A step back from the first but an action romp that should not be missed.
In Fall of Cybertron you find yourself in the middle of the seeming never ending war between the Decepticons and Autobots, as they battle one another for supremacy of they're home planet, Cybertron. As always, the Autobots want to protect all that is just while the Decepticons are hell bent on destruction and power. You will play through both sides of this conflict. Between one chapter to the next you will be put into both sides of the battle. Playing a few missions as the autobots and then a few as the decepticons. You even get to play as the beloved Dinobots for a brief time.
This transition from one side to the other is an interesting twist that I'm not real found of. In the previous title you had to separate campaigns to where in this title it's one campaign but it shifts you around. So much so that you loose interest in a lot of whats going on. Once you get settled into the autobots story and objectives, you get switched to the decepticons. A change of pace is always welcome but they do it so much I lost interest in what was going on. Not to mention while your playing one side or the other, you get switched in and out of so many different characters it almost becomes mind numbing. It's really unfortunate because there is a epic story here to be told and they tell it well. But when your switching in and out from one character to another, from one faction to another every 20 minutes or so, you stop caring. I really wish they would have selected one or two characters that the story would focus on, that way it would have been a much more streamline story experience but that was not to be.
What saves the single player is the fact that the action is top notch. The set action pieces are among the best in gaming, especially when it comes to the giant boss encounters. The scale of this game really feels as if you are playing on a planet during it's final days. Endless explosions and frantic combat will keep you locked in for the whole 14 hours of the single player. The controls are very smooth and they've added a feature that I wish more 3rd person shooters would use. You can press circle and you can switch your gun hand. This is a really handy feature especially when your locked in a close quarters gun fight.
Where the story struggles due to the constant changing of characters the game play thrives off of it. Nothing you have to do in the campaign over stays it's welcome, the quick change of pace always keeps the action fresh. This is one of the more diverse shooters on the market. You switch from, large scale gun fights, to tank combat, to jet combat, to close quarters gun fights, to epic boss fights and even all the way to a Grimlock stomp fest. No matter what this game throws at you, it's fun and the action stays top notch through out the entire game. It's a shame the story is such a jumble because a more harmonic combination between the story and action could have made this game over the top.
After you beat the story, there are 2 multiplayer options to keep your optic sensors going. Yeah only two, for you fans of the first title, co op campaign is a thing of the past seeing how it has been removed for this title. But you can play the horde type game mode "escalation" or you can drop into some competitive multiplayer. Escalation is nothing that we all haven't seen a millions times before. You and 3 others fight off up to 15 waves of enemies. Each wave more difficult then the next. You can play as a team of autobots or a team of decepticons with each faction having a small list of characters for you to choose from. There really isn't much separating this from any of the other progression modes other shooters have. There is no leveling or progression system, so replay ability is based off of your want to succeed. It's a fun romp but I don't see this keeping many fans interested.
Where your time will be spent is in the competitive multiplayer. Here you will select between 1 of 4 classes, all of which are fully customizable by selecting different parts to use, along with changing your gun/perk load outs. War for Cybertron has 4 competitive offerings, Team death match, Capture the flag, conquest and head hunter. The competitive portion of War for Cybertron is awesome. The action is fast and the need to level up to achieve new weapons, perks and physical character customization options will keep you coming back for more.
I'm a big fan of this because there is a bit of a learning curve to this. It's not like other shooters on the market that you can just pick up and play. There are no one shot kill weapons and nothing is really over powered. Most of your encounters will last about 5 to 10 seconds. I prefer this over other shooters because when you get a kill, you have more of a sense of achievement then you do in others. The mix between vehicle combat to gun combat is intense, fast and fluid.
I only have 2 problems with the competitive multiplayer and both really disappointed me. First is that there are not many weapons. Each class only has a few weapons that they are able to use and the upgrades to those weapons are extremely limited as well. While the combat is good, this gives you the since of a lack of variety. Especially after you have been playing for a few hours. My 2nd issue and more importantly. The competitive combat is almost cut and pasted from War for Cybertron. If your transformer you create wasn't so customizable it would feel the exact same. While this isn't entirely bad seeing how the first game's multiplayer was excellent, it just feels stale. Especially if you played the first game.
War for Cybertron is a good game, but honestly it feels like a step back from the first. While it does so many things right, it does so many others wrong. More focus put on character development would have made this campaign one of legend and a more expansion into the multiplayer would have granted this title a seat at the big kids table. Even with that said, I still feel that the action and game play is good enough to merit a buy, especially if you're an old school G1 transformers fan. Seeing the last days of Cybertron is an event that should not be missed.