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| Transformers: Fall of Cybertron: Play It Like You Want! |
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For many years now, fans of the Transformers have had time to imagine what Cybertron looks like to them and dream of playing there. In the upcoming Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, you will be able to play in the largest, most detailed concept of Cybertron yet!
To start off, the dev team accepted that there were complaints about the previous game, Transformers: War for Cybertron. They decided to take those complaints and make those the selling features of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. The four complaints were repetitive gameplay, repetitive visuals, a less intelligent A.I. than desired, and a real lack of ammo. It was easy to fix the ammo issue, but the rest took some work. To combat the repetitive gameplay, the structure is different from the previous game. In War for Cybertron, you chose to play the whole thing as either Autobots or Decepticons, which lead to the repetitive gameplay as it was pretty much the same game just from a different point of view, so you had to go through the same things twice. This time, you switch between the factions. First, you're mostly Autobots, then mostly Decepticons, and then you'll finish the game out as the Autobots again. I'm not sure how I feel about switching sides like that as a concept, but it has worked in other games, so I think it'll be good. The character switches that we watched made a lot of sense and flowed very well. |
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To address the repetitive visuals, the areas have been made much larger in this game than the previous one, and yet the entire area is loaded at once, to prevent interruptions due to multiple loading screens. You won't have to deal with re-loading just because you go to a different section. Vortex is the largest space they have ever created. You can explore in both vehicle and robot, just depending on what you want to do. You can stay in one or the other the whole time if you want. This should keep you from getting bored of the scenery and from what I saw, it was all quite detailed and beautiful. The camera has changed position a bit too. The view is a lot closer and makes it feel a lot better than before. The A.I. challenge is one that is a unique challenge to Transformers as it is probably the only game where you change from robot to vehicle and back, on the fly. In the previous game, the A.I. would just be done computing where you were right before you hit the Transform button, and suddenly, you'd be quite far away from where you were previously because you'd be driving, and the A.I. was slow to catch up to the situation. To fix the issues from the last game, they redesigned the system from the ground up and changed how it thinks about things.
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So now that we've covered all those issues, you might want to know a little bit about the game. The story takes place immediately following War for Cybertron. The Autobots are trying to get everybody off of the planet who wants to go. Once they get everyone else off, they're the only ones left to leave. The Autobots have a ship called the Arc that they plan to leave on, but it isn't ready yet when the Decepticons arrive. Just to survive, Optimus Prime has to decide to take all of the power out of the Arc and put it back into the last fortress they have left, just to keep them alive. Optimus is special in that he contains the Matrix of Leadership inside of him, which is literally a piece of the core of Cybertron. This gives him some knowledge that he doesn't know how he has. When he moves the power from the Arc back to the fortress, the fortress transforms into a giant robot, Metroplex, that Optimus can control. So as you can see, you will get to go from controlling normal-sized robots to giant creatures, and back again. The Combaticons can combine up to form Bruticus. I can't wait to play with Bruticus. He's giant and dominates everything. Your favorite Transformers are all there, Optimus Prime, Starscream, Jazz, Grimlock, and plenty more. Grimlock is a unique Transformer in that he uses a sword and a shield. His only way to do ranged attacks is to pick something up and throw it. He can't transform like everybody else can though. Transform is his (RB) ability. Of course, if they allowed you to transform him all the time, you'd only play as the giant space T-Rex all the time! He is twice as big and twice as strong as the others though, so he is a very interesting character to play.
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(RB) is the most important button in the game. It is that character's unique special ability. That ability is unique to the character, so each time you get a new character, you will get a different ability to play with. They have worked really hard to design the level so that that character's ability is relevant to that level. Jazz, for example, has a grappling hook which allows him to get to high places, perfect to use his sniper rifle. There are kiosks inside the city where you can buy new things, unlock new things, and upgrade your current weapons with the money that you have earned. Once you unlock or upgrade something as any character, it is available for any character, no matter their affiliation, from there on out, which is really nice because you don't have to keep buying the same things for different characters.
While there was a bit of customization in War for Cybertron, it was minimal. They decided to drastically improve that area. In Fall of Cybertron, you can customize and build your own Transformer and make them look exactly like you want. There are still four classes. You can change out the Head, Chest, Upper Arms, Lower Arms, Legs, Wheels, Wings, and Turrents. The Chest is the deciding factor on the vehicle form. You can even make them metallic now. Your customized appearance does not affect the abilities though, so you can make things look like you want and still have the abilities that you want. I can really see some of the people that I know spending quite a number of hours playing in the customization menu!
As you can tell, these guys have put a lot of work into Fall of Cybertron and it really shows. It will be released for the PS3 and 360. There is no Wii or PC version this time. They are still in Alpha code at this time, but I can't wait to see the final results. Keep your eyes open this Fall for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron! |
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-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl |
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