Transformers: War for Cybertron got online multiplayer right, treating the Autobots and Decepticons like soldiers rather than children’s toys. The problem was the setting of Cybertron didn’t exactly lend itself to varied battlegrounds and colours other than red and purple. Movie tie-in Dark of the Moon fixes that.
The other problem with War for Cybertron was the bots were on their home turf, and on a planet built for them you lose the awesome sense of scale of seeing giant robots battling around Earth-based locations. Dark of the Moon fixes that as well.
Sure it stars the hideous Michael Baybots, but underneath that ugly exterior lies the same development team that finally made a good generation one-ish Transformers game. Knowing that, I can overlook the Bay for a little while to see how well the multiplayer holds up when we humans have home field advantage come June 14.
question.everything
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 9:53 AMGiven how fantastic WFC was, and how big a TF fan I am, I cannot wait for Dark of the Moon to be released.
Chuloopa
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 9:53 AMEven though the multi may be good, i won’t get it just for the fact it has the ugly, UGLY baybots… god i hate them so SOOOO much!
SlipperyOtter
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 9:54 AMOh man, the gameplay looks exactly like War for Cybertron.
I’m actually interested in a movie tie-in now. Cool.
Hershie
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 9:57 AMYeah but… Michael Bay Bots are gross.
Don’t know if I’ll be able to get over that, given how awesome the characters looked in War For Cybertron.
Jarred
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 10:11 AMI really liked war for cybertron, and I am sure this game will be just as good if not better , but I just cant get past the Michael Bay transformer design and aesthetic. With so many other good games coming out I am going to give this one miss and hope a generation 1 sequel to war for cybertron is in the works.
TSH
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 10:20 AMLooks like I’m alone in actually liking the look of the “Baybots”. As much as I like the boxy retro look of the original-style Transformers, I think the Baybots look more organic. More like actual robotic organisms, rather than something a human would design to make animation easier.
Chuloopa
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 10:28 AMYes.. you are all alone… forever… *glare*
:P
attila
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 10:36 AMHating on Michael Bay is what the cool kids do nowadays….
Bay made a call that the transformers wouldn’t be allowed to grow and shrink – hence Optimus no longer being a flat nose truck. I think it was a great call and I like the look of the Baybots.
Effluvium Boy
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 10:42 AMI’m with TSH on this one.
I’m a big fan of the originals, but I think some of the Baybots look pretty awesome (Mostly the Autobots).
question.everything
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 11:21 AMLook at all of the different iterations of Transformers over the years and every single one of them had a distinct visual style – G1, the garish G2, Beast Wars, Transmetals, TransTech, Binaltech, Robots in Disguise, Armada, Energon, Cybertron, Movie-verse, Classics, Prime, IDW-bots. They’re all different, and all iconic of the property. People had the same response to the techno-organic TransTech designs when they were planned post-Beast Machines.
People can hate on the baybot designs all they want, but they’re the reason for the Transformers Renaissance that allowed War for Cybertron to exist.
James Mac
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 11:59 AMI remember when the first Bay movie came out and everyone was raving about how good the designs looked.
I personally like them, they seem appropriate for the modern ‘real life’ design, and there’s very little ‘mass shifting’ (don’t talk to me about that cube).
I think it’s a backlash to the God awful second film… not they’re looking for anything to complain about.
F4N
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 4:37 PMThe problem is, a lot of people in the 20-30 something age group tend to melodramatically overreact about Revenge of the Fallen being the worst thing in the universe, and failing that, the worst thing to have happened to Transformers.
Revenge wasn’t a good movie, and didn’t live up the naturally high expectations of the audience considering the last movie was reasonably well received. But it isn’t nearly as bad or as incoherent as the Energon cartoon that ran from 2004-2005. That was awful.
F4N
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 4:53 PMYou’re not alone. Transformers have had a wide variety of appearances and visual styles for over 25 years (as question.everything demonstrated), and every time a new visual style or conceptualisation is introduced with a new series/continuity, there’s an uproar.
It’s nothing new, and generally the hardcore fandom gets over it eventually. However, typically people outside of the fandom (particularly those who only realised Transformers still existed when they heard the 2007 movie was in production) have stayed very critical for a number of years now probably because it was a major shock them to see Transformers not look like their rose-tinted childhood memories. While it is understandable that people may be shocked, they should really get over it, it’s been 4 years.
Or get into Thundercats – that is truly a forgotten 1980s brand that has had a resurgence for seemingly no apparent reason. Hipsters seem to be into that.
DKnight1000
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 11:34 AMI think my biggest issue with the baybots is when they get in a melee it can be hard to tell who or what is being hit and with what.
Also the faces are terrible terrible abominations.
As for the whole transforming robots thing, some of it works but some of it doesn’t would you really want your vulnerable inner workings semi exposed?
Riavan
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 12:48 PMThe baybots don’t bother me, but I do think the war for cybertron ones looked better.
Suhaira
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 1:27 PMBaybots were ok, not as awesome as the original, but my gosh they had ugly faces.
Samuel Webster
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 2:42 PMOk, now offline multiplayer as well please
Roh
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 5:04 PMThis looks pretty cool, WFC was a pretty good game, especially co-op, it looked good and played well, not much more you can ask for really.
I don’t mind the Baybots so much, and i think the first movie was pretty good, considering i dont really like Bay movies in general (everyone always talk so FAST!). My only (minor) gripe is that i thinkthey could just tone down the detail level in the design of the Baybots, there just seems to be too much going on, not enough of a recognizable silhouette to help distinguish the characters easier.
Fingers crossed the third movie is going to be ok, thats about as high as my expectations are getting.
Bang
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 9:37 PMWow, we might actually get a good transformers movie games…
The last two were terrible, war for Cybertron was good though, I’m happy that they’re creating the game.