There. I said it. The story in this game leaves a lot to be desired for how talked up it was. A lot of events go down, and the origins for many well known but untouched pieces of lore were set in place, but in the grand scheme of things it felt like they glossed over way to much and didn't pace it correctly.

Starscream and Megatron meet. Starscream kinda just goes "LOL OK I'LL FOLLOW JOO" when Megatron goes Galaxy Force on his ass. Did they even give an answer for keeping Starscream around afterward?

Optimus becoming a Prime. Something awesome happen? Appearance change? Nope. It was a bunch of old dudes saying "Oh hey, we're kinda shit out of luck here with dead leaders, since you kinda look cool you're a Prime now? k?"


That, and how its supposed to sync up with the G1 toon? They did a flat out terrible job of synching anything if that's what they really were going for. See the debates raging the "Wait, this can't be a G1 Prequel" thread.

Don't get me wrong, the in game chatter is brilliant and they do a great job capturing the characters, but the story just kinda falls flat in a few big areas.

 

The Exodus novel fleshes things out quite a bit more. But I agree, the story seems rather "abridged".

 

They kept Starscream around because he knows how to manufacture dark energon - he presumably the best at this. I mean there was a short convo as to why they kept him around. And as for Starscream, he was impressed by Megatron's control over dark energon. he is a scientist remember.

And isn't this just supposed to be a prequel? It could link to any continuity.

 

I don't consider that a flaw or a con, but a pro and a plus. Harken's back to G1 cartoon and the arcade games of the late '80s and early '90s. And come to think of it, it's a perfect story for summer "explosive" blockbuster, much better than the piece of shyte we got last year.

 

For the record, they said at SDCC that the game was a prequel to Prime and not G1.

 

It's a game first. They could have fleshed the stories out with 20 minute long cutscenes, Metal Gear Solid 2 or Xenosaga style, but then you'd be complaining about the lack of gameplay and the length of the cutscenes.

I think the story does its job well enough - it fleshes out the reasons for you going to each location and fighting the characters that you do.

If you want a story, read Exodus. It's a more complete version of the story and fleshes things out better right up until the ending which kind of felt a little rushed. But it delves into the personalities and reasoning far better.

PS main reason for keeping Starscream around boiled down to "if I kill you, I lose both a treacherous lieutenant and a first class aerial combat officer. If I keep you, I keep an air commander and you owe me your life"

 

Totally agree about the story being lacking.

Not that I really expected anything else from a Transformers game but yeah, it's very bland and glosses over stuff in parts.

Still a good game though.

 

Just because cartoons 20 years ago couldn't keep their stuff together doesn't make it more acceptable now. Heck Exodus is quite different from the game.

It doesn't need to be something more extravagant, but more than just bare bones would have been nice.

Also I believe WFC is a catch all continuity where similar events happen for various Transformers origin stories, but the way they were insisting that this was a G1 sync up was strictly PR talk.

 

I agree the story could be better. But I bought it mainly for multiplayer. I think that's what they put the most time into.

 

I don't really care if it's a prequel, sequel, squeakquel, wheeliequel, or tacolocoquel, It's still a decent story regardless.

 

  Agreed.

 

Here betting if everyone looked like the movieformers, everyone going on about how great the plot is will instead be slamming it for being lame 

 

Exactly.

Nobody plays a game for the story. It's fine by game standards, but it's a game, man. As long as it's clear what I'm doing and why, I'm good. Just let me play.

 

generally, i do play games for the story, but when it comes to transformers, if i wanted story i'd go watch G1

 

I wish they could've done an RPG like Kingdom Hearts, that way we get both a good, deep story and awesome gameplay. I DO play the Kingdom Hearts games - and plenty of other games - for their gameplay AND story.

In terms of story, the story's decent, but I just think it was too short. Exodus does flesh it out a bit more. The characterization's great, and the banter is funny. I'm content with it. I just wish it was longer.

 

hey that might work. KH is squad based too. add in the customization and deep story and its golden. only thing i see that will put off fans is if they cant play their favorite character and how would multiplayer work?

 

That's sometimes horse crap. A good story keeps gamers hooked, especially in the RPG areas. This really isn't one of those games because the gameplay is still fun otherwise. The game touted being an "origin story" but I felt it fell a little flat.

It doesn't need to be giant epic cutscenes, but it felt like they cut off before any real explanation was given. The pacing, especially on the Autobot side of things, seemed to skip around too much. It felt like they glossed over too much, especially how talked up the game's story aspect was for filling in the hows and whys of the mythos.

 

I understand where you are coming from with the story jumps. This is one of the reasons why I wouldn't mind getting some campaign DLC down the line to flesh out things even more. I mean, I'm ok with how it turned out, but I sure wouldn't mind getting a bit more of the in-between stuff.

 

like get arcee and jazz fight able in the decepticon campaign

 

So BioWare are wasting their time when they make games like DragonAge, or Mass Effect or Knights of the Old Republic by threading their set pieces, good gameplay and excellent visuals onto a deep and compelling story. I don't buy that.

Now of course not every game can get that kind of attention paid to its story, and sometimes Rule of Cool and Rule of Fun can override this. Modern Warfare is a sterling example here. The story is serviceable but its many flaws become obvious under closer examination but that rarely occurs because the game is fun to play.