Transformers: War for and Fall of Cybertron

Played through the campaign of both of these games recently. I first picked up War for Cybertron when it was a flashsale during the Steam holiday sale.

War for Cybertron was pretty good, not the best but a good shooter. The story was OK, the shooting was fine though a few more guns or upgradable weapons would have been nice. They did a great job on the level design, the missions very all varied in the design and didn't get repetitive, what did get repetitive however was the visuals, most environments was built using the same dark metal walls and this is what hinders it from being more than a good shooter.

Fall of Cybertron I got a while later when it and War for Cybertron were both daily deals during the Steam holiday sale, Fall of Cybertron was far from as cheap as the former was but it was 50% off and I sure am glad I bought it. Fall of Cybertron is an amazing game, it almost beats Halo 4 as my shooter of 2012 and I'm quite baffled by how I haven't heard more of this game.

Just about every aspect has been improved from the last game, I'm not surprised, the first game likely had a limited budget, making a transformers game was a bit of a risk, but it worked and thus Fall of Cybertron likely had a much larger budget. The visual repetitiveness of the first game is gone, the visuals are as varied as the level design which is even more varied than it was in WoC thanks in part to more varied locations but also new gameplay elements such as a bit of stealth and a more varied line-up of played characters as well as enemies. The story also got more attention, the story itself has a bit more to it but it is also told better both during gameplay and in cutscenes both normal ones and what I'd call interactive cutscenes.

On the note of storytelling, I was rather impressed with how the final level and the battle that takes place there (and no, that's not a spoiler as the first level also takes place in this battle before the game goes back to a couple of days previous) was handled. Through the campaign you've already played both Autobots and Decepticons, during this final battle you get to play both with the game switching you back and forth between the sides and the transformers on each side. This is brilliant, as we've played as many different transformers through the campaign it's great to play as several of them in the final level and not just one. Further, this also shows a side of a battlefield that is often lost in games, in a battle with two sides you generally have both of the two sides gaining and losing ground while the battle goes on.

At first I was a bit disappointed when I saw that they ditched the two regular weapons of the first game in favour of a one regular weapon one heavy weapon combo but it turned out to work well. Weapons can now be upgraded with using credits earned by killing enemies and breaking boxes in the world which I find a nice addition, I did however not care much for the offensive and defensive items you can pickup or buy in the store mostly due to the fact that they are quite rare for pickups and I prefer to spend the credits I get on weapon upgrades rather than theses small gadgets, I would rather have had the grenades of the first game.

I haven't look much at the multiplayer yet but I do like how the game lets you set up loadouts for four different classes as well as pick the look of your transformer both in robot and vehicle form (which depends on class), it's limited in the beginning but with a lot more to unlock. Assuming people are actually playing the multiplayer I might do a short post on that when and if I've played some.

If you like shooters and have even the faintest of interest in transformers or even just sci-fi I'd recommend you to pick up Fall of Cybertron at the very least and maybe War for Cybertron as well. War for Cybertron sets up the story of Fall of Cybertron but you won't be too lost in the story without playing the former.