In a nutshell: This was not as good as the original game, War For Cybertron.
The weapons just didn’t feel as weighty, and the story was quite boring to be honest. While there were a few nice touches in the single player campaign, overall it was quite dull. Multiplayer was awful compared to the original. War For Cybertron had some decent multiplayer maps, believe it or not, but Fall Of Cybertron did not. While visual customisation options have increased by a factor of about a million, the choices that made a real difference to your play-style, the class specific abilities, have been reduced from game to game. While every class plays the same, they all look different. Is this good or bad? I feel it is bad. I much preferred looking somewhat similar to everyone else, but having a totally different set of abilities. Escalation (the now ubiquitous online co-operative Firefight mode) was much better in the first game, in that it was a challenge, and it didn’t randomly end just as it was getting interesting. There was a much broader range of class choices in the first game as well. Instead of choosing from truck, car, tank or plane, you’re all cars in Fall Of Cybertron. Or tanks. You’re all tanks. No variety.
The last level, where you switch from faction to faction was thematically an absolute mess. Clear the way for the Decepticons to attach tow ropes, then the next minute: destroy said tow ropes. Control a giant evil robot made up of five smaller evil robots and stomp all over the hull of the Autobot spaceship and generally cause chaos, then switch to a tiny good robot and take the big guy down. I just found it a bit schizophrenic. Fair play to them for using the lesser-known Bruticus rather than the always popular Devastator – but I’m still annoyed we never saw Superion. He was my favourite combiner, and plenty of his constituent parts were present at various points throughout both games. It’s just a shame that, even with this being a Transformers game, for the most part, transforming is utterly pointless. Even when you’re controlling Jetfire at one point, who is a plane, you are prompted to switch to robot form because you’re in zero-g and you don’t really need to be a plane right now and it doesn’t really matter.
Grimlock was great, a bit similar to Bruticus in terms of play-style, but great nonetheless. I didn’t like how he had to fill his rage meter to transform though – The one playable character which had a genuinely preferable alternate form, and they limit it. I felt that while the storyline explaining how he and the rest of the Dinobots came to be wasn’t the same as the Generation 1 storyline, it was quite inventive, and at least it involved Shockwave. The choice of voice-over artists for the Dinobots was quite hit and miss – Grimlock sounded mean, brutal, and a bit slow, a real warrior, just like his persona in the cartoons, whereas Swoop and Snarl sounded quite jovial, intelligent and bright. I didn’t think it was a good match, personally. Metroplex was also great, and while it was a shame we didn’t get to play as him, I can see why they didn’t give us that opportunity. It would’ve been far too slow paced, not fitting with the rest of the game.
I think a third game set on Earth could be the one we’ve been waiting for, a re-telling of the classic Generation 1 origin story. For one thing, it’d give us a feeling of the scale of the protagonists. Secondly, it would give us an actual reason to use their alternate forms. It would also let the developers do what they’ve wanted to do from the very first second they were handed the licence – have a legitimate reason to update the G1 designs and bring them to life. Sure, they’ve brought out DLC skins that give the characters on Cybertron their “Classic” looks, but if it’s set on Earth, it’s legitimate, and I imagine, what most fans would want. Plus, I really hate DLC skin packs. But that’s another post for another time.
