The reason i wanted an xbox 360. I remember the trailer was the most badass thing i had ever seen. Every now and then ill play it and FOC in order, hoping one day some company will put them on a collection for current or future consoles.

 

IIRC this was the one where you could stealth in multiplayer and then knock a guys head off with one shot. Or disguise yourself as the other team, fly in, transform, and unleash hell. I loved the pvp in this.

 

Nice write-up!

 

This is what it is about folks. Great story. I love seeing people enjoying and having great memories via this fandom.


What I played of the game I really enjoyed it. Maybe one day I will go back and play it, but I know the downloadable extras are gone, so I don’t know how much that will alter my playing.

 

When you say "gameplay was almost completely unprecedented with little influence to draw from in terms of mechanics", you mean in terms of past TF games, right?

 

Damn, and it almost made it to the 10th year mark. What poor timing for them to pull the servers when it was so close.

I loved Escalation the most. It was so much fun to see how far you could get. The strategies you could make with friends to kill enemies fast and make the waves go by faster, those cool giant feeling maps where you could explore for weapons and special holdout areas, characters with abilities that would help the outcome, good times. I hated what they did with escalation in FoC.

 

Not much love for the DS, as I expected. Still play it (played it this morning and beat Omega Supreme with Shockwave and Cyclonus), great, great game. It's only one of a few DS games I still play. I love the light RPG element and the big cast with different abilities, including some specials.

As I recall, the best experience I came up with was to read the first 8 or 9 chapters of Exodus (until the war breaks out), play through WFC Decepticons on the DS, then play WFC Xbox Autobot campaign.

Escalation was fun and was my first exposure to that kind of gameplay mode.

 

I had a blast playing this on Xbox 360 with fellow TFW2005 members. Kind of wish Hasbro would dip back into making console games like this and Fall of Cybertron, instead of crappy, free-to-play, microtransaction-riddled mobile games.

Le sigh.

 

I never played it, but it seems like yesterday everyone was talking about it, doing toy reviews, etc.  I enjoyed the hype and seeing people having fun. 

 

Oh shit! It did! Still looks amazing today! 

 

I didn’t have a PS3 when the game launched but I did have a DS. That game remains a fun little thing with still good voice acting, solid gameplay, good colors (in fact more vibrant than PS3), and fun multiplayer and lots of replay value.

When I did get a PS3, my first games were WFC, ROTF, and Bioshock 2. WFC was what I started with so it will always be that special inaugural game for me for the PS3 and indeed of the 2010’s.

I love the game. It’s not perfect, it’s difficult, and it’s maddening to have to scrap around desperately looking for ammo and health in pretty much every level. The visuals are often not that vibrant even if the general design of Cybertron is great. But the gameplay is still absolutely solid. Stuff like the Scrapmaker, the scatter blaster, the pulse rifle, the neutron assault rifles. The almighty fusion cannon and ion rifle. The really effective use of weapons in vehicle mode basically giving you a third gun to resort to.

The combat is great. In Escalation you really feel like you’re throwing absolutely everything you have at your disposal at the enemy. After AOE I fondly compared it to how Hound was using everything he had on his person to try to hold out. I remember learning techniques like using frak grenades as Megatron in a crowd of enemies only to follow up with the drain in a really nasty takedown. Fighting melee is pretty simple since all you can do is land a single hit at a time, but damn is it satisfying to whittle down that bruiser with a sword and a shield. Those heavy artillery guys with the Gatling guns were also cool, and the invisible snipers were spooky.

I have nostalgia for the various maps. That multiplayer map where it’s the remains of an orbital station was cool for being in outer space, I remember dominating there as a scientist using a sniper rifle and the faction swap ability (Ugh that was a great idea). Learning where the Energon cubes would spawn. In general the game’s Cybertron was one I wanted to explore. I remember a glitch on the Decepticon escalation map where you could escape and fly up to the 2D render of Cybertron. What an experience. The DLC maps were cool too, some of them got really pretty. I remember one DLC map where there was a lot of flowing Energon during a pink sunset and you could see Omega fighting off in the distance. One Escalation map was set within Trypticon so he’s threatening you every other day.

Oh! And those massive juggernauts that came out for Escalation wave 15 and up. THOSE were badass and it was awesome working together with players to bring them down.

The story? Undoubtedly influential since it was the launchpad of the Aligned continuity and Hasbro’s first attempt to streamline everything. Nothing special, but I enjoyed how batshit determined Megatron was. Half the planet would get blown up and he’d be like “this is all part of my massive plan!” And he still had the humor to snark at Breakdown for his whining and cowardice. Peter Cullen was great as usual with Optimus, not having to portray the violent berserker in Bay that he doesn’t like, but he had more acting opportunity than the boring cardboard cut out of TFP. Johnny Bosch was a great pick for Bumblebee, and the other actors they picked like Fred Tatasciore for Ratchet, Keith Szarabajka as Ironhide, Crispin Freeman as Breakdown, etc were great. Sam Riegel is the weak link, but I think he works great when he’s more subdued and underhanded.

I also like that despite mostly pulling from G1 and originally intending to be a G1 prequel, it still feels relatively fresh thanks to its art style, characterization, and references to other continuities like Slipstream and Demolishor, minor as they are.

Ugh. Such a game. From a bygone era where we actually had video games for Transformers. While it sucks that online support is gone, let’s face it, it was dominated by hackers and no one else for years. RIP. I love you, WFC.

Also, that Stan Bush ending credits sequence was badass and is still a bop.

 

I had a lot of fun when I played this back in 2017, and I'm glad I got it before it was delisted at the end of 2017.

The game had a nice plot, and gave a nice perspective of the Autobots and Decepticons.

Interesting, if you wanna take a chance, you can get Transformers War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron Steam Keys from Amazon UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Transformers-War-Cybertron-Code-Steam/dp/B01NCNPHEU
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Transformers-Fall-Cybertron-Code-Steam/dp/B01MZ1HSMQ

 

This was the game that got me back into Transformers as a franchise. Not into collecting (it took the fantastic Generations Rhinox for that) but just reading tons and tons about it on the internet and of course, playing the game.

I really liked this back in the day, fantastic game.

 

I didn\'t think I was old enough to feel old. :/

 

Thankfully the extras didn't affect gameplay in any major way. Only one I personally miss is the Throwback blaster on FOC but that can still be obtained if you're copy was purchased early enough or if you've still got the system data on your PS3/xb360.

 

Wicked game, hours and hours in multiplayer, hell even just the demo before the game released. This and FOC are some of the best gaming I ever had esp on multiplayer. Nothing like flying around to drop down, do a shockwave, drop a turret, transform back to jet and fire from above. And nothing worse than getting caught in the tank classes windmill attack haha, but I might be mixing up WFC and FOC now.

 

One of my top favorite games of all time.

 

Call me when FOC and ROTDS become ten.

 

WfC and FoC respectively saved Transformers for me....and I don't even play video games at all, lol.

For me, I fell in love with the Cinematics. Indeed, it was the respective 'Movie' versions that some creative souls cut together and put on Youtube that really did it for me. I know that the Bayverse has it's fans, and I totally respect that, but for me they were a disaster. WfC by contrast immediately struck me as a story-verse that was made by people like me, a G1 era Super-nut. I loved that the game mythos did new things but still remained reverent to the franchise's classic Mythology. And Primus forgive me, but I actually like Fred Tatasciore a bit better as Megatron than Frank Welker (who I still love and cherish as Megatron!). I loved the robot designs, and especially loved being taken on 3D tours of Cybertron. And to this day, Matt Tieger's hilarious and awesomely ballz-to-the-wall interview where he talked about his drive to include the Dinobots in FoC is still a favourite of mine. What's more is that imo it was these games that showed Hasbro that they couldn't just retire G1, like they had apparently been planning to do with the Dinobots. These games also prove that you don't need human characters in this in order to create a compelling story, no matter how amusing they may be (Shia Leboef). The games may be long gone, but that Hasbro has used the term War for Cybertron along with the same FoC story premise for their recent toy line... is the former's epitaph written in Alien steel!

Happy Anniversary WFC and FoC, and may Primus bless Matt Tieger and his talented crew! Thank you all for sharing your joy and genius with us!