I don't think there's a shooter in existence with more heart and genuine love for the craft than there is this one, other than maybe Fall of Cybertron.
What's here is the most perfect encapsulation of the transformers space war cacophony energy. Through the whole ride you hear all the sounds and technological noise of the mechanical universe, watching as every enemy and friend alike have constantly moving shifting parts to bring home the alive machinery they are. Guns each match the aesthetic beautifully, making the widest and loudest firefights all the more real. The adventure itself, while stumbling over itself in some repetition, manages to craft stunning vistas and warzones to see from start to end.
And on top of all that, it's a solid third person shooter in its own right. Enemy design is quite differentiated and constantly dodging your shots and repositioning. Nothing particularly exemplary in AI or particular designs but not frustratingly stupid either. Arenas themselves encourage you to be form changing and keeping your movement alive, with the flying segments especially allowing you to gun it to the other side of the fight before form changing back to shotgun an enemy close up. Really the only startling problem with War for Cybertron's levels is that you'll have seen everything about 'twice' in terms of encounter design because they didn't reallyyy have enough to last 8 non-boss missions as much as they had 4-5. The boss designs themselves are rather tedious but do deserve a star for at least forcing you to be moving nonstop. Final boss of the autobot campaign especially was so starkingly punishing if you weren't getting your shit together.
A heavy shoutout to the multiplayer too. All of the systems here have more than enough justification to be a fucking amazing arena combat pvp, but unfortunately what's left after the servers being shot down are the mod community's defiance custom games. I haven't been able to experience that part myself yet, but from the videos I've poured through it's definitely a time I wish I could be having right now.
While I wouldn't say it's one of the greatest ventures, the first two hours of me going apeshit at how realized the world was when doing the first two missions is something that I do want everyone to experience. And the potential here is certainly something that, I imagine, Fall of Cybertron lands better.
What's here is the most perfect encapsulation of the transformers space war cacophony energy. Through the whole ride you hear all the sounds and technological noise of the mechanical universe, watching as every enemy and friend alike have constantly moving shifting parts to bring home the alive machinery they are. Guns each match the aesthetic beautifully, making the widest and loudest firefights all the more real. The adventure itself, while stumbling over itself in some repetition, manages to craft stunning vistas and warzones to see from start to end.
And on top of all that, it's a solid third person shooter in its own right. Enemy design is quite differentiated and constantly dodging your shots and repositioning. Nothing particularly exemplary in AI or particular designs but not frustratingly stupid either. Arenas themselves encourage you to be form changing and keeping your movement alive, with the flying segments especially allowing you to gun it to the other side of the fight before form changing back to shotgun an enemy close up. Really the only startling problem with War for Cybertron's levels is that you'll have seen everything about 'twice' in terms of encounter design because they didn't reallyyy have enough to last 8 non-boss missions as much as they had 4-5. The boss designs themselves are rather tedious but do deserve a star for at least forcing you to be moving nonstop. Final boss of the autobot campaign especially was so starkingly punishing if you weren't getting your shit together.
A heavy shoutout to the multiplayer too. All of the systems here have more than enough justification to be a fucking amazing arena combat pvp, but unfortunately what's left after the servers being shot down are the mod community's defiance custom games. I haven't been able to experience that part myself yet, but from the videos I've poured through it's definitely a time I wish I could be having right now.
While I wouldn't say it's one of the greatest ventures, the first two hours of me going apeshit at how realized the world was when doing the first two missions is something that I do want everyone to experience. And the potential here is certainly something that, I imagine, Fall of Cybertron lands better.