Transformers: War for Cybertron Multiplayer Trailer Breakdown!

For much of my life, I have loved two things more than almost anything else: Video Games, and Transformers. Yet despite the seemingly limitless potential of these two virile parents to birth a child of unequaled power and beauty, we have been denied that perfect genesis. Instead, we have been forced to play pretend with mutant offspring that have clearly been inspired by their source material, but fail to do more than make you wish it could transform into a better game. With news of Transformers: War for Cybertron slowly leaking out, we wait with baited breath in the hopes that a new champion will rise, and finally return Transformers to its rightful place of Awesome.

There have been plenty of screen shots, hands-on previews, and a neat story trailer, but today saw the release of a multiplayer trailer, giving us a glimpse into what could be the most engaging part of the entire experience. However, the trailer moves pretty quickly. Only someone with a lot of time on their hands and a large amount of patience would sift through it frame by frame to pick each last, succulent bit of knowledge off its sturdy frame. Lucky for you, I am that man.

The trailer begins with the ESRB Teen rating, so rated for "Violence". This is a promising start. More promising still is the phrase that follows, "Create your own Transformers character." Peasants, rejoice. Then, in 5 seconds, they flash through that character creation process, barely giving you enough time to process what's going on. After taking a careful look at the screens, here's what I've been able to put together.

The first screen clearly shows the four classes available in the game, namely Scout (Bumblebee type), Scientist (Wheeljack/Ratchet type), Leader (Optimus Prime type) and Soldier (Ironhide type). Details on the specifics of these classes can be found below. In this menu, each class has its own experience level, starting with 0 and progressing to an unknown cap. Underneath each class heading are 3 slots. The top slot in the video reads "1", followed by "Unlocks at Level 5" and "Unlocks at Level 10". My guess is that these are character slots, and so that as you level up a class, you can create more characters in it. These slots may represent something else, such as chassis for your Transformer, or what not, but based on the similarities to a Modern Warfare type system, my guess is that you can unlock the ability to make and save more than one character in each class. Hopefully, the area that says "1" is a placeholder for the name of your Transformer. You could name him Slagface!

As the video scrolls down through each class, the right side of the screen shows the weapons, abilities and upgrades chosen for each slot. Each character can have two weapons, two abilities and three upgrades. No upgrades were shown in the video, so we can only guess that these are unlocked at a higher level, and that the grant some sort of passive benefit, similar to Modern Warfare's perks. Each class offers six weapons to fill a character's two slots, ranging from grenades to missile launchers to melee weapons. There seems to be some restrictions as to what weapons can be equipped in each slot, a la the primary/secondary weapon system in Modern Warfare 2. Each class has 4-5 unique weapons, but some are shared between classes. Each class has 4 abilities (at least that's what was shown in the video), and these are unique to each class. These abilities appear to be what gives each class its unique advantages and flavor.

The video then selects the Soldier character, and proceeds to a weapon selection screen. Here we see the options for weapons that can be equipped in the first weapon slot. The second weapon slot is grayed out, and it is impossible to tell whether that selecton is fixed or not. It may be that additional weapons aren't unlocked until a certain level is reached. Each weapon has four statistics associated with it: Damage, Range, Accuracy, and Rate of Fire. There is also a brief description of what each weapon does. The three given in the video are recorded in the Soldier section below.

Once weapons are selected (and presumably abilities and upgrades as well), an image of the Transformer appears, in this case, a Decepticon tank. There are three options on this screen. The first may be to select the skin or alternate mode of the transformer. In the video, this option reads "Crusher", and the right and left arrows on either side of it indicate that there are multiple options to scroll through. It is unknown how many options there are, and whether they would all be tanks, etc. Based on the later descriptions in the video, the only class with a Jet mode is the Scientist (much to the chagrin of Starscream fans), with the Soldier as a tank, the scout as a car, and the leader as a truck or larger vehicle of some sort. Hopefully there is some variety here, but we have yet to see. It would certainly be nice if they had a few options for each class, particularly some fem-bot options. It is also possible that "Crusher" refers to a color scheme, which if true would be appropriate, because it would crush my hopes if there were no options for changing what your Transformer turned into.

Underneath that option are two Color selection options, inventively labeled "Color 1" and "Color 2". It appears that "Color 1" is the primary color, and "Color 2" is a detail or trim color. The video then selects "Color 1" and launches into the color selection screen. There are preset colors that can be scrolled through with the right and left triggers. Once a swatch has been selected, you can then choose a shade of that color from a larger box, ranging from black to white and everything in between for that color. So, if you choose the green preset, you could then pick a shade of light or dark green.

Then, the video launches into some gameplay, highlighting each class with a bunch of text that seems largely fluff related. On closer inspection, it is entirely unfluffy! Each screen lists the weapons, abilities, and Killstreak rewards for each class. That's right, killstreaks. These don't seem to be customizable, but each class has unique rewards granted for killstreaks of 3, 5 and 7. Starting with the Soldier, here's a rundown of the information given for each class.

Soldier: The Soldier prefers an all out brawl full of flak over a tactical fight.

Weapons

Neutron Assault Rifle (Rapid Fire Mid Range Assault Rifle, D: 5, R: 5, A: 5, RoF: 9)

X12 Scrapmaker (Full-Auto Mini gun, D: 7, R: 6, A: 3, RoF: 8)

EMP Shotgun (Semi-auto close combat shotgun, D: 8, R: 3, A: 3, RoF: 4)

Thermo Rocket Launcher

Energon Hammer

Flak Grenade

Abilities

Hover – Gives the ability to hover in the air and increase weapon damage.

Whirlwind – Gives ability to do a whirlwind melee attack

Ammo Beacon – Deploy beacon which automatically refills teammate’s ammo when near it

Energon Sling – Disable Enemy abilities for a brief time

Killstreaks

3 kills – Ammo Matrix: refills team’s ammo and grenades

5 kills – Electromagnetic Pulse: Jam’s enemy team’s abilities for a short time

7 kills – Omega missile: Fires off a guided missile capable of mass destruction

Scientist: The Scientist has the highly prized jet form allowing him to bring his considerable support to his teammates wherever they are on the battlefield.

Weapons

Neutron Assault Rifle (Rapid Fire Mid Range Assault Rifle, D: 5, R: 5, A: 5, RoF: 9)

EMP Shotgun (Semi-auto close combat shotgun, D: 8, R: 3, A: 3, RoF: 4)

Photon Burst Rifle

Energon Repair Ray

Energon Club

Energon Grenade

Abilities

Shockwave – Pushes enemies back and causes damage

Spawn Sentry – Spawns a sentry at a location

Drain – Siphons health from enemies

Disguise – Appear as an ally to the enemy

Killstreaks

3 kills – Health Matrix 2.0: Teammates receive health for every kill

5 kills – Overshield Matrix: Teammates receive overshields

7 kills – Nulceon Shock Cannon: Spawn a usable rocket turret

Scout: The Scout uses hit-and-run tactics to deliver sudden damage and circumvent enemy defenses.

Weapons

Plasma Cannon

Null Ray

Scatter Blaster

Energon Sword

EMP Grenade

Energon Battle Pistol

Abilities

Cloaking – Become nearly invisible on the battlefield

Dash – Quickly dash in any direction

Decoy Trap – Spawns a decoy pickup which stuns enemies when touched

Mark Target – Tags an enemy with an electromagnetic pulse which weakens their armor and reveals their location

Killstreaks

3 kills – Orbital Beacon: Displays enemies location

5 kills – Energon Recharger: Health constantly regenerates for a brief time

7 kills – Orbital Beacon 2.0: Causes a level-wide EMP blast and tags all enemies with mark target

Leader: The Leader role is to move the lines of the battlefield by boosting the strength and defense of his teammates.

Weapons

Ion Blaster

Energon Battle Pistol

Magma Frag Launcher

Fusion Cannon

Energon Axe

Thermo Mine

Abilities

Warcry – Area of effect improves armor and increases damage output

Moleculon Bomb – Slows enemies who get near it and causes damage when it explodes

Barrier – Deploys an Energon shield barrier

Disruption – Forces victim to change form and locks them in that form for a brief period of time

Killstreaks

3 kills – Intercooler: Greatly decreases the cooldown time for ability use

5 kills – P.O.K.E. 2.0: Deadly melee attack that causes enemies to explode

7 kills – Thermo Mine Re-Spawner: Spawn a trail of thermo mines

And there you have it. Needless to say, I'm excited. Class based multiplayer? Experience and progression? Customizable characters? Transformers? Sign me up! Obviously there's a lot of borrowing going on, but hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. To finish things off, here are some timestamps throughout the video that show some abilities in action, and a few other fun things. Hit pause every once in a while, and enjoy the roboty goodness.

Timestamps

00:19 – Soldier Whirlwind ability with Energon Hammer

00:31 – Scientist Energon Repair Ray in action

00:35 – Scout Cloaking ability

00:37 – Various Energon melee weapons (Axe, Sword)

00:45 – Leader Warcry ability

00:51 – Aerial combat (Scientist only?)

00:56 – Soldier Hover ability in Tank mode, switches to normal (?)

01:03 – Leader Barrier ability (?)

01:08 – Scout Dash ability (?)

CES 2010 OR Target will install your Wii

The first episode of the year is up for your listening enjoyment!

We run down some of the news from this year's CES, from ad-hoc networks to six monitors in one! Take a listen and leave some feedback. The future is now! Find out what it is.

Episode 2.1

Did you get your money's worth?

A few days ago, we took a look at some strategies for making purchases you're happy with in 2010. Fast forward! You've got the game, and guess what? It's great! But is it great a week later? A month? A year? How do you determine whether a game was worth price?

Now, dear reader, we stepped into the land of opinion. We have different tastes (thankfully) and some games are going to more fun for some and less fun for others. Now, if you bought a game you don't think is fun, I'm sorry. It's happened to all of us gamers at one time or another. Let's assume that you DID buy a game you liked. Eventually, you'll move on. Yes, you might stop back by, check up on it, remember the good old days, but most of are always looking for the next big thrill, the next arena in which we can test our virtual mettle, and the games you have today will sit largely untouched. This is the way of the world, the circle of...video games.

Since it's impossible to quantify the "value" of any particular game to any particular person, the industry has latched onto one variable as a potential measure for a game's worth: time. It's a pretty simple idea. The more time you spend playing a game, the better your investment. Sorta.
It's a still a pretty wishy washy way to judge a game, but it's a good place to start. But how much is an hour worth?

Let's take another popular form of entertainment: movies. They, too, can be measured by time and cost. So, let's say that, on average, you pay $9.00 for 2 hours of entertainment at the movies. If we use that measure, how much time should we get out of a game at minimum for it to be at least as fun as a movie? Math time! $60.00 / $4.50 = 13.33

So, if you play a game for a little more than 13 hours, you can tell all your friends that video games aren't any more expensive than going to the movies. Given that most games these days have a single player story that lasts around 8-10, and if you add in a multiplayer mode, or replaying levels for fun or achievements, you can hit that 13 hour mark pretty easily.

Pay less, play more, and you're getting a lot more bang for your buck. "Wait," I hear you cry, "isn't that completely obvious?" Yes, yes it is. In the end, play the games you want. If you want it, then it's worth it. 13 hours or 3 days, we game for fun. And economics? Not so fun.

2010: The Year Your Wallet Dies

It's been a banner year for gaming. 2009 saw the release of some of the biggest games...well, ever! Uncharted 2, Assassin's Creed 2, Modern Warfare 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, just to name a few. Really, that's just a few. You'd think that after a slew of releases like that, things would slow down for a while. Just sit back, relax, and play through the all the games you just bought one more time.

Well, daydream's over. 2010 is on the horizon, and there are even MORE games waiting to chew through you're thinning bank account. I've already sat down and made a list of games that, individually, I would be willing to shell out $60.00 to play, and I've already got 17. That's not including games that haven't been dated yet, or the PS3, Nintendo DS or PSP. What's a gamer to do with so much on the table? Here's a few tips to keep in mind when deciding what you'll be playing in 2010.

1) "The boy has no patience!"

There are a lot of reasons to wait when a brand new game hits the shelves. Right now, all you have to go on is hype. Sometimes it's right, and sometimes it isn't. If you've already got a game to play, wait until you have time for a new one. Games will be around for a while. You don't have to buy it the day it comes out, especially if you just bought one a week or two ago. Just wait a bit! By then, you might have friends who can give you an opinion, or you might have been able to try it for yourself. Don't forget that a few months can also sometimes mean a drop in price.

2) "One of these things is not like the other"

Sure, we all love a good old shoot-em up, but maybe it would be fun to try something different! Switch it up! Consider ways to vary the kinds of games you buy. Some things to consider are gameplay, time commitment and tone. A Sci-Fi RPG like Mass Effect 2 is going to play very differently from the open world western Red Dead Redemption. If you've been playing multiplayer, maybe try a single player experience. Been investing hours into a game? Look for something you can play in 15-20 minute stretches. Or if Heavy Rain is getting too frightening, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is sure to brighten up your TV screen.

3) The Jet-Set Lifestyle

Where and when do you play games? You'll probably only be playing your console when you're sitting down in front of your TV. If you have a laptop or a portable system, you can play those things just about anywhere! Diversifying the platforms that you buy games might mean you'll get more out of the new DS game than you would out of having another PS3 game sitting on top of your console.

These are just a few things to get you thinking. In the end, it all comes down to budget, interest, and a boatload of other factors I can't begin to account for. My number one tip? Be happy! It's a great time to be a gamer. Whatever you end up buying next year, there's bound to be something you'll enjoy.

Another One Bites the Dust

ANOTHER PODCAST, without a three month wait? WHAT?

Well here lies episode 2

Podcasts Exist!!!

Two episodes of Eaten By Grues podcasts actually exist!!

This is episode one recorded about 2 weeks ago. We are working on being faster with the post-production.

This is the lost episode 0, a studio recorded episode from around E3.

These episodes will be up for 30 days. Contact ebgshow@gmail.com after that if you would like these episodes.

The List

There's a lot of things we like about video games, but nothing seems as memorable as a downright cool character. There's a reason we keep seeing Mario over and over again! With a little help from our friends, we've begun to compile a list of our all-time favorite video game characters. It'll be changing a lot over the next little while as we continue to add and subtract, but now that we're up to 87 individual characters, take a look and feel free to comment below. The current list can be seen here. Enjoy, and be glad I didn't make a "Link"-ed list joke.

UPDATE: The count is now 98 as of 4:23 - 7/24/2009

Putting the RP Back in MMORPG - BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic

by Jared Evans

These days, you can’t talk about the world of Massive Multiplayer Online anything without talking about World of Warcaft. The terms are almost synonymous in most people’s minds. But, as many are starting to realize, World of Warcaft isn’t the perfect MMORPG. It’s simply one incredible example. It’s likely that no one will do WoW better than Blizzard. The answer then is to do something else. With the upcoming release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, developer BioWare hopes to do just that, by making role-playing a part of the MMORPG experience.

With a rich universe, unparalleled customer and content support, and a variety of fun and balanced classes to choose from, WoW has earned its place at the top of the MMORPG pile, but is it really an RPG? There are a lot of games that fall under the umbrella of Role Playing Game. At its most fundamental level, every game is an RPG. However, there are specific mechanics and settings that come to mind when the term RPG is used, and WoW has a lot of them. In particular, there are three elements of the RPG that make WoW what it is today:

1) A universe with a rich back story; a compelling environment for players to spend their time.

2) The ability to create a personalized character, manage that character, and interact with others and the world as you see fit.

3) A deep and multi-faceted combat system.

These elements are fundamental to the RPG system, and are immediately recognizable to anyone who has played a game of Dungeons & Dragons. However, there is an unfortunate circumstance that has risen out of the complicated rulesets that make up most RPGs: combat becomes the focus of the experience.

Don’t get me wrong, I like melting the face off an orc just as much as the next guy. The problem is that to make this experience satisfying, there is often an inordinate amount of attention placed on the combat system. In World of Warcaft, combat is the main way that you interact with the world. Most quests revolve around battling creatures to obtain items, or simply to rack up a high enough body count to satisfy the quest-giver. The best items and materials are obtained from bosses and creatures. These items fuel the in-game economy, which exists primarily to allow you to then kill things more efficiently. While there are PLENTY of things to do that don’t involve combat, they are all secondary to the main focus of either PvE (player vs. environment) or PvP (player vs. player) play. All of these elements are brilliantly crafted in WoW, but at the cost of any substantial role-playing.

While there is an effort made to give context and weight to the combat you participate in and the items you collect, it is only there on an “if you so choose” basis. Instead of feeling like your character is participating in the events around him, as an actual member of this universe, the experience is something more akin to a renaissance fair. You’ve got the costume on, and so does everyone else, so it looks like you’re all living in medieval times, but everyone knows that it’s just for show. The same is true in WoW. Everything fits the part, but the focus is not on how your character interacts in the world, but on how you interact with the game.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with this. Blizzard has listened to their players, and created a system that their over 11 million and growing player base continues to love. Nor have they done anything to actively discourage role-playing. Dedicated RP servers are still available for play. Visit one though, and you’ll notice that things run very similarly to the non-role-playing servers. Why do people who play on an RP server choose not to role-play? The reason is that the game is built on a system that doesn’t require or account for role-playing in terms of game mechanics. For example, a bit of role-playing might be to add some back-story to your character, such as, “My orc only uses axes, as his father did before him”. However, the swords that just dropped off that monster have +4 to Str. Do you use the swords, or stick with your back-story? In WoW, you’ll take the swords, because that’s the option that allows you to play the game. That isn’t to say that you’re forced to do something you don’t want to, but rather that the game is built around such mechanics, and frankly, you pay for the game because you want to play by its rules. If the game is fun, you want to play it, and to play it, you have to use the swords because they have a +4 to strength, which will help you in combat. Choosing not to use the better equipment doesn’t allow you to play the game. It’s entirely separate, like the cellophane TV overlays of the early days of video gaming. It’s an entertaining façade that makes the game feel different, but has no impact on what is happening mechanically.

Now, I’m not calling for Blizzard to change the way that WoW works. Their game is built incredibly well, and is a blast to play. The important thing to recognize is that there is a fundamental element of the RPG, role-playing, that has not been capitalized on in the leading MMORPG, and that to do so, it must be made integral to the game play experience. If it isn’t valuable to the player, they won’t do it.

By all accounts, this is what BioWare aims to do with their first entry into the MMO market, and their latest entry into the Star Wars universe, Star Wars: The Old Republic. With a slew of successful titles in the role-playing genre (Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: KotOR, Mass Effect), BioWare has made a name for themselves by creating story based games, but more importantly, by making role-playing a part of the way you play the game.

What does it mean to role-play? Let’s just break the term down into its component parts: first, you need a role, which could be classified as a character or persona, and second, the ability to play, or to act within the established world of the chosen role. I can’t think of an RPG that doesn’t have the first element, but a surprising few have the second. Simple interaction is not enough to be considered role-playing. Rather, the play in role-play is a specific type of action that stems from player choice, and has real impact in the game world, thus changing the game experience.

Let’s head back to the basement and revisit our D&D example. There is a reason that tabletop RPGs continue to be popular, and that is because it allows for the purest and most dynamic role-playing experience. The player has the ability to take on any role he can think of (given that the rules you’re using permit it). Moreover, the Game/Dungeon Master has the ability to create any world or setting he can think of. Then, the player can interact with that world as he sees fit, and the world actively responds to his choices. Don’t want to track down the thieves in the forest? You don’t have to, but maybe they come back to haunt you later. Choose to help the small child on the side of the road? He could be royalty, and now you have an in with the King. The players exist in a world where their decisions have real impact on their experience in the game, because the world reacts back. Without a reactive setting, the role-playing element loses its power.

So it is in World of Warcaft, where other elements have become the focus of fun, as role-playing offers no reward in terms of game play. BioWare, on the other hand, tries to make their worlds ones in which your choices matter, and the world reacts to them accordingly. While there is nothing akin to the freedom of a human reacting on-the-fly to your decisions, players still have a great sense of freedom within the game’s setting. Maybe you can’t decide not to save the galaxy, but you can decide whose aid you’ll enlist, what you’ll do to achieve your goal, and then watch as the game reacts to those decisions. These effective (and affective) choices, decisions that have real and recognizable consequences, become the centerpiece of the game play. So much so that, as in the case of Mass Effect, players will look past other elements that would normally hinder game play, and enjoy being involved in role-playing. Try imagining Mass Effect without the dialog and role-play elements, and you would have one annoying attempt at an action game on your hands (blasted elevators).

So the answer should be simple; make an MMORPG where effective decision making is a part of the game play, which in the case of BioWare, is often done with branching dialog trees. However, there is a fundamental disagreement when attempting to marry the massively multiplayer system with effective role-playing. The central tenet of the role-playing experience is that the world reacts to your decisions, but a main focus of the MMO is that the action takes place in a persistent world populated by hundreds to thousands of players. If each player can make decisions that affect the world around them, the game would become a convoluted mess. How do you get the multiplayer into that kind of experience?

One answer is perspective. While the world is persistent and populated by other real-life players, the only way the player interacts with that world is on a one-on-one basis. Simply put, the game doesn’t need to be adaptive to everyone for you to feel like you’re a part of a reactive world; it just needs to react to you. While some may feel that this is just a clever bit of misdirection, it’s simply a choice on the developer’s part. WoW chose to focus on tight and interesting combat, and BioWare wants to involve you in a compelling story, while giving you freedom to explore that narrative. They aren’t creating a world with no focus and direction, where everything you experience is based on what other players are doing, a model that EVE Online has worked hard to develop. Rather, like our friends in the basement, there is a focused campaign to keep you interested and engaged, but the DM allows you to explore that closed narrative to a large degree. And, with a promised unique campaign for each of the eight classes, there will be an incredible amount of role-playing to experience within the universe of the Old Republic.

However, there are still plenty of issues that will need to be addressed. If you’re choosing to focus on one player’s perspective, it begs the question of how you include other players in a storyline which is unique to only one player. Instancing is one way to ensure that players can experience their own events and stories without the interference of random participants, instead choosing their own companions specifically. This has been done successfully in games like City of Heroes and World of Warcaft. The difficulty, though, is maintaining the illusion of a unique event, when someone else has already experienced it, an event common in the MMORPG. This is one of the benefits of WoW’s style of play, where nothing is ruined if you do the same quest and fight the same bosses over and over again, but if the goal is to maintain the narrative of a single character, this is an obstacle. There will be countless times when someone’s Jedi character has teamed up with her Jedi friend, and she’s helping you get information from the same arms dealer she interrogated last week. BioWare has confirmed that conversations will allow for multiple players to interact in the same conversation, which is surely an attempt to alleviate this problem. Perhaps they’ve prepared different dialogue options if a character in the party has already interacted with an npc. It certainly wouldn’t be beyond the developers, but even this solution only goes so far.

Really, the problem is the same as it has been since games like this have been made: reconciling the limitations of game play with a larger vision. Ideally, you put on the VR goggles, and everything just goes from there, but we live in a world of joysticks and buttons. It would be incredibly difficult to convince someone that they weren’t playing a game when they have one hand on the mouse and another on the keyboard, and really there is no obligation to make your game completely immersive. The goal is not to create a world that is so convincing that people don’t think they’re playing a game, but to include role-playing as a part of the game mechanics. It isn’t an all or nothing deal. If it’s engaging enough, people will want to play it. That’s the key to WoW’s success. In the end, people like to play it. BioWare is certainly hoping that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be enjoyable enough to keep people around, and an increased emphasis on role-playing just might be the way to do it. Or it might be the promise of lightsabers. That’s worked pretty well in the past.