Update: Hasbro have now clarified their previous comments, claiming they were made "in error":
“To clarify, comments that suggest Transformers games have been lost were made in error. We apologize to Activision and regret any confusion; they’ve been great partners, and we look forward to future opportunities to work together.”
Original story: Transformers owners Hasbro have said they would like to see older video games based on the beloved toy franchise to make a return - except those games are lost somewhere on a hard drive inside Activision.
]]>Oh, how it pains me to say this. If you felt you could have waited an eternity to get around to playing Fall of Cybertron, War For Cybertron or Devastation, that trypticon of broadly well-received, Activision-published Transformers third-person shooters, I've got bad news.
Here's a hint: they've been removed from Steam, plus all other digital marketplaces - as have subsequent and worse sequels. This is bad comedy.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
A hyper-kinetic, 80s animation-styled Transformers brawler was the entirely obvious thing to do, in hindsight. It's just that no-one thought to do it until recently. Whatever boring old men who read comics in the 80s (hello) might think, the popular concept of Transformers is nothing more than big huge robots twatting each other in the face, so Devastation taking that to the extreme was only sensible.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Most Transformers games are awful, which isn't enormously surprising given we're talking about annual shooty-bang ties-in for bottomlessly stupid movies based on a toyline from the 1980s. But said toyline did inspire some excellent comics - including the current More Than Meets The Eye - so it's not a given that retro-geek nostalgia about giant shapeshifting robots has to be appalling. Until this year's cel-shaded brawler Devastation, Fall of Cybertron was about as good as got it (at least on PC - the old PS2 Transformers: Armada is extremely ambitious), in part because it embraced lore and classic characters in a way that earlier games hadn't, but mostly because it managed a sense of scale. This last is particularly suprising given that FOC was not set on Earth and did not feature any tiny squishy humans to contrast against the Cybertronians' immense scale.
]]>Transformers: Devastation [official site] is a third-persion brawler'n'shooter from Platinum Games, they of Bayonetta fame, and concerns itself with Optimus Prime and a few Autobot chums kicking seven bells out of Megatron and his cronies. Heavily styled after the 80s cartoon and toys, is this empty nostalgia or a deft blend of past and present?
The little boy in me is overjoyed. The somewhat grown-up, discerning games-player in me is not unhappy either.
]]>I remain mildly concerned that Transformers: Devastation [official site] will be a game I can only watch others play rather than do much with myself, because these bony hands have never been great at combos. But look at it. LOOK AT IT. Even if you're not dangerously susceptible to 1980s toylines, it's a delight to behold. High-speed tyrespins on downed enemies! Fights on top of collapsing suspension bridges! Mid-air hammer/tyrannosaur switching! Even Bumblebee doesn't look like a total prick.
]]>While a lot of Alec's interest in Transformers: Devastation [official site] is down to it using ye olde Generation 1 robodesigns, mine is entirely founded upon it being a new third-person punch-o-beating game from the folks behind Bayonetta, Vanquish, The Wonderful 101, and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Listing those names there, I realise that giant fighting robots transforming into cars and cassette players is actually one of the more mundane concepts Platinum have built a game around.
Anyway, you might have missed its announcement during all the E3 fuss, so here's a new trailer.
]]>Just a quick update on Transformers Devastation, which I got all excited about yesterday - partly because it's the Bayonetta/Metal Gear Revengywengy devs making it but mostly because I'M A HELPLESS MANCHILD WHO REMAINS FASCINATED BY PLASTIC ROBOT TOYS HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME OH GOD WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME.
Last night, we got a better look at how Platinum's 80s-styled robo-brawler actually plays. It's a lovely-looking thing and oozes fan service from every cel-shaded pore, but I'm feeling it less than I was.
]]>I've been on holiday. I come back to work mid-E3. It's like being hurled into the sea, only instead of waves and seagulls there are explosions and men's khaki-clad bottoms everywhere. I doggy-paddle frantically, searching for something to grab onto, to stay afloat in this ocean of screaming bluster. I'll swim through it all in time, sure, but give me something safe and familiar to get my sealegs from. Ah, of course. A new Transformers game from Activision. It'll be more routine shooty-bang from a jobbing in-house developer, and it will resolutely refuse to give long term plastic robot fans what they want in favour of supporting whatever joylessly spiky thing the movies or toyline are currently doing. I can snarl at it mechanically and... wait, what?
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