The follow up to 2010's War for Cybertron, Fall is a great game, though fans of the Transformers will get more out of it

User Rating: 8 | Transformers: Fall of Cybertron PS3
In the interests of full disclosure, I am a massive Transformers fan. To the point that I have a room full of toys, DVD's and posters of Optimus Prime and company, so please bare that in mind when reading this review.

Fall of Cybertron is the sequel to 2010's War for Cybertron, the first game in years that featured the Autobot's and Decepticon's beating the metallic snot out of each other and was actually good. Fall continues that trend, and while technical issues mar the experience, it is not enough to sully an otherwise fine title.

Set during the last six days of the Autobot's time on their home world, Fall of Cybertron chronicles Optimus Prime's attempts to power the Autobot space ship, The Ark, and set forth to find a new world to call home. The campaign also has you playing as the Decepticon's at certain points, mixing it up to great effect, even if every character pretty much plays the same way.

Like its predecessor, this is a third person shooter at its heart, and the weapons are fairly standard for the genre - shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, etc. There is one that tops them all though, the Riot Gun. Think Megatron's arm cannon but everyone can use it and you have the right idea, and when it is fully powered up it is really fun to blast enemies to tiny metal pieces with.

Level's can be navigated on foot or in vehicle form, and each named Transformer has a unique vehicle mode design. You will spend most of your time on foot, as it is much easier to fight in that form, but some sections require you to roll out, and that can be a lot of fun, especially if your playing one of the Decepticon jets.

Character progression is handled via a tech tree, with each kill and some crates scattered around level's providing credits that go in the Teletraan 1 store. These upgrades power up your weapons, but also allow you to buy new ones, though blueprints around the world mean you don't have to do that really, and additional kit such as attack drones and shield barriers.

The increases in health, shield regeneration etc are valid across all characters in the campaign, so while you may skip from Cliffjumper to Jazz to Swindle, the upgrades you purchase count. It is elegant, and the campaign goes at such a pace that doing it any other way would make it a bore.

The story in the campaign is a strange combination of stuff from the 80's cartoon and the movies, so Bumblebee cannot talk, but looks like he does in the cartoons. Transformers fans, i.e. me, will get a lot of the references and should really like the origin story changes for some characters, as it makes sense in the context of the universe of the games.

There is a section of the campaign, and this is a requested feature I am guessing, where you play as the Dinobots, specifically, Grimlock. It is awesome, if an little short, and you really get the powerful, brutal nature of the Dinobots leader coming through. One thing I will say is that they changed the name of Slag to Slug, which I can understand, but no, just no.

The campaign sets up a sequel really, really well, though will it be the G1 Transformers game fans have be pining for over the last few years? Well that's tough to say, but it will certainly be interesting if nothing else.

The game also features multiplayer, which isn't bad. There is your standard death match mode and all the usual suspects, and Transforming into vehicle and shooting off to find the enemy, then changing back and blasting them into oblivion is as satisfying as ever, but there isn't that much meat to the mode. Character customization is there so theoretically you can make a unique Autobot or Decepticon to take on-line, but I found that isn't as fleshed out as Activision would have you believe.

There is a horde mode, called Escalation here and again that is pretty good, but your mileage may vary with your affinity for such modes in modern games.Overall, Fall of Cybertron is a very well made game with plenty to do, even if the campaign is a little short.

The only real downside is that the PS3 version that I played had some bugs and technical issues. I had to restart the game at least once when it froze during a cutscene, and the frame rate can dip quite badly at times. There is also a strange audio bug that sees voices cut in after the lips of characters have started to move, which is distracting to say the least.

In the end, your enjoyment will come from how much of a Transformers fan you are. While not a game purely for die hard fans, they will probably get a lot more out of it then casual observers of the franchise, I know I did, but those casual's will find a great, well made third person shooter to get stuck into.