Transformers: Fall of Cybertron

[BentonGrey]

Sorry XS, the PC version was so very cheater-y and broken that I stopped playing it and picked up a cheap copy of the 360 version.  However, I'll be on XBox Live soon-ish....as soon as we can afford to renew my subscription.

[JeyNyce]

I have WFC on PC and haven't played it yet (I got it on sale cheap!).  Look me online on steam jeynyce620

[XStream]

Benton, how so? I know the community is super hard! Those who have been playing for a while are crazy hard to play with. I have too search out other noobs and try to focus on them. Looking for people on the same levels as I am.

Jey, it is an awesome story with a fun game. Well, if you are a TF fan it is awesome. I will try to play MP tomorrow night. I will add you and look for you. I am sure there will be fewer people playing now that FOC is out.

[BentonGrey]

Sorry XStream, I didn't see your question.  Yeah, there is always an element of a learning curve in online games, but that wasn't the problem.  The problem was that the servers had no oversight, so folks hacked the game and cheated in ridiculously blatant ways.  I remember the most awful was a guy who just walked around in robot form, entirely invulnerable, and with a gun that shot the scientist's missiles.  Also, he had infinite ammo.  It was horribly obnoxious, and it got to the point that every time we started playing, every game we got into, there would be someone doing that.  I don't get the point of playing a game you literally can't lose, but these morons all seemed to find some kind of sad justification for it.  There was no way to get rid of these folks, and since the game was basically instant abandonware on the PC, there was no appealing to authority for a patch or protection.

Anyway, I just beat Fall of Cybertron today, and I wanted to see what everyone was thinking about this and share my own thoughts.

I have something of a love-hate relationship with this game.  The campaign was interesting, but because of the way it was designed, the entire thing felt like something of a zero-sum game.  You play the Autobots trying to accomplish a goal, then you flip around and play the Decepticons trying to thwart that goal.  You are LITERALLY fighting against yourself.  That kept the story from having as much weight as it might have.  Plus, the story itself left a bit to be desired.  Unless I completely missed something, several things happen, basically without adequate explanation.  Added to all of this, there is the matter of the difficulty.  This game is painfully, back-breakingly heard on Normal, at least in places.  The game between Normal and Easy is way too wide, as well, as I felt like I was getting blown away with a single shot on Normal, but like I literally COULD NOT DIE on Easy.  The game went from impossible to embarrassingly easy.

Now, that is not to say that I didn't enjoy it.  In fact, if the game wasn't so cool, these things wouldn't have mattered to me, but I so love these games, games that truly make you feel like you're diving into an authentic Transformers universe, that it troubles me when they fall short of what they could be.  Still, despite its flaws, the campaign has some really neat portions.  I'm a huge fan of the classic 'toon, as y'all know, and I will always have a big soft spot for the movie.  This game is littered with references to both, and in fact, in many places the game completely recreates scenes from the movie or at least has verbatim bits of dialog.  At one point:

Spoiler

Slug, one of the Dinobots, knocks down a door, pinning a Decepticon beneath it.  As he steps on the unfortunate 'Con, he says, "Excuse me," perfectly recreating a moment from the movie that made me laugh hysterically as a child, and in this incarnation still caused me to smile.

Add to that a really cool cast of characters, one that keeps expanding as the game continues, and you've got a game that is full of Transformers lore.  What was really nice is that, every time I'd meet a character while I was playing as someone else and say to myself, 'gosh, I'd love to play HIM!', before too long I'd be able to take the reins of that coveted character.  There were exceptions, and some of those levels were not nearly long enough for me to enjoy them (Soundwave, Swoop), but it was cool that I at least got to try them out.

As far as gameplay, I feel like this game, at least in the campaign, is a little less awesome than the previous one.  I'm speaking only of the fundamentals here, as the level design was sometimes better, but I felt like I wasn't as strong as I had been, like I couldn't jump as high, and I really hated being reduced to only one special ability.  On the other hand, you had a much wider cast of characters, a much larger selection of guns, and the upgrading system of Teletran-1 was a pretty neat feature as well. 

So, I really enjoyed playing this game, and I'm sure the multiplayer will be even better, but it definitely had its flaws.  I sorta' hope that we'll see a showdown with Unicron in the next one, though a game set on Earth featuring all of the G1 'bots would send me to Transformers heaven!

The big downside to me is the DLC.  Ten bucks for four characters models, which I can ONLY use in multiplayer?  I love the Dinobots, but that's a ridiculous rip-off.  If they came with some Escalation maps, that would be something.  In fact, if you could use all of the characters on the Escalation maps, that would be really nice.