Transformers: Fall of Cybertron Review

There has been a startling positive trend in videogames as of the past few years, licensed games have gone from shovel-ware put out to cash in on a franchise, to games that are made by fans for fans. It seems to have started with Rocksteady who set out to make a Batman game that fans could feel good about playing and more than succeeded with the Arkham games. High Moon did the same for Transformers with War for Cybertron. Now two years later we have a sequel with an improved narrative, more cinematic presentation and an epic scale that propel it far past its predecessor. Fall of Cybertron melds the two distinct Transformers camps, the nostalgic if dated 80's cartoon with the Michael Bay helmed roller coaster of chaos that are the feature films.

Fall of Cybertron is very similar to its predecessor, a third-person shooter with moments of vehicular traversal and combat. There are some minor differences like a tighter camera that makes the action feel more intense and a marked improvement in ammo distribution, meaning you'll be causing mayhem more often instead of scrounging for ammo. The vehicle segments have been tightened up as well with only two levels using it for any real length of time. Overall the game feels more polished and better paced, cutting some of the drawn out moments that made the first game drag in spots. Unfortunately that leaves a fairly short game, and while not uneventful (the final level is unapologetically badass) it does seem lacking for the $60 price. There is a pretty fleshed out and highly customizable multiplayer mode as well as the requisite wave-based survival game type but I think most people are coming to this game for the story and it's simply over to quickly. On a technical note, the game surprised me with how good it looked, especially the sheer size of the environments. While it is running on the Unreal engine which means it has some serious texture pop-in, when everything finally renders in, the world looks fantastic. High Moon took complaints to heart and added a more diverse color palette to the game as well so everything doesn't looks so dull and metallic. Fall of Cybertron goes through several big environment changes and it helps keep things visually interesting.

As the game progresses most chapters are dedicated to a single character, each controlling a bit differently from the last, Cliffjumper's chapter has him turning invisible for some stealthy action that play more like a puzzler than the usual trail-and-error. Jazz has a grapple hook he uses to maneuver around the environment like no other character can. All of these thing vary up the gameplay keeping it new and fairly challenging throughout. There was a big marketing push for this games inclusion of the dino-bots, in particular the fan favorite fire-breathing T-Rex Grimlock. His shining moment is defiantly a highlight for fans as it retcons the origin of the dino-bots while making it ten times more believable that dino-bots are on Cybertron. I think fans will eat all the new story content up, anyone with any affinity for the Transformers lore will tell this game was lovingly made by fans for fans. And anyone who still has an 8 year old somewhere within them will perk up with each character reveal, death or fight. Fall of Cybertron doesn't do anything new but improves enough over the original making this a fun trip through Cybertronian warfare with all your favorite Transformers. It's unfortunately hard to justify the price with such a short campaign but man am I glad Transformers got a great franchise.

(3 out of 5)