It's a fact that most, if not all, of Transformers video games (at least ones that have a decent budget) have to be shooters. Never played War for Cybertron myself, I dived straight into Fall of Cybertron and the story is easy enough to follow. The game starts out with a bang, with a great opening level/tutorial. It was exciting, engaging and simply put, quite epic. The tutorial aspects aren't in your face and they felt quite natural. Granted, the first chapter is still a write-off because nothing much in terms of gameplay happen in it. It sets up the scene but surprisingly, the story takes place a few days before this opening cinematic and slowly, through the course of the game, builds up to this moment. The first few chapter's worth of story telling doesn't truly grab you, it's only when you near the last few chapters that does the story suck you in and you find yourself wanting to know more and more. Of course, this all leads up to the final climatic battle which, suffice to say, makes the whole game worth it. The graphics are very nice, although the mechanical aspects, shading and lighting used can get overwhelming at times and start to blend into each other. This means that it's harder to make out the details. Fall of Cybertron also has a fairly unique aesthetics to it, things taking on a surreal nature.
Furthering that, sometimes it's hard to tell where the enemy is, and in the earlier chapters, who the enemy is. You'd end up taking shots at friendlies thinking that they were your enemies. Being a third-person shooter, needless to say, the game focuses upon shooting. This can make the game feel just like another typical third-person shooter. If they could somehow incorporate more melee based attacks, it would differentiate the game from it's competition a lot more. Although later in the game, the variety does kick in (but it's still very much focused upon shooting and killing) which makes it much more interesting and fun. There were a few annoying missions (although it could be that I just suck), Cliffjumper's stealth mission was a pain but if you kept persisting, it was actually quite fun. Getting used to the controls took a few chapters, although with the L3 button being used for transformation, it meant that I kept accidentally transforming in the middle of gunfire (even with the delay function turned on). I got bored by just the shooting and then heading off to the next objective marker after the first two or three chapters, yet after that, the game picked up and I started to find myself enjoying it more and more. There are a few nice touches to the game, lacking a cover system, the game instead lets you switch your gun arm so you can shoot from behind cover.
The robot character models are detailed, even when you're standing still, you'd notice small mechanical parts of the robot constantly moving. More nice touches include easter eggs like Megatron petting Laserbeak and all the named characters that make an appearance. Something that happened more often than you would like would be that the game pauses as it loads the next part of the level. This shouldn't happen as it's quite annoying. The gameplay also involves way too many lever pulling (at one point, even the character you're controlling remarks why they couldn't have make it a button instead). Gates also seal behind you as you reach a checkpoint, meaning that you can't backtrack to explore the whole level, needless to say, that kinda sucks. Even though I kept dying though (on normal, no less), I found the game world immersive and I didn't get too frustrated even though I had to keep trying again and again. A lot of the light weapons you get are fairly useless and extremely weak, once you get the riot cannon, there's no need to try any other weapons, that one is enough to obliterated all enemies. Speaking of enemies, the bots you ever get to destroy are nameless generic bots, at no point (until the final battle between Optimus and Megatron, that is) do you get to fight another named character (like in a boss fight).
Some chapters are surprisingly long while others are just really short, this isn't really a issue, just something weird that you'd pick up as you're playing. The story, in the end, wasn't too bad and the final battle is really quite epic. However, the choice that you get to pick between Megatron and Optimus feels artificial since there isn't enough difference between the two to be worthwhile. The Dinobot subplot was interesting, since when the Dinobots were revealed, everyone was like, what are there Earthen dinosaur modes?! Well, the game explains that and the explanation is plausible and quite clever. I found the audio logs, a collectible in the game, to be a great and unobtrusive way to tell more of the story's background, while not forcing it upon the player. It also gives more reason to find all these collectibles (instead of them being there just for being there, like so many other games). The music is epic and suits the game really well, it gives off a solemn feeling at times. I didn't really get into the multiplayer but the modes there are okay. Rating it as a single player experience, it's a solid game and well worth playing, especially if you're a fan of the Transformers, since there are just so many nods here and there throughout the game that'll make you smile.
-----------------------------
Other game reviews can be found on this page.
