When I first embraced the idea of playing a game that showed a part of my childhood in a new way, I was torn. While I am not the largest fan of the Transformers series, I do enjoy the movies.  When Transformers: War for Cybertron came out we were introduced to the battle-torn Cybertron, albeit a  little too cartoony for my liking.  The game itself was just okay to me. So when Fall of Cybertron came out, I reached for it hoping that it would improve upon the last entry in to the series.  In some ways it has, better graphics, decent story, availability but at the end of the day it disappointed.

The levels are written for play as either a Deception or an Autobot without you having much choice. This gives the game a nice scripted feel without the lag that often comes from trying to present both sides of the game. I do have to give props to the developers for having a shared loot system here. Anything you gather and any upgrades you earn are available to use on all robots you assign. While many people prefer to play only as one specific robot, don’t let this deter you from playing as you still have plenty of opportunity to switch back and forth between your robot and vehicle form.  The game itself is beautifully done. If I had to close my eyes and imagine a world of robots at war with one another this would be about as close as I could get. The scenery has all of the rust, bolts, rivets, and injuries. One thing that you will either love or hate will be the cut scenes that further the story. For me, I don’t think the story was strong enough to warrant as many cut scenes as there are. I am all about blowing other robots up and transforming in to my ride to speed through levels.  If you are a story driven gamer, you will enjoy the amount of effort put in to making the game look great.

Now the number one thing that all gamers and geeks have been going insane about sine it was announced was the ability to play as the Jurassic switching Grimlock. While Grimlock, shield and sword  or his monstrous size and fire breathing dinosaur ability is a great addition to the game, I am personally on the other side of this. I have never understood the continuity of gameplay of having a robot turn in to a dinosaur. Yeah, I get it. The thought of a car turning in a robot is just as farfetched but at least a car is a machine. It always annoys me when logic is not used.  Fans of him will love his dominance, and the good almost two hours of game play where you get to use him. For me personally, I think it was just something the developers threw in to attract sales. Which brings me to my biggest complaint…..

WHERE THE HELL IS THE CO-OP?!?!?

I would much rather you left Grimlock out and gave us co-op back. In today’s gaming age, any non-RPG game without a co-op, especially online, is not worth the sixty dollars I have to drop in to it. Now I have to play through and then off to the local game exchange because the replayability is ZERO. I can try to sugar coat this but once you beat this game, you are done. You will not come back to it. You will not break it out with your friends. You will put this beat the clock, race your jet, blow up some bots game on your shelf and leave it. I am furious as Transformers is a perfect co-op game. What their reasoning for cutting this integral part of the game out is beyond me.

In the end you have a beautiful game that you should rent, not buy. You will play through it once, and be done with it. If you are Transformers fan you will enjoy the game and the story behind how Autobots and Decepticons destroyed Cybertron and made their way to Earth. Or you could simply watch Dark Side of the Moon and accept that story. In the end all I can say, do not rent this to play at a party or with friends but if you just want to burn five hours of your night, you could do worse than dropping the five dollar rental for Fall of Cybertron..