Transformers: War for Cybertron Preview

by Hilary Goldstein - IGN.com | 12 January 2010 12:00
 
Could this be the Batman: Arkham Asylum of 2010?
 
Hearing High Moon Studios director Matt Tieger talk about the upcoming Transformers: War for Cyberton raises my hopes that fans will get a worthwhile game. Describing it as "a gamer's game," Tieger speaks about Transformers in the same way the folks at Rocksteady, makers of Batman: Arkham Asylum, talk about the Dark Knight. Granted, we've yet to set our eyes on War for Cybertron, but it's clear the goal is to create something special.
 
Freed from the constraints of a movie license, the new Transformers game lives within its own universe. "If you had to pick an area where we are most firmly rooted, it's probably from the Generation One cartoon from the 1980s," Tieger says. Most of the characters selected are from the first generation of toys -- the real classics of the Transformers universe. They include Megatron, Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Ironhide, Starscream, Soundwave and Bumblebee. But don't expect exact replicas of your favorite characters. Transformers takes place before these warring factions crashed on Earth.
 
"Our setting for our game is the waning years of this civil war that's been waging on Cybertron," Tieger explains. "The Autobots and Decepticons have been fighting for millions of years. We picked the last few years where that war is ultimately coming to a head. We're set on Cybertron. Huge giant war. The bad guys have an evil plan and really, that story is all about Megatron and his quest for power, his lust for power -- his abuse of power, ultimately."
 

When you pop in the disc, you'll be given a choice: Autobot or Decepticon campaign. The Decepticon campaign takes place first, but you can play them in either order. And while the two are tied together, you won't be playing the same scenarios from different sides. These are two separate stories and whichever side you choose believes they are the good guys.
 
"The story that we put together, we wanted to be more mature," Tieger said. "We wanted to be grittier and darker and dangerous. That meant taking those characters and figuring out who they were." Tieger views Optimus Prime, the Autobot leader, as someone who "doesn't really want to be the guy in charge." But at this critical moment in Transformers history, he is "coming to the conclusion that he is the right guy and even if he doesn't want it, he is the savior of their race. I wanted to [explore those] reasons a little deeper in this story."
 
Tieger looks forward to how fans will react as the Transformers mythos is given a little added depth. "What's fun for me is exploring some relationships that really haven't been explored," he says. "Who is Starscream and why does he sign up with Megatron? And why does Megatron keep him around? We explore [those questions] in the first level of the Decepticon campaign."
 

Optimus has an axe to grind.

Tieger and High Moon Studios have an interesting take on Megatron, who figures prominently in the Decepticon storyline. "I never really understood why Megatron was evil. He's just evil. Okay, but why is he evil? What I believe comes across in our game is that Megatron is the hero. That's what he believes. What he is doing and why he does what he does, he believes is the right thing to do. He just has such a force of will and determination that he believes that the end justifies the means. What he's doing and why he's doing it is a very clear objective for him. He's bringing Cybertron back to former glory. Cybertron has fallen from what he believes it should be and he is going to reset things. That's not evil in his mind."
 
At the start of each level, you're given a choice to play as one of three different Transformers. The selection changes with each level and those levels are crafted specifically to fit those Autobots or Decepticons' skill sets. In terms of the gameplay, War for Cybertron has been compared to Gears of War. In fact, the trailer clearly shows some moments where Transformers take cover. According to Tieger, "It's a much more linear, story-driven, Gears of War-type experience. It's not an open world type of experience. It's about getting on that rollercoaster ride, which is a really cool story, and blasting your way through it. We feel it's a real benefit, because we're trying to tell a solid story."
 
There is a mixture of ground and air levels. Characters that turn into jets aren't playable in ground levels for a simple reason. Games that go from ground to air (a la Superman) almost always fail. So why not take a different approach? The jet levels offer the freedom of the air (with the ability to still transform) and the ground levels are designed specifically for characters that can transform into vehicles at any time. Oh, and there are jet levels for both Decepticons and Autobots. Could that mean Autobot fan fave Jetfire will be playable?
 
Though Tieger and crew want to maintain the integrity of our childhood memories, some of the characters had to undergo some changes to fit the structure of a videogame. Though Soundwave is a favorite, it hardly seems exciting to have him transform into a boombox. In War for Cybertron he turns into a vehicle. He's not the only one to get a makeover. "I will break your heart and tell you that Megatron does not turn into a little tiny gun. We made choices based on transformation gameplay."
 

That is one big boss you have to fight.

To make the experience more accessible, Transformers uses "standard third-person action shooter controls." Tieger adds, "We found a great way to fit transformation in that so that it feels very seamless and intuitive and so that you don't have to rethink about your controls."
 
Of course, an action-heavy shooter means that players will be taking a lot of damage. Transformers uses a segmented health system similar to The Chronicles of Riddick. Your health bar is made of several boxes and as you take damage, the health in a box drains. Get to safety and it recharges. If you lose all the heath in a box, it stops regenerating and health starts draining from the next box. There are two ways to restore lost health from a depleted segment: find Energon cubes or get healed by Ratchet (if you're playing as an Autobot).
 
There's certain to be debate about which characters were chosen. Everyone has a favorite and certainly some won't make an appearance. My personal favorite, Shockwave, "is not really well-incorporated in the story." However, he might show up in the multiplayer. Combiners like the Constructicons don't show and neither do any of the Triple Changers (alas, poor Blitzkrieg, I knew him well); Tieger knows that you can't satisfy every fan. High Moon's strategy was to "pick the best, most popular guys -- and fans will ultimately decide if they feel Wheeljack is a more popular Transformer than Ratchet -- and then fill in the cracks with characters who are necessary for gameplay reasons."
 
Tieger is pretty tight-lipped on additional Transformers making appearances, but he promises there will be plenty for fans to enjoy. Trypticon and Omega Supreme show up as two of the big bosses in the game. "They bring the sense of scale to fights." Tieger warns not to be fooled by the size of these characters in the newly released trailer. "I think we make [them] bigger in the game than they are in the trailer. They are just colossal in size."
 

Not in the game? Impossible!

Though the prospects of a great single-player Transformers campaign are tantalizing, Tieger doesn't want gamers to think the multiplayer component is being thrown together. "I love multiplayer," he says. "As a studio, we are huge multiplayer gamers. Multiplayer is a huge portion of what we're going to give gamers. It's been part of our development process since the first day we started developing this game. The level of commitment behind multiplayer is very large. The experience we give you is as big as Cybertron in my mind."
 
All the talk in the world really doesn't mean a thing. The proof is in the gameplay. "It's all about how it feels under your thumb," Tieger concedes. There is definitely a lot of promise in Transformers: War for Cybertron, but I have to see it to truly believe it. Hopefully Activision will soon show us that there really is more than meets the eye when it comes to licensed games.
 
Supplied by IGN.com