Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is a great title with alot of the same from the original but lacks a little “spark” the previous title “War for Cybertron” had so let’s transform and roll out as we take a look at the latest title in this highly anticipated sequel. As usual, we continue to stride to avoid as many spoilers as possible.
Fall of Cybertron immediately follows the the events of the wildly popular and successful title from 2010 Transformers: War for Cybertron as the Autobots and Decepticons wage war with one another in the final epic battle for supremacy of their home planet. We begin with the final stand of the Autobots vs the Decepticons as they prep for their final jump to our solar system. After some gun play and tutorials, we see the story take a step backwards by 6 earth days and thus begins our journey.
The graphics engine stayed EXACTLY the same as the previous game which disappointed me as it’s age really shows during the cut scenes. That’s not to say the game looks bad, just a little dated.
The game play is by and large still fully intact from War for Cybertron. We still have the 3rd person perspective, and all the base control schemes stay the same as they did very little to tweak or fart around with the original. Hey if it’s not broken don’t fix it right? Excellent. Some minor tweaks to the gameplay include purchasing weapon upgrades and perks through upgrade stations using points earned by dispatching your enemies. Further to the upgrades and perks, you will come across weapon loadout stations which allow you to purchase new weapons.
True to the previous instalment, FoC put the gamer in control of a variety of popular characters from the series across the 13 chapters. Every character feels and plays differently as they lead you through the story to the epic conclusion (my personal faves included Jazz, Megatron and Grimlock). One thing to note was that a few of the characters felt insanely over powered for his levels. An absolute cakewalk for me on Normal. I had no sense if urgency using these characters which can be both a blessing and a curse at the same time.
One of the things that really stood out to me while playing through Fall of Cybertron was that, despite the feel of urgency that many of the levels had, I never once felt that I was under the gun for time or overly stressed out because the gunfire was getting to be too much. See, the problem, was that I honestly felt like I had far too much time to breathe in between battles. It was almost as if the moments of balls to the walls action were far shorter than the moments of story telling…which in turn resulted into a slightly stunted campaign experience of approximately 9hours from start to finish.
***Edit*** In my haste, I somehow missed the Multiplayer portion of the review when I copied it over.
Keep with the theme of “if it aint broke don’t fix it” High Moon has opted to keep much of what everyone liked about the multiplayer with a few tweaks. The classes have been renamed as Infiltrator, Destroyer, Titan, and Scientist. In FoC, the player can add their own personal touch by picking and choosing the various body parts Head, Chest (the chest also determines your vehicle) Shoulders, Arms, Legs, Wheels, Tank Barrel, Wings, and Decals to create their own unique machine.
With 10 levels at launch the team Death Match and free for all modes are fast, frantic action chock full of chaos. Cooperative Escalation mode(my personal favorite) is back and just as fun as it was 2years ago. I spent a fair amount of time playing multiplayer when War for Cybertron hit and just abruptly stopped for some odd reason. Fall of Cybertron is everything I liked 2yrs ago. I don’t know why I even stopped playing it. I suspect this title is going to be in my system for a good long while.
High Moon Studios and Activision had a bona fide hit with this series. They told a great story, and keept to the basics without mucking around too much with the recipe that made War for Cybertron so special. Despite the few missteps this time around but that hardly made this a bad game.
Pros:
- Great Story recounts the final days of Cybertron
- The base recipe of War for Cybertron remains intact
- Added RPG element with weapons upgrades and perks
- 10 well designed multiplayer maps and escalation mode.
Cons:
- Some characters felt over-powered
- Campaign felt short
Feed Your Console gives Transformers: Fall of Cybertron 8 out of 10
I can absolutely say that even from the demo on psn that the graphics engines aren’t EXACTLY the same. Fall of Cybertron is definitely more polished
I disagree. It still has the same gritty look which is perfectly fine but it doesn’t look at all updated to me. When Transformers WFC came out, I was taken by how pretty it was and how perfectly they conveyed the world the Transformers are from – this time around, I actually found myself thinking that they didn’t look as good as I remembered. I’m not saying that they were wrong in doing so, I think WFC worked great so why change it. I had just hoped for a slightly more polished look or something.
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment.
The graphics are better. They are now somewhere between CoD and Battlefield, with almost an Arkham City type design to them. Transformers style is the only way to describe them.
Are you playing this on the consoles? Consoles are outdated. The PC version of Fall of Cybertron is a beautiful improvement. The FPS limit has been increased from 30 to 60 and graphic options now provide 4 preset configurations (low, medium, high, extra/extreme).
Ya. I played it on The Xbox 360, and I did see the improvements they made with the PC version. It looks shiny.=P
Cool review! sounds about what I expected, One thing though which I loved about War for Cyberton, was that there was three of you on each level, is it the same in this game? as on the videos I’ve seen of the game it seems that it was only prime fighting on his own or Jazz, and doesn’t have any company.
Anyway, looking forward to friday and being able to play it all weekend 🙂
Are you talking in the campaign? Each level is really just the one transformer fighting. There is one level with Cliff Jumper and Jazz but Jazz is off doing his own thing and they communicate via radio.
Campaign co-op is not featured in Fall of Cybertron. Such a pity. I just played through War for Cybertron last night and I enjoyed having the option of choosing Optimus Prime for almost every mission. Playing the campaign with friends would have amplified the experience since AI tend to suck in almost every game.
That was a bit of a disappointment granted but it got a little distracting for me the last go around anyway. Seems you’re enjoying your time with the game so far. Would like to know what you think of it.
I haven’t had the chance to play the FOC campaign yet, but I’m sure it will be great. I tested the online multiplayer in the morning only to find that it is unplayable. There are connection issues that result in matchmaking countdowns to go from 5, 4, 3… to… -19, -20, -21. Took me an hour to play 15 minutes of online action. Besides the connection issue, I’m saddened to see that vehicle abilities have been removed – jets with no barrel roll, trucks that can’t smash. There is an uproar on the High Moon blog (http://community.activision.com/community/hms/blog/2012/08/16/demo-change-log) and it seems likely that it’s possible to implement vehicle abilities in the near future. However, co-op campaign is a lost hope.