Rumor: Luxoflux Making Transformers 2 Video Game

Seems the new TF2 game has already started being made...

http://www.seibertron.com/news/view.php?id=12924

Dont know if this has been reported but i have never heard of this company???

(Original source here: http://softrockhallelujah.blogspot.c...hing-make.html)

They did Vigilante 8 on the PS2 some years ago, which was avery fun game imo. It's being re-released on XBLA soon too.

They make pretty good car combat games, this might work out well.

I hope so, the first Transformers game was pants.

ah nice!

i loved the vigilante 8 games [and am eagerly awaiting the xbox live version]

hope its gonna be cool!

They have just barely announced the company? Doesn't that mean they barely have a year to design, make, and market the game? Sounds like were gonna get another rushed piece of crap headed our way.

Actually, the article title states that they are already working on it.
The whole thing is a rumor anyway.
Besides, all game adaptions of movies suck, its the law.

Bring on a TFA video game.

It may have been in development for months already, or just weeks, we don't know and aren't likely to.

A TFA game would also be a licensed game... er go, just as likely to suck.

Software catalogue for Luxoflux (not entirely encouraging...) with average review scores (all games are multi-platform):

Vigilante 8 (~85%)
Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense (~77%)
Star Wars: Demolition (~67%)
True Crime: Streets of LA (~78%)
Shrek 2 (~71%)
True Crime: New York City (~60%)

So, averall they're pretty much in the same seat as Traveller's Tales, making uninspired licensed games without any real gems. At least they have better experience with driving games...

If only Melbourne House could be hired to work on Transformers again...

I just hope it's not all about time limits and racing to checkpoints and fights confined to just one small area inside an invisible ring. I'd also like some better driving controls and some ranged weapons that are actually worth using as opposed to melee and having to throw stuff all the time. Being able to choose a character to play as and some two-player action might be fun too. Also, bonus features that aren't mostly stuff that's already all over the internet anyway.

Surely none of that's too much to ask for?

I would be more worried about the movie, they only have one year to shoot it and do the post-production stuff, which in TF would take a looong time. For quality sake, I hope they push back the sequel to 2010

am I the only one who thinks it's weird that they mentioned the movie being based off of "still life with woodpecker?" that's a good, albeit weird, book, but I don't see the TF connection AT ALL.

You aren't the only one. The blogger has a weird sense of humor, which is one of the reasons why I'm calling this a rumor for now.

What a load of crap!

No matter who does the movie game you just know it's going to bad because the games just cash in on the popularity of a movie or the characters the movie is based on rather than depending on being a good solid game to play.

Maybe if we get a Transformers game one of these days that isn't rushed out to be released with the movie then we can get a good solid game that is fun to play and just happens to have the name Transformers on it rather than banking on you spending $60 on a game that will be in bargin bin in 6 months.

Eh, the game will be ok but the movie will rock!!!!

I'm hoping vicarious visions got the DS one again. Their previous engine was almost perfect. Just needs more expansive levels, more vehicle alt modes, and more customization. Also, an actual online mode would be nice already, instead of that allspark war, but having both would be even better. I'd just like a way to pal around online in this city with buddies.

If they could take a cue from that version and the G1 models in the other games, I'd be extremely happy.

Console and PSP by themself though, not as good as they could have been, but the G1 models and nods were a nice touch. DS engine all the way on these! That game was actually pretty damn good. Not to mention that story method just worked wonders. Play as yourself as a bot, as opposed to just characters from the movie. It really gave it that immersion the others lacked in my honest opinion. All it needs is a way to take your bot to the war with the other user bots.

only 2 of those games are licensed

4 of those.
Shrek, star wars, and the 2 true crime.

yeah vigilante 8 was sick, so i have hope that this game won't blow goats.

The TF game for the PSP was a good game but it was too short, we need the developers of that to work on the 360 and PS3 ones because that would be epic

slightly off topic, but this news lead me to investigate the book mentioned and it gave me two things:
1, a book i now must read while waiting for the game
2. and a quote to give a dear friend who lost her boyfriend.
"Something has got to hold it together. I'm saying my prayers to Elmer, the Greek god of glue."
indirectly, thanks TFW2K5, for not only dropping tons of news and for serendipitously leading me to a source of help for someone.

comments about the game, i am holding till i see something concrete.

Set expectations to "meh", and fire when ready.

Melbourne House was bought by Krome Studios, and they are currently working on the PS2, PSP and Wii versions of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

You'd be suprised,
My brother is a programmer at Next Level Games and I have a little insight into the industry. A year is really not that short of a time period when you consider a lot of the backbone programming can be shared from previous work they have done. EA for example has libraries of coding that is shared throughout their sports franchises (character motions, background elements, basic menu structures, etc.) Every year they prduce a new version of almost all of their sports franchise games, and make updates as needed.
From what I have seen a year seems about standard for the gaming industry, with some exceptions in a major title release. (counting from the game titles I know my bro has worked on.) and being this close to E3 this is usually when new projects start.

A lot of it will come down to decisions at Luxoflux (if they indeed have the franchise) and whoever they are producing the game for (Activision? didn't they license the first one.) and of course obligitory input from Hasbro.
Apparently sometimes it comes down to what some executive wants to see, as opposed to what makes a good game.

On a side thought, this also means that we will hopefully start to see some leaks coming out. A basic storyline and character (at least initial) concepts as well as environments should all be somewhat decided upon at this point.
We'll likely see revisions as before, but I'm certain that early versions exist at this point.

Crap or not, I know I will play it. Likely not a purchase.

Never heard of it before, but after a reading a brief synopsis, it seems like this is more the bloggers off skew reference to the overall style or theme. I would'nt take this comparison too literal at this point. Feels a little to deep for Bay's style of directing, but I could see him make it work.

I loved True Crime: Streets of LA.

Very awsome game. The sequel, however it sucked.

Guess transformers 3 we'll have to hope Rockstar gets.

I'm still holding out hope though that the Nintendo DS version will be good again, if the others flop a bit. Hopefully, they use a deeper engine than before. But as someone else stated, who knows how long or when it'll be done. Game developers have learned to be more silent with plans and moves now. Just look at MK vs DC for example. Who really saw that coming? Upon many other games as of late that have kept silent about any detail.

What would really be nice though? Give it to rockstar, GTA Transformers. Full on open world sandbox game. With massive online. But that's just my hopes. The game has huge potential if they wouldn't treat it as 'some movie game'. I guess that's why I liked the DS one so much since it was a technical marvel on DS. Sure the graphics weren't stellar, but it was an actual 3D GTA like game on DS. Great way to wind down from many many custom robo battles.

I'd climb over all of you to pick the game up if Rockstar was the developing company behind the game. I mean who wouldn't want "Grand Theft Autobot"???? Course they'd have to change the gameplay and mission mechanics somewhat, but it would make one hell of a Decepticon game. (Imagine being...I dunno...Swindle, maybe, and entering the weapons cheat and just continuously blowing shit up. The Rhino code would get you G2 Megatron or something like that.)

Good times, good times.

For you, mate. Yes.

Good to see you here!


On topic though, regarding the remark about TF2 being based on Still Life With Woodpecker...ummm...April Fool's Day was a month ago. You're a little late, Surfer Girl.

Bullshit. I work in the game industry and a year is not a lot of time to get a good game out. You might be able to grind a *fair* one out, but a good one? Not fucking likely. Even when leveraging existing tech. The only way that scenario usually works out is if preproduction starts *before* that year of production and you are building on an existing pipeline. The sports games are usually roster updates with maybe a feature or two thrown in and shouldn't be considered "new games".

That being said, I hope they pull it off.

Cool down...
Never intended to start an arguement, just making an observation from the outside.

I can understand your point.

Not being in the industry myself, I will admit that there is a lot of pre-production planning during the "project secrecy" period that goes into a good game, and I know a major franchise like Halo can go 3-5+ years. Or at least to what I expect a hardcore gamer would call a good game. Plus a lot of the Games Next level has produced So far have not been platformers with extensive environments or levels so may not be a fair comparison.

Seemed to me that the last few games that Next Level produced though were pushed through the programming phase within a 1-2 year period. I believe this to be true of Super Mario Strikers, and Strikers Charged (seemed it was more like a year). Neither of these are Level intensive, so it's not a good comparison, and yeah the second was almost a copy of the first. I thought they were good games though.

I for one am not expecting anything more than the first game. It was good enough, but I'm not expecting something to the level of HALO. i don't think anybody should. This will be a money machine not because of the quality of the game but because it has Transformers on it.

I guess it's more an opinion of what you call a "good" game vs. "crap", I'm not a big gamer and don't buy, so my opinion in not as harsh as others.

HEY, remember the horrible track record of Retro Studios, and the equally questionable first screenshots of Metroid Prime, and then their first game ending up being one of the best ever made.

Just saying

It's possible to hammer out a good game in about a year or so. The problem with movie games though is they have to be out at the same time as the movie. So let's say you have a pretty good non-movie game that did well in beta testing, then you can release a good game. Now say your pretty good game had some problems in beta testing, instead of releasing a bad game you can push back the release date to fix the game. Sadly movie games have to be out ready or not since they can't be pushed back to be improved before release.

Just look at the history of games being pushed back by big publishers. Heck Blizzard is doing good to say a game will be out in some decade, but they make some pretty darn good games.

I personally had fun with the TF game on my PC, no less (though yeah, buggy as hell). It was rediculously hard, but if they can take the faults of the first game and improve or fix them, it could turn out pretty okay.

Didn't mean to bite your head off, but it seems like the general public is dreadfully misinformed into what goes into making these games. People tend to assume we do this shit in our garages over the weekend and want to release less than stellar games.

At any rate, I wouldn't count out Transformers 2 until getting a look at some gameplay footage, but if I were an oddsmaker I'd put the over/under metascore in the low 70s.

Now if they'd hire me for that project, I'd guarantee a 100. But that's only because I'm the hardest of the hardcore transformer fans ever.

Just to give a little background as to where this rumour eminated from, some people (including myself) have been following "Surfer Girl"'s blog for quite some time and she's right approximately 60-70% of the time.

As for Luxoflux; meh.

I'd like something a bit different than the style a lot of movie games seem to be these days. The TF game and those Spider-Man and Superman games all use pretty much the same 'go from here to there in this time limit and then fight this guy in this designated area while lots of drones run around poking at you' style (and probably engine). I'd like something a bit more free, and with unlockable bonus features which have more of an impact on the game than just a new skin here and there. I'm betting though the next one will just be more of the same as the first one, regardless of who makes it.
I'm infiltrating here through the medium of pies and interpretive dance.

You sure are, my friend. Bring on the pies!

you know i was hoping we might see a game before the next movie

I hope the new game is good. I didn't buy the TF1 video game, simply cause I read the reviews of the game being crap.