Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I suspect Peter Cullen could tell me he’d just murdered my mother, eaten my cat in a sandwich and set fire to my feet and I’d feel impossibly comforted, just so long as he did it in his Optimus Prime voice. It’s that and many more giant robot-based, entirely unbreakable associations with childhood joy and wonder which means I’m excited to a slightly alarming degree about the sequel to a distinctly average action game. Launch trailer below, and, perhaps more usefully, some details on how to make the previous game, War For Cybertron, a whole lot less bland.
Read the rest of this entry »

The eternal six-year-old in me is quite excited about Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, even though I am well aware I should have moved on to grown-up’s things by now. Well, someone make me a videogame about a cheese and wine party or paying the electricity bill and I guess I’ll play that too. First though, I wish to heed the call of the last of the Primes. Well, more specifically I want to play as Soundwave and Shockwave, but I suppose I can endure being the namby-pamby Autobots too. FOC has had a strange path to PC, having been initially denied to this platform after the devs admitted they didn’t have time to do it well (which was presumably the case for the perfunctory War For Cyberton PC port), before an additional studio, the venerable but little-known Mercenary Technology, was drafted in to make a dedicated PC edition of the robo-biff sequel. Concrete details on just what PC-specific improvements/features it’ll have are out, and it gives me hope that it might light our darkest hour.
Read the rest of this entry »

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is coming out on PC after all, which means I now have free rein to get all over-excited about it – even if I am worried by all the grey corridors of its predecessor and the terrible choice of music in the below trailer. But, sound and pre-renderness aside, gosh! What a lot of fan service is in here. It’s got all my favourites – Shockwave, Bruticus, the Dinobots, Metroplex…. All that’s missing is my beloved psychopath Galvatron, my old, poorly-painted miniature model kit of which you can see above. Of course, they’ll need to kill off Megatron to get him in, but as technically FoC is a prequel to the familiar Transformers crashed-on-Earth-and-started-fighting-again tale I guess that can’t happen. Boo! They could go down the nu-comics route of making Galvy an entirely different character, but that’s just stupid. STUPID!

ANYWAY. Trailer! Exciting robots! Awful music! An Autobot the size of a city! Also on PC! Please have wide-open areas like this video suggests!
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been waiting a while for this, despite myself. While the PC version of this self-evidently console-orientated third-person shooter doesn’t seem to have been given all that many developer/publisher cuddles, it exists, and I’m glad. I’m also moving house, so this first chunk o’opinion concerns just the singleplayer. I’m aware the multiplayer’s a major component of it, and I have played some of that, but I’m not comfortable passing judgement on it just yet. So, more next week. Meantime, here’s a collection of words reflecting a personal sentiment about the singleplayer.

I liked the bit where the robot punched the other robot.

I really did! I’m not being facetious.
Read the rest of this entry »

EDIT – Oh look, it is available after all. I am, as you might imagine, a teensy-little bit annoyed.
EDITEDIT – Activision have just confirmed availability to me. I was told the wrong thing earlier, basically. Sigh!

I’ve spent some time this week trying to track down a PC version of the upcoming (if you’re British) / now on sale (if you’re American) Transformers: War For Cybertron, because I’m a man-child who loves plastic robots. It’s due for release here on the 25th, but annoyingly it’s already on sale in the US.

Turns out, it’s not, in fact, due for release here on the 25th -even though sites such as Amazon are claiming it is. Many sites, and they continue to claim so even just one day ahead of release. But this is what I’ve been told by Activision: while the Xbox and Playstation versions will indeed squeak into retail then, the PC one is now delayed. Until when? Your guess: as good as mine.
Read the rest of this entry »

‘Cheaty’ because there isn’t a PC demo as yet, so this is all based on the 360 version. I’m currently trying to get hold of PC review code for the new Transformers game, due for release this week, but Activision UK’s continued refusal to acknowledge RPS means I’ll probably have to buy a copy myself on release day, and thus can’t waggle my finger of judgement until some time after purchasing D-day. I can at least offer a few comments based upon said demo.

I can also make this noise – CHK-CHK-chk-chkchk. No, that’s rubbish. Doesn’t sound anything like a Transformer transforming. Go on, you do it instead.
Read the rest of this entry »

Hasbro’s head of designing imaginary robots, Aaron Archer, looks incredibly tired in the below video. He shouldn’t be. He has an awesome job. I want his job. Anyway, here he is talking about the storyline behind the upcoming hopefully not-shit Transformers game, War For Cybertron. I’m not expecting amazing things from WFC, but I am genuinely looking forward to it in a massively nerdy way. Speaking of which, it’s overcast and I’m bored. I might go and buy a plastic robot. A backstory-explaining trailer (which also goes into why Megatron may be perceived as a hero) is below, and it’s also worth mentioning that Jetfire, Sideswipe and Thundercracker have been added to the playable roster. There are tons of the buggers now – stare at their profiles here.
Read the rest of this entry »

See this axe? Yes, the imaginary one I’m holding, made from laserbeams and impossible fury. Well, I’m going to grind it.

I quite like Transformers. Ergo, I am quite looking forward to Transformers: War For Cybertron. One of the Transformers I most quite like is Shockwave. Shockwave is a playable character in War For Cybertron – but only if the game is pre-ordered from Gamestop. Or, if you’re all goody two-shoes and want famed Autobot Jazz, you can only play as him if you pre-order the game from Best Buy. There’s also Demolisher if you get it from Amazon, but whatever.

Basically: aaaaaaaargh. Angrytank, roll out.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve already giggled about this on Twitter, but the urge to nerd-share remains strong. I remain somewhere between cautious optimism and Great Fear about upcoming Transformers-does-Bad-Company action thinger War For Cybetron, but the below fan video switched me over to a big huge Want on the spot. All the stern-voiced macho posturing is removed and replaced with pew-pews, synth piano and Looney Tunes voices from Sunbow’s 80s Transformers cartoon. Is it too late for the devs to patch an optional G1-sounds mode in? Say it isn’t. Please say it isn’t.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve only had passing interest in the upcoming Transformers shooty-mcthumpy game War For Cybertron until now, but something about the previews that hit various sites earlier this week, and especially the below video – the first significant chunk of in-game footage to date – has awakened NERD-HUNGER in me. The environments look big and detailed, the robots are an excellent hybrid of 80s blocks’n'colours and intricate machinery and the combat looks varied… oh, who am I kidding? The reason I’m excited is because I recognise all the damned characters. Optimus! Ironhide! Ratchet! Megatron! Soundwave! Trypticon! Omega Supreme! I could go on. I did, in fact, but it started to look a bit scary, so I deleted half the names I’d written. You must not peek inside my brain of shame. Especially the bit that thought “the DLC for this game is going to be awesome.” Read the rest of this entry »