Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is brought to us by Activion from their in-house development team High Moon Studios. High Moon worked on the prequel, War for Cybertron, as well as the 2011 tie in for the movie Dark of the Moon. Outwith the Tranformers universe High Moon are credited with the Xbox \ PS2 title Darkwatch and more recently the Xbox360 \ PS3 title Robert Ludlum’s: The Bourne Conspiracy.
The game begins with the Ark, the last Autobot transport to leave Cybertron, attempting to make it through the Decepticon blockade. Taking control of Bumblebee you must defend the bridge from a few waves of Decepticons before being sent to aid Optimus Prime in another part of the ship. This introduction serves as the tutorial for the controls and has you doing the usual tutorial tasks like jumping over obstacles or using the dash to cross a chasm.
After the intro the game rewinds to a few days before the Ark’s departure when Cybertron is being besieged by Decepticons and the Ark is the only Autobot ship left to depart. You will be thrust into the chassis of many of the great Transformers as you battle the Decepticons and make ready to leave Cybertron.
Fall of Cybertron is a very nice game to look at with some impressive scenery and well detailed transformer models. The transformation to vehicle and back is very satisfying and lead me to take every opportunity to make the switch just to watch it.
As a third person shooter all of the action takes place over the shoulder of the robot you are currently controlling. When behind cover you can switch which shoulder the camera is aimed at to help you shoot round cover.
I found the controls a bit fidgety at first. You click down on the left analog stick to transform and I kept switching in the heat of battle. As I mentioned before it is a satisfying animation but it doesn’t help when in a kill-or-be-killed situation.
Multiplayer pits the Autobots vs the Decepticons in various game modes like team deathmatch, dominion and capture the flag.
Before starting a match you get the option to customise the robots you wish to use in game. There are 4 different classes and each class has 3 different chassis. You need to level up each class to unlock the different chassis, weapons, upgrades and perks.
There is also a separate multiplayer mode called Escalation which pits you against waves of enemies that increase in difficulty.
Fall of Cybertron is a decent shooter with enough content to keep it interesting past the 10-12 hour single player campaign. The multiplayer will not win any awards for innovation as the class, upgrade and perk system is almost identical to any of the popular first person shooters. All in all it’s good fun that will make you want to retrieve that box of toys from your loft you wouldn’t let your mum throw away.
7 mighty morphing….wait wrong IP out of 10