources are the same timeline and canon!" bullcrap. If anything, War for Cybertron was clearly inspired by the G1 cartoon and the war within comics..Until Hasbro I'm assuming said "Uh hi, yeah.. can you make Bubblebee more like TF Prime/Bayverse Bumblebee? The kids like this Snakeeyes ripoff thing.."

[Beastbot]

.... Transformers Prime? How does War for Cybertron have ANYTHING to do with Transformers Prime considering it was made years before that show was a glint in it's creator's eye? Ug.. Seriously Hasbro needs to stop with this "All resources are the same timeline and canon!" bullcrap. If anything, War for Cybertron was clearly inspired by the G1 cartoon and the war within comics..Until Hasbro I'm assuming said "Uh hi, yeah.. can you make Bubblebee more like TF Prime/Bayverse Bumblebee? The kids like this Snakeeyes ripoff thing.."

You're misremembering when WfC came out. WfC is just two years old, and we saw Prime premiered in November of 2010.. it's not hard to imagine them coming up with this stuff together-- not to mention the near-legendary MASSIVE "Aligned bible" that is apparently off-limits for anyone who's not directly involved in the making of this universe, as it apparently details where the characters/concepts are planned to go in the future. (If you've been following Prime, for example the "War for Cybertron" is referenced multiple times, the Prime version of Cybertron looks exactly like the Cybertron in the WfC game, along with the core of the planet...) Hasbro and High Moon have both insisted they're both in the same continuity.

You can read more about this "Aligned" continuity and what it encompasses on the TFWiki, if you're interested. It helps to explain some of the more obvious visual discrepancies, at least (artistic vision takes precedence over visual continuity, the timeline is aimed to be a "general" timeline and won't hold up to the "squint test", etc.:

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Aligned_continuity_family

[Alak]

Medic + Tank combo is considered OP? Unless if every map is confined to close quarters combat, I don't see how that's OP at all unless if the other team is full of newbies. We see this stuff in BF3 all the time. Easy double kill waiting to happen unless if the attacking Medic (engineer in our case) + Tank is bearing down a long and narrow hallway. Tactics like these are well known in common FPS titles including the Battlefield and Team Fortress series. Heck, it's even possible in WFC (except most people couldn't play Medic properly at the time...).

@ NK:

How much does the leech gun regenerate for Titans? If an opposing player shoots a Titan while he is leeching someone else, will the damage rate beat out the heal rate?

[Beastbot]

Medic + Tank combo is considered OP? Unless if every map is confined to close quarters combat, I don't see how that's OP at all unless if the other team is full of newbies. We see this stuff in BF3 all the time. Easy double kill waiting to happen unless if the attacking Medic (engineer in our case) + Tank is bearing down a long and narrow hallway. Tactics like these are well known in common FPS titles including the Battlefield and Team Fortress series. Heck, it's even possible in WFC (except most people couldn't play Medic properly at the time...).

Oh, I agree with you, at least from the limited amount of MP I've played so far in FoC. I'm just saying a lot of OTHER people are saying that. Me, as far as MP goes I've just played one match with each of the different classes in the demo and that's it. I don't see any point in leveling up my characters (even if they do carry over to the full game release) on the demo with its limited options and very limited customization. I want the whole 9 yards before I start bustin' heads (and, more often, having my head busted).

[Alak]

So I downloaded the demo while waiting for the Mars rover Curiosity to land. The Bumblebee mission was a bit of a let down, but only because it was essentially a tutorial level that held your hand throughout the whole thing. The second mission was much more enjoyable and seeing Vortex release a shockwave as he dive bombs into the fray was pretty cool. I tried out a few games of multiplayer. Melee seems to have gotten a downgrade in terms of hit marker, but considering how many complaints the first game got it doesn't surprise me. It was just awkward when me and another enemy player are stabbing air after we run out of bullets lol. My first game was average, but that's because I thought Scatterblaster was the best thing the Infiltrator class had (I think its range was nerfed). Path blaster, however, is insane! It's just as strong as WFC's energon battle pistol except it has superior range and accuracy. After switching my priorities in the second game, I never had a match where I was ranked lower than 1st place on my team. I'm not going to lie, I do miss the killstreak rewards. They were perfect, since they encouraged players to be more aggressive while at the same time not breaking the game. Now, I just get a message that basically says "good job now keep going". Cloaking is still the Infiltrator's best tool, but somehow it doesn't seem as OP as it was in the first game. I was spotted many times so getting ninja kills was out of the question, but it was still good enough to close the gap between me and the other guy. Oh, and sprinting is a much welcomed feature. I'm not the kind of guy who likes to transform into vehicle mode in team deathmatch. I could use the valuable seconds to dash/melee instead of giving my opponent a window of free shots while I switch to an inferior gun and an inferior targeting mode. With sprinting, I can just run around in circles and even use the map to my advantage and sprint to the health cube, find my guy again, and finish the fight.

As for customization, I'll have to agree with NK that it certainly improved but leaves some things to be desired. I personally wanted to be able to colorize each individual part (head, arms, chest, etc.). Instead, we're stuck with color palettes. Voices have very little differentiation between them. Then again, it's already a huge improvement over WFC so I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. The game's netcode sucks and I hope it improves by the time the real game comes out. With WFC, the demo had brilliant netcoding but in the actual game it was trash. Hopefully, it'll be the other way around this year. Lag is a make-or-break factor, regardless of how much potential the game has (look at Homefront for example). If I'm going to use a weapon like the Path Blaster that requires accuracy, I'm going to need minimal lag to perform well for my team. Anyways, I'll try the other classes tomorrow if I have time. I hope multiplayer stays strong so that I can still find matches whenever I decide to buy this game. Oh, and one last thing. If Escalation mode is remotely similar to its predecessor, I'll buy Fall of Cybertron just for that.

***EDIT***

According to the Steam forums, the path blaster is supposed to be Optimus Prime's main gun in the campaign. No wonder it's so strong lol.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... ?t=2849749

[NaitoKage]

Welp, I picked it up anyway. Got it on PS3, surprisingly was one of the last copies in the area. I guess other people own PS3s in my area.. which is kinda surprising. So I guess I'll review how good it is when I have it beat probably by tonight..

[Alak]

So far review sites having been giving it a lot of praise. Therefore, I know story mode and escalation are good to go. I'm just going to wait a month or so to see some legitimate feedback about multiplayer. No one can properly review multiplayer after playing a few matches because first impressions are often false (I know I'm guilty of this). I'll just wait it out and see if anything is broken, patched, etc.

[NaitoKage]

Alright, finished it. I'd say it's a 8 to 10 hour game, depending on how good you are at these sorta things. A few glitches here or there, but nothing too unusual. (oddly, most the glitches were on the Grimlock Levels, few audio glitches as well.)

Story wise fits rather well with G1.. to be honest, to see this game as part of the "Transformers Prime" universe, is just nonsense.. though it also has weird issues with syncing up with War for Cybertron really..I wonder if they made Bumblebee Mute just because he has such a small part in the game to save money on voice acting.. Also Bombshell and Sharpnel were renamed Hardshell and Sharpshot, which I assume Hasbro lost their names for some reason.

Alot of things came off different or just seemed..odd, but it was a fun game and has replay value if you want to collect blueprints and audio logs. Weapons in game were mostly completely different from the last game, even if they had names from the last game they're different, as if they'd forgotten about such things.. not too many things were reused from the last game other then maybe one scene with Megatron and a Cannon. Bruticus is sadly kinda boring to play as, but Grimlock was interesting.. and slow even with the Speed perk. (You can buy "perks" that last through the game, this almost breaks the game when you buy the shield regeneration perk, and recovering health and ammo at every Teletran station which are ALL over the game, so it's really easy to just get heavy ammo and spam rockets at hordes.) Sadly you don't play as the other Dinobots, but I guess "technically" do in a part where Swoop carries Grimlock around like a personal jetpack.

Multiplayer I didn't jump into, but I checked the builder.. pretty much everything from the Demo, you buy accessory parts with "points" and there's also a DLC called the Havoc pack out (9.99 USD on playstation network), which has Wheeljack, Zeta Prime, Perceptor, Blastoff, etc.. I'll see if you can upgrade the ultimate weapon feature from the campaign into the multiplayer guns.. I did that with Megatron's Riotgun and when he runs down to his last bullet of ammo fires off a explosive charge that kills half the screen.

[Beastbot]

I can't do long hour gaming sessions like some of you guys-- I gotta space it out, about 2 hours a day or so.

Anyways, I've finished the first 3 acts of the single player story mode. I have to admit, it's still rather challenging for a shooter n00b like me even on Easy. Plus it's still a little difficult in this game (at least in acts 2 and 3) to pick out the enemies sometimes from the background. The Metroplex level was simply crazy awesome, though. And I REALLY want a toy of those Decepticon Leapers, those are GREAT designs. The Gamestop-exclusive preorder bonus "Throwback Gun" which looks like G1 Megatron, transforms with the classic sound, and shoots "Retro Lasers" (with the exact same sound effect as the lasers in the G1 cartoon) is pretty hilarious.

Also Bombshell and Sharpnel were renamed Hardshell and Sharpshot, which I assume Hasbro lost their names for some reason.

Yeah, they were both named as such for their G1 Reissues a few years ago. (Slag is also named "Slug" for Foc/Prime.) Hardshell is also the name of the "head" Insecticon shown in the most recent episode of Prime, for what it's worth. I'll have to beat the single player game to personally see how well or how badly it merges with Prime as opposed to G1. (Though it should be noted that starting in November, there'll be a four-issue comic miniseries by IDW called "Rage of the Dinobots" that will explain what they did after the events of FoC-- apparently it's also supposed to lead up to Prime Season 3.)

[NaitoKage]

Heh, well I've been playing videogames for a long time Beastbot, though my longest for gaming was a 14 hour marathon. Usually I can't do those unless the game is good though.

Difficulty I'd say is about average, it might even be a bit easier compared to War for Cybertron. Ah, yeah.. they renamed Slag Slug, they also didn't have Sludge other then as a corpse you find in the first insecticon stage. Other then the leapers (which become slightly annoying when you have to start fighting four or six of them together at once and they only take damage from their back, unless your Grimlock in Beast mode at which point, Grimlock kills all with the execution button.) Most the enemies in this game are just recolors of each other. Same walking tanks on each side, same titan models with giant guns, etc. This is even more apparent when you use the Cybervirus Gun or "Cerbro shell gun" as I like to call it, it has limited ammo but you infect one of the enemies having them become Autobot or Decepticon and attack all their allies, even changing colors.

New abilities wise.. Scouts can crawl into holes in their vehicle mode, Hover was fixed so you can turn it off by coming down and slamming targets with it, and on Megatron's levels you need Hover just to get around to high ledges so either by Cliffjumper or Megatron's levels you will want to invest in the special ability perk to recharge those faster. Megatron's levels are also probably the fastest to collect shards/points for items in the game, and he may be slow.. but that Riot gun and his tank gun are glorious.. his tank gun can take out a enemy tank in 3 shots.. even with the missile launcher it takes 7 shots. Also Jazz and Swindle have a grappling hook which is oddly a useful mechanic. Other then that.. nothing else really new that I noticed.

Now.. there were some things that bugged me. They put some switch mechanics with Grimlock that were just.. absurd. Very absurd, even Grimlock himself says "I'm getting tired of this" at one point. Dinobot's I guess are more like the comics, since they talk normal, Grimlock doesn't sound so stupid as he does strained. Also Grimlock, Bruticus, and the final fight have similar but kinda.. strange controls. Instead of using the stick for melee, you use circle and triangle or B and X on Xbox, while using R1 for gun. Though final fight has no guns.. except for the other guy.The shield function is kinda neat, Bruticus and Grimlock's flamethrowers are rather short range though I kinda like Bruticus's shield bash.

Other quirks being in storyline, like them having a rust desert (I thought Transformers couldn't rust unless under specific reasons..), and the Autobots taking Trypticon apart and sucking the energon out of him since they were so desperate for energy.. I guess it's to show that even the goodguys have to do some disturbing things sometimes.. but I dunno.. Finally, there's just points in the game where I was left wondering "What am I supposed to do now?", which were on the Bruticus and Grimlock stages.. effectively, smash through things if your Bruticus, and transform and kill everything if your Grimlock, or find exploding barrels and throw them at switches. -_-

Hm.. Ah, and loading. I assumed buying the PS3 version it would download to the system.. it doesn't. So it has weird loading moments during cut scenes or during the levels.

[Beastbot]

Thanks for the gameplay hints (though please don't be QUITE so generous with the death/endgame spoilers... remember, I'm only on Act 4 so far...)-- will definitely keep those in mind when I come to those levels.

The rust desert has officially been located on the Cybertron landscape ever since the "Transformers Ultimate Guide" was released back in... 2005 or so (it's just north of the equator), though it's been mentioned as far back as the Marvel G1 comics. It's called the "Sea of Rust". Anyways, one of the main complaints many people had about WfC was how "same-ish" environments looked because it was all on a metal planet, so for this one they really researched on all the different shades/hues metal can take and went with that. The "Art of the Fall of Cybertron" book is coming out in a few weeks; if that has any more relevant info on places like that (it definitely should), I'll post it.

Anyways, two more packs of DLC have been announced coming in September, mostly MP-focused:

http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-new ... nt-175763/

Really curious as to how the Dinobots are gonna work in multiplayer.

[NaitoKage]

I imagine they'd work like the rest of the classes. Slug would probably be a trucks, Swoop fliers, Grimlock tanks, and I guess maybe Snarl as cars? Just the boost would be their run button/Swoops thrusters.

Played some of the Multiplayer, apparently the tank class can select between Whirlwind or flak shield as their abilities, I assume Flak Shield is like Grimlock or a certain other person's shield you use in the game.

Though here's a fun thing from the campaign.. most cybertronians start off with 100 hitpoints of Energon, 200 if you get the health booster. Grimlock starts off with 500, and Bruticus 1000. Really kinda tells how crazy powerful Grimlock is supposed to be.