High Moon Studios finally let us go hands-on with the multiplayer for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. Right off, I’ll say that those that played and enjoyed MP in its predecessor, War for Cybertron, will be pleased to hear that this one is just as easy to get into, and just as fun to play. I didn’t get much time with MP, but I already feel pretty good about it.
Team Deathmatch was a good time. My group rolled tough, stuck together, and fought…as best as we could. We lost, but at least we tried hard. I played using a Scientist class bot, which is pretty limited in the strength department, but moves around well (I love changing from ship to bot to get around) and plays a key role in team play with its lock-on healing beam. Like any good bot, my guys could take hits, and I kept them topped off as much as I could, but the damned monster-ass Titans are too tough, and we fell hard under their attacks. You’ll need real teamwork to take these guys down.
I also did time with the game’s node-taking/defending conquest mode, which wasn’t as entertaining as it needed to be as all of the other players seemed to be lost in the map. Maybe a too-big map is at fault here. I did plenty of node taking as well as defending, but most of my time was spent crusin’ for a brusin’, looking for any kind of action in the map’s multi-tiered zones. What little action I saw playing as the zippy Infiltrator class was nice, with some good fights happening around node defense, but I was never fully engaged like I was in Team Deathmatch.
I had only a limited to play with the game’s multiplayer customization features, but I suspect that this will be hugely popular when the game ships. The four classes, Infiltrator, Destroyer, Scientist and Titan, can be tweaked from top to bottom in whatever way you please. Colors, shapes, sizes, weapons — you name it. If you’ve ever dreamed of creating your own Transformer, this feature will tickle you metallic pink. (Seriously, that’s an option.)
Finally, High Moon’s Matt Tieger confirmed that both Dinobots and Insecticons will eventually become playable classes in multiplayer. It sounds like they’ll be DLC options, but this is still great news for Transformer fans.
Transformers Fall of Cybertron will be released August 21 on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
