What do you think happened to Grimlock? I have no clue. Did he die? I couldn't really tell. And if he survived what do you think is the likelyhood of his being a playable character in the next game?

He's one tough mother, so probably still alive. Next game who knows, if they are willing to take it as far as Earth it's going to be interesting to see how well they handle the transition.

I don't think you get rid of such an awesome character like Grimlock. He'll be back. I mean Matt Teiger pushed so hard to get Hasbro to let him have the Dinobots in this game, High Moon can't just let them go so quickly.

I just finished the game yesterday (It was great fun btw, I wish the entire game was more like the final mission though. That was very the new Mortal Kombat like in it's seamless transitions), but I encountered a bug during the Grimlock stage where Optimus didn't show upon the vid-com when he and Grimlock were talking. Weird. And did I miss it or did Grimlock never devolve enough mentally to actually say "ME GRIMLOCK KING!"?

@bluelantern1995:

I know it's 6 months later, but I just am reading these threads now.

They covered Grimlock's fate in the IDW comic book sequel that solely feature the Dinobots I'm pretty sure. The series is called Rage of the Dinobots.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers_Prime:_Rage_of_the_Dinobots

That being said I suspect there won't be a third game since the events of this seem to lead right in Transformers : Prime cartoon show. Theoretically both are in the same continuity (which Hasbro calls the Aligned continuity) but as I previously mentioned there are some really weird inconsistencies between the game series and the cartoon show for something that is supposedly in the same fiction. The Rage of Dinobot comic series contradicts some of the game's events as well....

@slag: It is a shame, but I had the same suspicion upon finishing the game. They managed to make the games that they did because they occupied a less-explored area of the Transformers history. The fan in me would like to see their take on the events that transpire thereafter, but too much of it is probably set in stone.

@veektarius:

Yeah I hear ya, High Moon found the characters voice much better in this game. It ended right when it was starting to get really interesting where they were taking the fiction and characters.

Still maybe because I'm just getting older (and distinctly remember a time when Transformers was gone and seemed like it would never come back) but I'm just grateful we got these games at all.

If two is all the High Moon game series ends up being, I'm ok with that. At least they were two really solid fun games and didn't overstay their welcome. Easily the best Transformers games ever made.

What I would love to see is something more squad based that emphasizes more of the team nature of how the auto While these games were fun, I think it's tough leverage the giant cast of characters Transformers has in a shooter game. Something Squad based or maybe even a RTS or SRPG with an even heavier story focus. Probably wouldn't sell nearly as well, But I'd like it. :)

@slag: I don't know about an RTS, but I'd certainly be happy with another shooter that evolved the squad-based elements and would allow for more than two non-named characters to be on screen. As far as representing the entire Transformers Pantheon, let's be honest: even the show didn't do that. Been too long since I've played a good tactical squad based shooter.

I didnt play much of this game, probably up to the third chapter, but they totally ruined Optimous Prime.

One second he talks about saving lives, the next he is talking trash and wishing death all while mowing down hordes of nameless alien robots. Then there is a cut scene where he feels sorry and you are supposed to feel sorry because the nameless alien robots that are colored red are dieing.

I get that it was supposed to invoke emotion, but they didn't even try to set up that emotion aside from the beginning where a certain character dies, and the narration of the plot where they try to invoke your nastaliga.

After that they don't set up the story at all, there is no build up to why the war is happening, there is no emotional attachment to these characters because they don't do anything aside from yell different lines and shoot.

I understand that it is probably really hard to make robots emote. but when you are asking me to be angry at one kind of robot, and sad for another robot that looks exactly the same, but colored differently you need to show why one is different then the other, why one robot is better then the other.

Thats my rant, and as I said, its probably really hard to make robots emote.

@veektarius:

That's true the shows never have (although the original series at least cameoed a huge number of characters), but that's also something that I think games can do better than TV.

High Moon certainly tried in their own way and they did a decent job, by rotating playable characters and in War for Cybertron have squads of three. But it just felt weird for Optimus Prime to be charging to the decagon without a squad of Autobots with him like you know he would have.

Have you ever played Valkyria Chronicles? One thing I really liked about it was the huge roster. Now granted there were 5-7 characters with any real depth or relevance to the main story but every solider you could use in your army had unique voice acting, design and bios. Something like that is what I'd like to see instead of random Generabots and Generacons fleshing out the world past the main characters. I don't need in depth features on the tertriary characters but it'd be nice if they were the world fillers so to speak. That would be a good way to leverage the cast to the benefit of the game.

Also one thing I've never liked about previous Transformers games is the sheer amounts of enemies you face and that the named characters usually end up being bosses. I'd rather have fewer but bigger fights with every opponent being a named character. Add some weight to the encounters instead blowing through 800 nameless bots. Squad vs Squad.

And lastly i didn't mention this earlier. but one thing I used to love about Transformer fights was the giant robot grappling. High Moon obviously knew about this, evidenced by the final boss fight. So if they could institute a robust hand to hand element i think it would add another last missing piece of the Transformers magic.

So I guess I want a cross between Freedom Fighters, Valkyria Chronicles and Sleeping Dogs starring the Transformers. Not asking for too much eh?

maybe that would be way too expensive to make, but man that would be sweet if they ever did.

@dagbiker:

It's too bad you quit there, since I thought the Optimus chapters were easily the worst in the game. Chapter 4, when it switched to Cliffjumper & Jazz is where I went from being lukewarm on the game to being totally on board. I noticed what you did and felt they didn't get the Optimus character right. You're absolutely right there was a really weird dissonance where Optimus was bemoaning violence and then simultaneously messing dudes up. It was very strange.

Peter Cullen did a good job voice acting him as only he can , but the writers did no favors with what they were giving him to say.

As far as the setup goes, I think they were banking on you playing the previous game which touches more on what you noticed was missing. Still I agree they could have done quite a it more to develop the characters.

oh and spoilers

Bumblebee got better. He's a main character in the Transformers: Prime cartoon show which follows the events of this game.

@slag

: I haven't played Valkyria Chronicles but I know what you mean by it. In general I think you've brought up two of the major issues with modern game design that I've been harping on in these forums for months or years. The first is getting rid of the arbitrary cap on the number of allies you bring into battles. This goes as much for RPGs as for transformers: don't give the player more characters than he can use unless you have a really good reason why half of them have to stay home. And the whole "So as not to attract attention" excuse only gets you so far.

The other is the inappropriate use of cannon fodder in games that should have a greater focus on small scale fighting. In recent memory, aside from Transformers, Max Payne, Tomb Raider, and Spec Ops: The Line have all had this problem. The root of the problem is that shooting has gotten too easy with modern controls and the focus on realistic settings makes bullet spongy enemies pretty tough to swallow. I think the only solution is to increase the realism in the difficulty of aiming and reloading a weapon. That would, in turn, make melee solutions more ideal.

I agree with you about the cannon fodder in transformers for that reason, but at the same time, I don't know if your suggestion is the solution either. The source material leaves them in kind of a Catch-22 situation.

The cartoon was defined by large scale laser battles from cover where almost no one hit anything. The movie (which I think we can agree is the real inspiration for these games) is characterized by battles that are almost as decisive and final as real life, where a single well placed shot can put a bot out of action. It'd probably be possible to build a game around that dynamic - there are certainly enough characters in Transformers to manage it, but you'd dig yourself a real hole lore-wise with all the transformer corpses that would be left behind after a decent length game.

@veektarius:

Yeah Ally cap is silly. I always assumed the real reasons behind it were popularity based ( to allow the player the choice to not use characters they didn't like if they wanted to) and perhaps memory resource related. I agree it seems unnecessary.

re: cannon fodder- I personally don't think it's the shooting as much as it's the getting shot. If getting shot once or twice by AI would take you out, most of those games would get real tough real quick. Still I know what you mean. I bet it would be likely is financial suicide for Crystal Dynamics , but if say Tomb Raider only had ten enemies to kill but made them into tenser encounters more like it used to be back in the PS1 era, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest. Personally I prefer the old "tomb raiding" aspect of the series, that seems to be out of favor at the moment. Never been a Spec Ops guy, although Max Payne is pretty fun. It's amazing how over the counter pills can cure bullet wounds for that guy.

Now I see the transformers fiction as not a catch 22 in this case and here's why. Transformers are often really hard to kill especially in the really old stuff,it's pretty common trope in the fiction that characters get rebuilt after getting blown up. Granted lately death has been more permanent in the Movies and such probably for dramatic sake. Even now though what actually kills a Transformer is really inconsistent. They can be basically be completely disassembled and rebuilt with 99%new parts to no ill affect. It used to be you had to crush the Brain Module to actually finish the job, I think, but after Sparks entered the picture in Beast Wars now it's usually crushing that.

But even if you take a character out in a mission, there are plenty plausible ways to bring that character back for a later one without really contradicting the universe's fiction very unlike say if you were doing a game featuring humans. Heck you could do it over and over and it would fit with the fiction just fine. The old "Stasis Lock" excuse was the comic series' favorite mechanism to get rid of old characters without upsetting fans back in the 80's. If memory serves I think Sunstreaker and SideSwipe among others were in StasisLock for roughly 85% of the initial series run. It was a nice callback to see it used in this game as well. Maybe a cheap story telling mechanism for a comic book, but very handy immersion tool for a video game.

Me Grimlock is King