The Transformers event in Squad Busters brought two new ??permanent characters: Optimus Prime and Elita-1. Since they are new characters, it is important to know their abilities before you try to use them. Not only that, the?se characters also come in various evolution stages. 

To help you understand them better, here is an in-depth explanation of Optimus Prime and Elita-1 abilities in Squad Busters.

All abilities of Optimus Prime and Elita-1 in Squad Busters

Optimus Prime 

Optimus Prime is an epic character in Squad Busters who ??boasts ?boosted health and size. He has three evolution stages, and here’s how they work:

• Baby: In this evolution, Optimus Prime basically enlarge himself into a fusion size.
• Classic: In this evolution, Optimus Prime wields an Energon Axe to do a melee attack on the enemies.
• Super: In Super evolution, Optimus Prime heals himself and anyone nearby after he takes damage from enemies.

Optimus Prime is available to unlock during the first week of the Transformers event in Squad Busters. 

Elita-1 

Elita-1 is another epic character in Squad Busters that shoots a laser beam and has boosted firepower and size. She is very impressi??ve in long range and wields a turbocharger. This ??character also comes under three evolution stages. Here are the details of them: 

• Baby: Just like Optimus Prime in Baby Evolution, Elita-1 also becomes huge as a fusion size.
• Classic: In Classic Evolution, her attack speed is increased due to her Turbo ability.
• Super: Her Turbo ability will last longer.

Elita-1 will be available to play during the secon?d week of the Transformers event in Squad Buster.

The post Squad Busters Transformers event: Optimus Prime and Elita-1 abil??ities appeared first on Destructoid.

Despite The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom being nearly a year old, imaginative fans are still using its Zonai devices and Ultrahand mechanic to craft incredible creations. For instance, someone recently managed to put together a recreation of the intro to the original 80s Transformers cartoon.

As spotted by Game Rant, the 33 second clip was shared to the Hyrule Engineering subreddit, where Tears of the Kingdom players post videos and screenshots of any in-game builds they're proud of, or ask for general building advice. This clip is simply an impressive feat of engineering, with it featuring 34 different builds according to creator Reddit user ReelDeadOne. Aside from making stand-ins for the Autobots and Decepticons, they built their vehicle forms, their weapons, and even the Transformers logo.

Unsurprisingly, all t??his took an incredibly long time. While the whole thing is less than a minute long, ReelDeadOne says they recorded 197 hours of gameplay for it. That's over eight days worth of footage. As for how they filmed it, they used Link as the camera, though obviously some editing in post was needed for certain shots. The part I find most impressive is when the Soundwav?e stand-in opens his chest to fire out Ravage and Laserbeak. ReelDeadOne achieved this by "simply not attaching his legs and shoulder gun." I also love how they used minecarts for building Megatron's gun form.

ReelDeadOne has also shared a comparison video on YouTube, where you can see how well they recreated the framing of shots, as well as a blooper video showing all the times things went wrong. Those more interested in the creative process will want to watch this behind-the-scenes video showing how ReelDeadOne filmed everything.

This clip is not only a testament to the imagination of Tears of the Kingdom's players, but also to Nintendo's work on the game itself. After all, players wouldn't be able to make such amazing creations without the tools Nintendo provided. There's no telling when the next Zelda game will come out but, until then, I get the sense we'll still be seeing mind-blowing Tears of the Kingdom builds for a long time.

The post Original ??Transformers intro gets stunning shot-fo?r-shot remake in Tears of the Kingdom appeared first on Destructoid.

[Update: A spokesperson on behalf of Hasbro go?t back to us with this commen??t:

"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."

Meanwhile, Lulu Chenge Meservey at Activision Blizzard also T??weeted a correction.

//twitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1?6864634??57590231040?s=20

Does that mean a Transformers collectio?n could be on the way? Probably not. Maybe someday in the future, though. Our original story follows.]

Speaking with the publication Transformer World, a Hasbro representative has revealed that Activision Blizzard currently doesn’t know the whereabouts of the source code for the various Transformers games that they were in charge of publishing.

It’s happened to the best of us. I’m not sure of the whereabouts of some o?f my dog’s puppy pictures, and I have a suspicion they were on a thumb drive that I formatted. However, while Zero is a good boy who deserves his life to be chronicled in as much detail as possible, I am not a multi-billion dollar corporation, and he is not a media production that cost millions of dollars and hours of human? labor to produce. If I was and he was, I probably would have been a little more fastidious when it came to storing that data.

The representative explained, “Sadly, apparently Activision’s not sure what hard drives they’re on in their building. When a company eats a company that eats a company things get lost, and that’s very frustrating. Hope is that now that the deal is moving forward with Microsoft and Xbox that they’ll go through all of the archives and every hard drive to find it all, because it’s an easy Game Pass add. We want those games back up for people to have a chance to play.�/p>

Note that the representative didn’t say that the games were destroyed or irretrievable, simply that they were supposedly misplaced. The games include Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark, and Transformers Devastation. The last of those titles came out in 2015.

[caption id="attachment_394522" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via PlayStation[/caption]

Robot irretrievable

Okay, so mistakes happen. However, I worked in I.T. for 9 years, and my inner technician is screaming about how a proper backup architecture could have averted this. I’m not any sort of Transformers fan and have never had any interest in these games. It just baffles me that a corporation with the size? and influence of Activision Blizzard could drop valuable data between the couch cushions. It’s like when the government sends mail to an address you haven’t lived at for multiple tax and voting seasons.

I’m just saying?? someone has a responsibility and that someone dropped?? the ball.

At the very least this reveals that Hasbro is interested in a re-release of the Activision published titles. Hopefully, someo?ne will find the hard drives stuffed in with the rest of the sensitive data stored temporarily beside the toilet. I kind of find it funny that the representative is hoping that the Microsoft deal will go through with faith that they’ll do a better job of housekeeping. I mean, at the very least, Microsoft has backup servers.

??We’ve reached out to Activision for comment. If we hear back, we wi?ll update this article with their response.

The post Hasbro says Activision hasn’t misplaced their Transformers games after all (Update) appeared first on Destructoid.

Battle Bus, Roll Out!

Fortnite has shown that it will collaborate with just about any major IP. From Marvel to DC, to even Dragon Ball, Fortnite has become the Who's Who? Of Battle Royales. Their latest IP they've managed to snag is?? none other than Transformers, and they're making sure they can get in on the fun.

The Fortnite Battle Bus gets the Autobots Treatment in Latest Physical Pack

Fortnite's Latest Physical Pack, which includes three new skins, three new back blings, 1,000 v-bucks, two emotes, and three new pickaxes is coming soon. Entitled the "Transformers Pack" this bundle will cost about $25 USD without taxes, and includes Bumblebee, Megatron, and a new Transformer based on the Fortnite Battle Bus.

[caption id="attachment_390110" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot From Epic Games[/caption]

Bumblebee comes with a back bling based on his car-door?? wings, as well as a Stinger Sword Pickaxe. The pickaxe also comes with a built-in "?Battle Ready" emote.

[caption id="attachment_390111" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot From Epic Games[/caption]

Megatron's portion of the pack comes with a Decepticon logo back bling, and the Energon Mace Pickaxe. The built-in emote for this Pickaxe tu??rns it into his iconic Fusion Cannon.

[caption id="attachment_390112" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot From Epic Games[/caption]

Last, but not least, Fortnite's own battle bus becomes a Transformer as we??ll, complete with the "Bot Air Balloon" ba??ck bling, and the Pick Axle Pickaxe.

The physical pack will be sold in retail stores on October 13th, with digital versions of the pack being available on October 21st. There's still time to work through Chapter 4: Season 3's battle pass, to complete the Transformers collection with Optimus Prime before he leaves at ??the end of the season!

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The augmented reality developer is cutting back

Niantic, the company behind 2016's massively successful Pokemon Go, is cutting back. A new report reveals the co??mpany is cancelling several projects and cutting jobs.

Bloomberg reports that four Niantic projects have been canceled, including its Transformers game and a collaboration with Sleep No More company Punchdr??unk. It's al??so reportedly set to cut "about 85 to 90" jobs.

Niantic hit huge success with Pokemon Go, the augmented reality game that turned into a summer craze for the ages. Pokemon Go still garners a massive following nearly six years later. Sensor Tower reports that Pokemon Go has now surpassed $6 billion in global ?lifetime spending, across the App Store and Google Play Store.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sj2iQyBTQs

The success hasn't transferred over to every subsequent project, though. Niantic shuttered Harry Potter: Wizards Unite in January, and while Pikmin Bloom is pretty neat, it's also seemingly struggled to bottle the PokeGo lightning.

Walking around the block

In an email to staff seen by Bloomberg, Niantic CEO J?ohn Hanke reportedly wrote the company was "facing a time of economic turmoil" and needs to further streamline its ope?rations, to weather any "economic storms" ahead.

"?We recently decided to stop production on some projects and reduce our workforce by about 8% to focus on our key priorities," a spokesperson told Bloomberg. "We are grateful for the contributions of those leaving Niantic and we are supporting them through this difficult transition."

The company did recently reveal a new mobile game, called NBA All-World. It's a sports game intended to blend the real world with one-on-one basketball, as well as collecting and fashion. It also has Peridot, another real-world game featuring pet-like creatures, in devel??opment. We'll see if these projects can help bring Niantic further out of the storm.

The post Pokemon Go creator Niantic cancels several projects and cuts? staff appeared first on Destructoid.

Vehicle Mode! Beast Mode! Vehicle Mode! Beast Mode! Vehicle Mode!

The only thing I know about Transformers is that it’s a series of half-hour advertisements that are occasionally interrupted by more advertisements. It’s not that I wasn’t the right age for the toys, it’s just that I didn’t really know anyone growing up that was into them. Every time I’d catch an episode on TV it just confused the hell out of me. And this continued until the Beast Wars spinoff?? happened in the �0s and looked like early 3D animated crap. I still couldn’t make sense of the plot.

Nowadays, every time I look at a s?ynopsis, my eyes go blurry, I?? pass out, and I wake up naked in another city with more questions than answers.

The only reason I played 2000’s eloquently named Transformers: Beast Wars: Transmetals is because I have a morbid fascination with the Blockbuster exclusive rental titles of the N64. This o??ne didn’t stay a rental, which I don’t ?understand, because one weekend is all it takes to be twisted by the eldritch horrors contained within.

As I said, I haven’t the slightest clue what Beast Wars is all about. It apparently takes place in the future of the original Transformers series and also maybe on another planet? It depicts the Maxi??mals and the Predacons fighting a war for some reason. They’re also apparently descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons, and I’m sure someone out there can explain to me how it’s possible for robots to have lineage, but you know what? I think I’m happier not knowing.

From what I remember about the show, it involved these robots battling on a world that was mostly dirt. Every image that has stuck in my head takes place in a valley of grey rock. So, it’s nice that Transformers: Beast Wars: Transmetals (yes, I’m going ?to s??pell that out every time) manages to capture that spirit, as every arena is just ugly and featureless.

More than that, the levels are infinite and flat. They’re all slightly different colors, and feature different things in the background. The backdrops are unique because they feature the most nauseating parallax ?scrolling I’ve seen in a long time. None of it really syncs up, so staring at them for any period of time is disorienting.

Backing up for a moment, Transformers: Beast Wars: Transmetals is a on?e-on-one fighting game. That doesn’t do enough to describe it, however, so try to imagine the most minimal effort fighting game. It’s a game that can hardly be described as such.

While the genre typically brings to mind grabs, projectiles, and air attacks, you need to dial back your expectations. Even when I add “it’s on a 3D plane�you need to expunge thoughts of Virtua Fighter or Soul Edge from your mind. If even Xena: Warrior Princess: The Talisman of Fate came to mind, you’re still not deep enough into the dank pits of despair. Did you play Ballz 3D? I’m sorry if you did, but it’s honestly the closest abomination I can place next to Transformers: Beast Wars: Transmetals, and eve?n then, I think we’re being too charitable.

Picture a fighting game where the development staff decided not to do the bare minimum. Grappling? Too difficult. Special moves? Too hard to program. Punching? With this budget? No, you’re given a suite of projectile attacks to lob at your opponent. They mostly?? home in, because there’s n?o targeting system. It has less strategy than that old card game, War.

Oh, but wait! It’s a Transformers game, so the fighters must? transform, right? They do! I’m just as surprised as you ?are.

However, if you’re expecting this to provide any sort of depth to the game, you obviously haven’t been listening so far. Each transformation -- Robot Mode, Beast Mode, and Vehicle Mode -- ??just provides a different set of projectiles to lob at your opponent. Some are better than others, and by “better�I mean easier to spam.

The AI is something special. I’d say it looks like the opponents are just button-mashing, but that’s not going far enough. They’re struggling in anguish to figure out the controls to the game they’re trapped in. Every attack looks random, as they continuously switch back and forth between the game’s three modes. It’s like being trapped in an elevator with someone trying to figure out a fatality code in Mortal Kombat by luck. I’m afraid to leave the cartridge plugged into my N64 at night for fear that my home will be filled by the tortured screams of the AI tr??ying to escape their silicon prison.

So the best technique you can develop here is to just confuse the AI, which isn’t difficult. I got a lot of mileage from running circles around them, firing homing shots. They try to return fire, but they’re usua??lly unable to because they don’t know what the buttons do. Sometimes they’ll just start flipping out, loudly announcing “vehicle mode, beast mode, vehicle mode, beast mode,�like they’ve just started pounding their controller against the floor in frustration.

Even if you put another player behind the controller �which I didn’t because I’m far too merciful �you’ve still got a game where skill isn’t a requireme??nt. Find your bot’s best projectile and start lobbing. If the other player figures out there’s a block button (only accessible in robot mode), change modes and try another button.

There are a few “bonusesâ€?as well. There’s this weird gunfight mini-game,?? one w?here you just mash buttons to escape explosions, and a standard fight, but everyone is squished. All I can say about these is that I guess they’re better than nothing, but only marginally.

There are eight characters to choose from, plus an additional four that are at least easy to remember the code for. If you manage to beat the game without losing a match, you can also fight against Megatron X. He has two health bars, which seems cheap, but his brain works about as poorly as everyone el?se’s.

Transformers: Beast Wars: Transmetals is just such an amazingly lazy product. I found myself laughing when the credits rolled and not a single member of the creative team is listed. No one even wanted to take responsibility for the game’s art. The production staff and the localization team are listed, and that’s it. This might be the first time I’ve actually seen thi??s happen. A lot of Japanese developers were pressured into using pseudonyms in credits so they couldn’t be poached by other companies, but this is the first time I’ve seen it where the people who worked on the game didn’t want to be associated.

There was also a PS1 version of Transformers: Beast Wars: Transmetals, and it was completely different. It’s not a great game either, but it actually a??cts like a coherent product. The N64 version is completely bewildering. It doesn’t even feel like ??a prototype, it feels more like someone didn’t want to pay for a studio to develop for them, so they just handed the project over to their nephew.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Transformers: Beast Wars: Transmetals i??s anot?her contender for worst N64 game appeared first on Destructoid.

More than meets the WiFi

Niantic, the studio behind mobile phenomenon Pokemon GO, has rev??ealed that it is working alongside developer Very Very Spaceship to produce a brand new augmented reality game, this time set in the Transformers universe.

Transformers: Heavy Metal is expected to follow a similar path to Niantic's other releases, allowing pla??yers to track down and battle Autobots and Decepticons in battles found within real-world locations. Niantic's tried-and-tested software engine, Lightship, will power the new game. Players will side with the Autobots as part of the "Guardian Network", going head-to-head against the ferocious might of the villainou??s Deceptions.

"Transformers is the perfect franchise for AR," said Niantic ??CEO John Hanke. "Battling and interacting with giant robots in the real world will be an amazing experience. We want to live up to the high expectations of Transformers fans arou?nd the world and bring them a game unlike anything they've played before."

Niantic, which is already beavering away at several games including Pokemon GO, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, and a brand new Pikmin collaboration with Nintendo, expects Transformers: Heavy Metal launch later in 2021, after incoming trials in selected territories. Pre-registration is available over on the official Transformers: Heavy Metal site.

The post Pokemon GO dev Niantic announces new Transformers mobi??le title appeared first on Destructoid.

This giveaway, Allsparks joy.

Welcome folks! It's been awhile since I've popped my face up on the ole front page. Wes really needed a night off (he works hard for y'all), so I'm here to bring you some Transformers action (strategy)! We have a copy for Xbox One, Steam, and Nintendo Switch to giveaway (sorry PS4 folk), so let's rollout and see what Transformers: Battlegrounds is all about: 

"With Earth under invasion and MEGATRON, leader of the Decepticons close to capturing The Allspark, BUMBLEBEE and the Autobots need a new commander to help them restore peace to the universe – you!

Assemble your squad and roll out, for a turn-based tactical war that will rage from Central City to Cybertron itself. You’ll need both strength and strategy to outwit the fiendish Decepticons. Choose the TRANSFORMERS characters and their abilities to dominate the battle ahead, with OPTIMUS PRIME, GRIMLOCK and more ready to join the fight. Use each environment to your advantage, taking cover in desert sandstorms, avoiding Cyberton’s Energon storms, and battling your foes in city streets. And fill up your Energon meter to unleash powerful Ultimate Abilities that crush the fiercest enemies. With intuitive controls and three difficulty settings, the size of the challenge ahead is up to you.

Then team up together in local multiplayer and put your strategic skills to the test in games like Capture the Flag, Horde, Last Stand and more. It’s the strategy action game TRANSFORMERS fans have waited an eternity for!

• LEAD THE AUTOBOTS – Command BUMBLEBEE, WINDBLADE, OPTIMUS PRIME and more heroes in thrilling strategic battles

• FROM EARTH TO CYBERTRON – Smash and blast across cities, forests, deserts and beyond in explosive missions

• HONE YOUR SKILLS – Accessible controls and 3 difficulty modes welcome beginners and put tacticians to the test

• LOCAL MULTIPLAYER – Team up with a friend or take them on solo in arcade-style games"

Sounds pretty good to me, but I'm a huge fan of the subject, and the genre (Rise of the Dark Spark on 3DS was awesome!), so I'm definitely grabbing a copy asap. That's not what we are here to talk about though. How do you win a copy? Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy: Leave a comment below telling me your favorite Transformer and why. Be sure to include what system you want to win the game for! After the giveaway ends on 11/7/20 @ 11:59 PST, I'll comb through your comments, and figure out who has good taste or not (Soundwave G1, Omega Suprem??e, Grimlock, and Skywarp are my favs), and pick the winners! Winners will be not??ified through the email attached to their Destructoid accounts, so make sure you have your info in order. Good luck and rollout! 

The post Giveaway: Transformers: Battlegrou?nd?s (NA- XB1, Steam, NSW) appeared first on Destructoid.

Transformers: Battlegrounds rolls out

October is a packed month for sudden launches of B-tier-looking video games based on pop culture from your childhood. First, we got word of a new G.I. Joe game. Then, we learned that there's a Cobra Kai beat-em-up tie-in with the Netflix show. The most recent one might be m??ore than meets the ?eye.

Transformers: Battlegrounds is a new tactical strategy game in the vein of XCOM. Yep, developer Coatsink (Esper, Jurassic World Aftermath) isn't going the route of open-world action destructathon. This one's more cerebral, as you send you Autobots scramblin?g to positions where?? they'll have a tactical advantage. It also has cooperative multiplayer.

Here's the official description of Transformers: Battlegrounds: "As evil Megatron closes in on the Allspark, Bumble?bee and the Autobots need a new commander to help save Earth -- you! Assemble your squad and roll out for a battle tha??t will rage from Central City to Cybertron... and even to the local multiplayer arcade!"

Transformers: Battlegrounds is rolling out on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One on October 23. It's certainly a different take on Transformers. We'll f??ind out s??oon enough if the formula works or if it's nothing more than scrap metal.

The post Transformers meets XCOM in less than a month appeared first on Destructoid.

Nostalgic stocking-stuffers

Did you? ever have one? of those old Tiger Electronics LCD handheld games?

I did! I don't know where it came from (a garage sale?), or where? it went (another garage sale?), but I had the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 LCD game. It's something I haven't thought about in years, but it's suddenly relevant again. Hasbro is bringing a few of the Tiger handhelds back in 2020 for nostalgia's sake.

• Sonic the Hedgehog 3
• X-Men
• Transformers
• The Little Mermaid

The Tiger handhelds will cost $14.99 this fall, and they're currently up for pre-order at Gam??eStop.

I wouldn't necessarily buy one – they were short-lived thrills, even back in the day – but I still appreciate their iconic background art. I asked Chris if he ever owned one, and he came back with a whole list of games that triggered long-lost memories. I forgot just how pervasive these things were!

Tiger's retro LCD handheld gam??es are making a? comeback [The Verge]

The post Tige??r Electronics handhelds are alive and well in 2020 appeared first on Destructoid.

The simple story of a girl and her giant murderous robot

An entire cinematic universe springing off of Michael Bay's interpretation of Transformers may sound like a complete nightmare on paper, but this new trailer for Travis Knight's (Kubo and the Two Strings) Bumblebee prequel film may be proof that the franchise can beco?me just what fans want it to be under better hands. All you need is a relatable story, some classic designs, and apparently, John Cena.

To be fair though, this seems like the same "child and their dog" story that audiences have seen hundreds of times, the "child" played by True Grit's Hailee Steinfeld, and the dog here is replaced by an alien cybernetic robot that turns into a damn car. Couple that with the conflict involving some sort of military unit (led by Cena's character) that doesn't trust the Transformers, and you have basically have the same Transformers movie you've been ??getting for? the past decade now.

But man, did you see those classic G1 Transformers design in that trailer? Did you see how square Optimus Prime looked? Was that Soundwave? I'm not even that big a fan of Transformers, but I can only imagine how these brief images are a form of catharsis to fans of classic Transformers wh?o are undoubtedly tired of all the bits and pieces from Michael Bay?'s aesthetic.

We don't know where the Transformers films are going after this, with a sixth mainline film in the series having been taken off of P??aramount's schedule, in lieu of a possible reboot. If this is the last hoorah of this era of Transformers films, let's hope that it's a good one. Bumblebee hits theaters on December 21.

The post New Bumblebee trailer looks closer to cl?assic T??ransformers than ever appeared first on Destructoid.

There are god damn actual bees in this teaser

Did you think that the pit of despair that was Transformers: The Last Knight might give us a? reprieve from Trans??formers movies for a little while? Ha! You fool. They'll never stop. We will be awash in cars that are more than meets the eye for all eternity.

Paramount is attempting to expand the Transformers universe from a single stream of sequels to a -- wait for it -- cinematic universe! And Bumblebee, for which we have the first te?aser right here, is the first step. It's a prequel to all the other films that is set in the 80s and involves Hailee Steinfeld finding the titular transformer in a junkyard where HE HAS ACTUAL BUMBLEBEES ON HIM. Looks like Michael Bay's inability to do anything subtly is making its way over here just fine.

OK, now let me be less jaded for a second. This could also work. Travis Knight of the incredible Kubo and the Two Strings is directing and that seems like a really good fit for the Bumblebee character. Also, it's not Michael Bay. Knight has a touch for personal stories as he's shown with all his work with the animation studio LAIKA so hopefully that actually trans??fers over. On top of ?that, the retro redesign of Bumblebee is fantastic, peeling back the five movie's worth of horrendous redesigns that eventually led all the Transformers to look like jagged pieces of scrap metal someone had glued together. The new poster is far more charming then it deserves to be as well. This is all kind of promising. 

Then again, it's a Transformers movie.

Bumblebee opens on December 21 nationwide.

The post Here’s the first teaser trailer for Transformers prequel Bumblebee appeared first on Destructoid.

Also The Legend of Korra

Today marked the beginning of Steam's Winter Sale and that means folks are poking around to potentially give older games a second chance now that they're discounted. With that in mind, I hope you weren't in the mood for Transformers over th??e holiday break. You're going to come up empty-handed.

Transformers: War for Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron, Rise of the Dark Spark, and Devastation are no longer available for purchase on Steam, and that also goes for their DLC packs. What's more, we've lost out on another (albeit much less fondly remembered) game from Platinum: The Legend of Korra.

These games have ?also vanished from PlayStation Network but, at the time of writing, are still available? for purchase on Xbox Live. That said, it's surely only a matter of time if this is a licensing issue.

It's a sh??ame Activisi?on didn't give an advance notice.

[Via @RobotBrush]

The post The Transformers games were delisted on Steam appeared first on Destructoid.

Me Grimlock hate doorstep import charges

Last month we reported on a funky line of Transformers toys based upon some of Street Fighter's famous warriors. Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and M. Bison will all receive Cybertronian makeovers courtesy of Tomy Takara.

A new advert has surfaced to promote the figures, which are scheduled for release in 2018. The commercial uses imagery from the iconic intro to 1994's Super Street Fighter II Turbo, with Autobot h?ero Optimus Prime appearing in place of annoying demon warrior Akuma.

The toys, which are being released in double packs, are expected to be avail??able in May of next year. They are currently Japan exclusives. The Ryu/Bison set will retail for around $115, with the Ken/Chun-Li pack running a slightly cheaper $75, not withstanding shipping costs and/or import tax.

Street Fighter Transformers promo ad [Event Hubs]

The post Advert for Street Fighter Transformers recalls Super Turbo’s intro appeared first on Destructoid.

Robot-Chun-LiThighs

We may be bearing witness to one of the most baffling crossovers since Archie meets The Punisher, as a range of Transformers have been announced that are based on popular characters from Capcom's legendary Street Fighter series.

Images of the Cybertronian warriors emerged yesterday and caused many a raised eyebrow, with people generally assuming they were fan-creations. However, official licensing was confirmed when the action figures then showed up on the official Tomy Takara website.

There are four Transformers in the range, based on poster boys Ryu & Ken, strongest woman in the world Chun Li, and massive bastard M. Bison/Vega. All four toys are repaints of currently existing Transformers, rather than original designs. The fighti??ng game icons h??ave been respectively adapted Convoy, Hot Rod, Arcee and -- of course -- Megatron.

If that isn't enough, the heads of Ryu, Ken and Bison transform into tiny figures of themselves, to be used as drivers f??or their vehicula??r form. Be sure to hit the gallery below for a selection of fun images.

The characters will be released in double-packs, with Ryu & Bison priced around $115 and the Ken and Chun pack a slightly cheaper $75. The Street Fighter x Transformers sets are currently a Japan exclusive, scheduled fo?r release in May?? 2018.

Now, you may begin your Transformers/Street Fighter puns...

Street Fighter x Transformers toys [Seibertron]

The post ??Street Fighter Transformers are heading to Japan next year appeared first on Destructoid.

Oh what the $%&^

It's no secret that the ancient order of Stone Masons [Flixist editors] are not what some would call loyal apostolates of the Holy Father Michael Bay--may he live forever [please no]-- and his sacrament,The Holy Church of the Explosion. Why, brother Matthew just recently reviewed Transformers: The Last Knight as near a steaming pile of excrement.

Maybe Transformers was fun once, but we're forgetting why we ever thought so. As much as U.S. audiences are demonstrating a remarkable amount of intelligence, and sage film savvy by not turning out in droves at the box office, China just isn't getting their shit together! They're literally lapping their shit up: to the tune of nearly $220M to date. 

Enter a Bumblebee spinoff movie. And now a moment for the Flix??ist staff to join in a hearty bout of swearing and general m?asturbatory, hate-filled oration:

Matthew Razak, Flixist EIC: What? Really? A who spinoff? Oh god.

Drew Stuart:&nbs??p;I'm sure it'll be entertaining whilst drinking bleach.

Nick Valdez, Flixist News Editor: Fuck you. 

Matt Liparota: This bee sure is ... uh ... Bumbling.

Hubert Vigilla, Flixist Editor at Large: Donkey? balls served on haggis ?seems more engaging.

Alec Kubas-Meyer: *slammed door in my face during survey*

The Intern: What opinion do you want me to have again? Oh right. This is shit! Horse shit!

But wait! There's more! Something like 13 other Transformers movies are in the works, that according to former Transformers director Michael Bay. *Explosions!*  ***--**BOOM**--*** *boom* **~*BOOM*~** That's right, that Michael Bay. ***FUCKING EXPLOSIONS!!!***

Rumored sequel titles & topics:

Transformers 6: Transformers vs Marky Mark in his Underwear - 'nuff said.

Transformers 7: The Last Can of Gas - wherein 100 transforming space robots fight in a cage match battle royal for the last can of gas on earth. F?uck yeah!

Transformer 8: Windows 10 - the bug paradox - wherein all the robots fail to boot up after upgrading to Windows 10. ??Suckers.

Transformer 9: We Put the Robot 9 in 69 - an out of this world, inter?galactic man on mac??hine orgy: can you say giant, 100-foot robot dicks? I can. And did.

Transformers 10: The Final Chapter

Transformers 11: The Next Chapter - the Transformers producers pull a Saw ?team maneuver and bring it back anyway--pre??vious titles be damned.

Transformers 12: Dinobots versus Jurassic World - OK ... I'd see this one. Le??t's green light this first.

I give up. *hangs up laptop for good*

Bumblebee Cast???ing Revs Up with a Host of Young Actors [Slashfilm]

The post There’s a Bumblebee Transformers spinoff … and 13 more spinoffs appeared first on Destructoid.

Wow, china that big

Tranformers: The Last Knight is, well, a mess. Poor writing, poor pacing, poor Marky Mark, and is basically par for the course for the Transformers series. Yet, these things still make a ton of? money. You might be wondering why folks are still drawn to these? films despite being put through the ringer four times before, but there's hope yet...at least domestically.

It turns out Transformers: The Last Knight "only" tracked $69.1 million (nice) over its five day spread. It still took the top spot at the box office, and it's not like that much money is anyth?ing to scoff at, yet it still had the lowest debut in the serie?s. Then there's China. 

According to Variety, China -- who loved Transformers: Age of Extinction so much it became their highest grossing film ever -- doubled the domestic gross with an impressive $123 million opening weekend...bringing the overall total to $265.3 million after a single week. So even if the fever is dying out in the West, China could basically guarantee we'll see plenty more Transformers films and?? even that stupid Bumbleb??????????????????????????ee origin story.

Find out how other North? American releases did at the box office last ??weekend below. 

[via Rentrak]

1. Transformers: The Last Knight - $69,095,485

2. Wonder Woman - $25,175,000

3. Cars 3 - $25,175,000

4. 47 Meters Down - $7,435,000

5. All Eyez on Me - $5,850,000

6. The Mummy - $5,836,950

7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - $5,239,000

8. Rough Night - $4,700,000

9. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie - $4,280,000

10. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - $3,000,000

The post China’s probably going to save the Transformers franchise…again appeared first on Destructoid.

I'm running out of synonyms for bad

Transformers: The Last Knight is proof that Andy Kaufman is alive.

When the first film arrived it was a classic Michael Bay film. Yes it was dumb, and full of stupid, but it had awesome action, and Optimus Prime, so it worked. Since then the films have spiraled out of control, but before The Last Knight I w??ould've believed th?ey were just making bad movies because they made a lot of money. The only way this latest installment could have been made is if the entire franchise was just one long Kaufman joke.

A series of films getting progressively worse while destroying the childhood nostalgia of an entire generation. A comic punchline so te??rrible, and awful, it could only come from A?ndy Kaufman himself. A comic pastiche of everything wrong with blockbuster Hollywood slowly played out over decades. It has to be a massive joke, right? I cannot explain it any other way.

Andy Kaufman is alive and has played the greatest joke in the history of mankind.&nbs??p;

Transformers: The Last Knight
Director: Michael Bay
Rated: PG-13
Release Date: June 21, 2017

Transformers: The Last Knight doesn't so much have a plot as it has a bunch of action sequences attached together by people saying words th??at make no sense. If you recall from the end of the last film, Optimus Prime launched himself into space to find the Autobots' creator. In his absence more Transformers have come crashing to earth and humanity has started to be dicks to them and rounding them up. Cade Yaeger (Mark Wahlberg) is hanging out with the Autobots from the last film, including Bumblebee, as an outlaw who is trying to protect as many of his robot friends as his can. T?hen... I don't know... some things happen in no logical order. Anthony Hopkins shows up along with Laura Haddock, and everyone stands around spewing incoherent exposition until the next action sequence is cued up.

My ongoing complaint with these movies has always been that the Transformers films aren't about the Transformers, and The Last Knight is the culmination of this. The first three quarters of this movie is almost entirely "human" interaction. I put human in quotes because no actual humans interact like the characters in this movie, unless I've missed some universal memo where we're all supposed to speak as if we're delivering important one-liners every other sentence. There is so much illogical plot in this film and none of it involves the Transformers we're coming to see. I'm not sure who thought Cade Yaeger (god, could that name be any douchier?) was an interesting character, but he's not and none of the other characters are either, and I CAME TO A TRANSFORMERS MOVIE TO SEE TRANSFORMERS!

The saving grace of the previous films was always Optimus Prime, voiced as wonderfully as ever by Peter Cullen. Cullen somehow made stilted dialog into epic speeches, and Prime's constant Saturday morning cartoon proselytizing somehow made the idiocy of the films more palatable. So what does The Last Knight do? Removes him from the plot until the third act! Any hope that the end of the last film signaled that we'd get a Transformers-focused film for once are instantly dashed in the opening scene as Prime is basically tied up and not mentioned again for the next hour and half. When he does return, the movie ??instantly moves from "stab me in the eyes for the love of god kill me now" to "OK, just put me in a coma," but that's not much of an improvement, obviously.

I will say the action is actually better than the last film in terms of execution. Age of Extinction was a directorial mess in this department for a variety of reasons, but Bay seems to have put his brains back in his head this time around, and edited together some crisp sequences. The last battle actually pulls you to the edge of your seat, and you can follow what's going on instead of being lost in a blur of cuts. However, b??eing better than the last film in terms of action wasn't a high bar to jump, and this one barely clears it. Action sequences aren't put together to be complete scenes, but instead more of a series of ideas Bay clearly thought would be cool. At one point there's a time freezing gun, and at another gravity just randomly disappears. Sure it makes for some cool shots, but the action itself becomes illogically incoherent -- a series of camera swoops mushed together into e?xplosion porn.

Another not-actually-impressive feat is that the film somehow goes on (and on and on and on) for two-and-a-half hours. I know these films make a lot of money, but could someone please reign Bay in just a little bit? Even a tiny modicum of restraint in terms of action sequences, slow motion pans over a woman's body, or hapless exposition could have saved trillions of theater goer's brain cells. As it stands, Bay and the screenwriters are basically allowed to do whatever the hell pops into their head. Entire characters are introduced and then ignored for most of the running time of the film, and most of them aren't even needed in the first place. At one point, a WWI tank Transformer just sort of rolls up, makes a random explosion and then is never seen again. It's like Star Magic Jackson Jr. walked into a room of 4-year-olds and green lit whatever?? the hell?? they wanted. 

It's also hard to honestly express just how many plot holes are in this film. Plot hole is too light a term. Plot black hole? Plot hell hole? Using the word plot anywhere near The Last Knight just seems wrong. There are lite??rally moments in the movie where they just make a joke ??about not caring about a coherent plot. I suppose they hoped poking fun at their inability to develop logical reasons for the characters to progress from one point to another would distract us from that very fact, but none of the humor is that funny either. Everything comes straight out of action movie screenplay 101, and it couldn't feel more contrived. Romance? Check. Family? Check. Old guy saying a bad word? Check. It's all so pandering, I can't believe audiences can't see what they're doing. We can't be this stupid to keep eating this up and laughing at tired jokes.

There is always a defense of films like this that we're just supposed to shut our brain down and enjoy the ride. But this isn't a ride, it's a death trap. Yes, there are films great for just enjoyment. Michael Bay himself has directed many of them, but Transformers: The Last Knight should not be enjoyed. Giving this movie money is re-enforcing everything wrong w?ith the industry, and possibly everything wrong with the world. It is a mountain of turgid garbage. It is elephant vomit expelled into a pile of rotting corpses. If it was a person it would be going to a very special circle of hell. Nothing related to this movie is good. Publishing this review is being complicit in murdering the soul of the universe. It is, for lack of a better word, bad. 

You got us, Kaufman. You got us good. 

The post Review: Transformers: The Last Knight appeared first on Destructoid.

Mobilizing on mobile

When I first saw the trailer for the upcoming Transformers: Forged to Fight I thought it looked kind of bad-ass. When I got the end and saw that it was for mobile, I still thought it looked kind of bad-ass, but would rather have a straight up Transformers fighting game on consoles. You know, like this one.

From Kabam and Hasbro, Forged to Fight lets you play as Autobots or Decepticons in what the press release is calling a "high-definition, action-fighting and character collection mobile game." Not only will it feature some pretty damn good looking one-on-one fights, but you'll be able to collect characters from every era of the Transformers franchise, including the car???toons, comics, movies and action figure lines.

If all that sounds awesome to you, cool. For me, it reminds me too much of one of Kabam's other games: Marvel: Contest of Champion, an app I had installed o?n my phon?e for all of two hours.

Transformers: Forged to Fight? goes into beta testing soon and will release worldwide in Spring of 2017 for iOS and Android.

The post Transformers: Forged to Fight is 30 years in the m?aking appeared first on Destructoid.

Back to the Shack

It may be 20 years old at this point, but the original Resident Evil still holds up. That may be, in part, due to the fresh coat of paint it got last year. P?aying PlayStation members get to see for themselves soon eno??ugh.

Sony has announced October's free PlayStation Plus titles, and it's looking like quite the solid month -- especially for PS4 owners. Keeping in line with the month's traditional spooky themes, Resident Evil HD Remaster brings players back to the mansion that kicked off an entire franchise's worth of scares. Transformers: Devastation gets in on the gratis action too; the robotic beat-em-up ??was probably PlatinumGames' most recent game that was generally well-received.

Over on PS3, Techland's ATV racer Mad Riders and Ubisoft's god game From Dust are the free offerings. Code: Realize: Guardian of Rebirth and Actual Sunlight round out October as Vita's freebies. 

PlayStation Plus: Free Games for October 2016 [PlayStation Blog]

The post Transformers and the Resident Evil remaster highlight October’s free PlayStation Plus games appeared first on Destructoid.

His writing partner Kenny Meriedeth also joins us

Odds are you've heard of Vince DiCola.

Whether it's his work on the 1986 flop-turned-cult hit Transformers movie (that was just remastered in 4K last month) or his recent contributions to the world of video games, he's a recognizable force in music. Due to the recent vinyl release of the Saturday Morning RPG soundtrack I had a chance to chat with Vince and his writing partner of many years, Kenny Meriedeth, on what it means to write video game music even if?? you don't necessarily identify with them.

?To get some context, I asked them to describe how it all began.

Vince started out with club bands in Pennsylvania before moving to LA and playing gigs at a Mexican restaurant, where he happened to run into Frank Stallone (Sylvester Stallone's brother). In a real "hey man I like your sound" moment (at least that's how I envisioned it) Frank recruited Vince into his band that needed a keyboard player, and the rest was history. Sylvester happened to watch them perform at the MGM movie lot, and told Vince about a movie he was directing called Staying Alive, which he was invited to submit work for. The film didn't do so well but it helped launch Vince's career, which catapulted him into jobs like the Transformers movie and Rocky IV.

Kenny told me his story is "a little more boring because it doesn't involve Frank Stallone," but he came up in Detriot, which has always ??had a very healthy music scene. "It was a great place to be a working musician," he said, and after coming through the ranks with other well-known Motown song artists, he embarked upon LA with a new wave punk band and ran into Vince in the late 80's. They've been work??ing together ever since.

Of course I had to ask Vince about how Transformers worked out, and it seems like an uncanny situation from his perspective. "When I came on board, I knew nothing about Transformers," he said while laughing. "When I did the movie, and it tanked within...I believe it was just one week, it quickly was filed as a past memory for me even though I was always proud of the music. I didn't hear more until over 10 years later in 1997, when a Transformers convention organizer contacted me and told?? me about how big of a hit it was, and I went to Rochester New York to embrace that."

Vince can't seem to escape that legacy either as he kicked off his video game composer stint with Angry Birds: Transformers, along with Kenny. Apparently Rovio got in touch with them personally, and after hitting it off with the producers, they were able to get basically everything they submitted into the game without issue. "We didn't have to go out and seek the work at that point in time, it came to us," both of them said happily, and Kenny seems to think that their work on the Turrican Soundtrack Anthology project also didn't hurt in terms of their standing in the gaming community.  Since then, they've worked on games like Transformers: Devastation and TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan, as well as the indie game Saturday Morning RPG, which they got?? involved with because the creator, Josh Fairhurst, really wanted them to be involved.&nb?sp;

With my time closing up I asked them what their dream video game project would be, and I got a rather surprising response back. "I appreciate the chance to work on 80's themed works and the like," Vince mused, "but it would be great if we could come into the modern era more. The game that comes to mind to me first is Call of Duty. I saw it in action at a family member's house on a big screen, and it would be fun and gratifying to do a big, mass??ive work like that. Transformers: Devastation was getting into that range but I'd like to go further."

Kenny agrees, and enthusiast?ically told me that he wants to get into more "filmlike, thematic type projects." "I don't want to say the Hollywood style," he continued, "but we're big fans of film music and action adventure type scores. We like doing Activision projects because those are scored just like a movie, with the intention of creating drama. Say you were ??asking someone to create cheesy music from the 60's and that's basically all the direction you had...it would be frustrating to keep doing that. We sometimes take second place to what the people hiring us want."

Talking with the pair was a real treat, and I look forward to what they're wo??rking on next.

_{[Jayson Napolitano, who represents Vince and Kenny at Scarlet Moon Productions, was previously employed by Destructoid. As always, no relationships were factored into this writeup.]}

The post Vince DiCola talks Transformer?s movie, foray into video games appeared first on Destructoid.

Another stealth re-release by Activision

Four years later, High Moon Studios' Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is back with a pair of new ports for current consoles. The third-person shooter appeared out of nowhere on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 digital storefronts in Australia today, and it'll seemingly be available elsewhere?? tomorrow.

Considering these new versions are the work of FunLabs, the same team that brought the Prototype games over to Xbox One and PS4, I would keep my expectations reasonably low. The fact that Activision has once again chosen to do a stealth release for Transformers doesn't inspire confidence.

Potential technical concerns aside, I think most of us can agree that Fall of Cybertron's predecessor, War for Cybertron, was the all-around superior game. If you're wondering about multiplayer, it would seem that will still be supported here -- there are multiplayer-centric Trophies, at any rate.

[Via VideoGamer]

The post Transformers: Fall of Cyb??ertron is out ??this week on PS4, Xbox One appeared first on Destructoid.

Coming spring 2016

Space Ape Games is creating a new Transformers game for mobile devices called Earth Wars, and it's using the old G1 art style that otherwise would be overused if it weren't for the timeless nature of it, and the fact that the Bay-formers ha??ve dominated shelf?? space in the past nine years or so.

As a few readers have pointed out to me yesterday, it's very close to the Clash of Clans style of games that have been dominating the market lately. Clash&nb??sp;is fun for a lot of people, but I found it to be too predatory for my tastes, constantly luring you into spending money. Hopefully this will be d??ifferent.

It'll arri??ve in spring 2016 ??on both Android and iOS.

The post Transformers: Earth Wars is a new strategy game set in th??e G1 univ??erse appeared first on Destructoid.

My picks bring all the boys to the yard

Hello everybody! Your (not so) favorite, foul-mouthed, perverted, shit-posting Community Manager here. 2015 was a helluva year for games. All bullshit aside, we are starting to see some truly amazing games come out. When I was a babby, playing RC Pro Am and Metal Gear, I never imagined we'd see games like Rocket League and Metal Gear Solid V on our TV sets. There are plenty of things to bitch about in this industry, but just sit the fuck down and think for a minute: Games 10 years ago, compared to now. Of course there were trailblazers back then (and even 20 years ago), but with the fidelity, systems, de??tail, and scope that we see on the regular? No.

It's an amazing time to be a gamer. It's also an amazing time to show you my penis. However, they refuse to let me do so on the front page (fucking prudes). So instead I wrote a list of just a few games I really enjoyed in 2015. These aren't awards. There is no order. This is what I liked and how I liked it. It's th?e Burger King - Mike style, of games in 2015. Mmmmm Burger King... Anyway, here's a small handful of titles that aroused my nethers in 2015:

Rocket League

What else needs to be said? Addicting, fun, com?petitive, and not herpes! What else could you ask for?

Warhammer 40K: Regicide

The review team may have never picked this up, but I (and many others) sure as hell did. Take chess and mash WH40K into it and bam! You have Regicide! The devs did a fantastic job of realizing this premise, and represented WH40K very well in the chess setting.

Dying Light

Perfecting what it started in Dead Island, Techland knocked it out the fucking park with this one. Not only that, but it has continued to support the game all year! Bring forth The Following!

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege

Bloody mouthful of a title and complete abandonment of single-player aside, no other game gave me as much fun in multiplayer this year. I wish they had launched at a lower price point, so more folks would've taken the plunge and discovered this gem. Once I came down through a skylight, blew through the ??floor, and flashbanged two opponents, I was hooked.

Chroma Squad

?Tactical RPG + Managment Sim + Power Rangers = Boner.

*drops mic*

Far Cry 4

Pagan, Hurk, honey badgers... This game had some great and silly stuff. I loved shutting off my brain and just going for a ride in this world. The co-op being a blast certainly didn't hurt, either. This entry felt like Ubisoft nailed what it was going for in Far Cry 3. Fuck eagles, though. 

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood

Thankfully, MachineGames wanted us to have more of the delicious Wolfenstein it cooked up. This standalone gave us a decent-length journey into prequel territory, and more of the satisfying old-school feel that The New Order nailed so well.

OlliOlli 2

Bigger stunts, manuals, crazier levels,? and mo??re rock-solid controls. Couldn't ask for more from this outstanding sequel.

The Swindle

An ass-kicking experience for sure. Beautiful hand-drawn graphics, a solid premise, and fun game?play made it all worth it. One day, I'll get that damn A.I.

Broforce

If you don't like this game, then get the fuck out of my life. Seriously, go! Go look in the mirror and ask where you went wrong. Watch as your mirror self then hauls off and bitch slaps you, and then goes and plays Broforce.

Sunless Sea

It's criminal this isn't on more lists. How do you people forget s?uch an engrossing, crazy ass, awesome experience? Well written, easy to learn and tough to master, this gem gave me almost everything I want out of a game. It's basically a choose-your-own-adventure game that fucked a roguelite and had sea-worthy baby. A creepy, Cobbett-infused, entertaining baby. Beware the depths.

Hand of Fate

I fucking adore this game, enough that I own it on three platforms. That is pretty rare for me. Sure, it can be repetitive in the combat, and the combat is Arkham-lite, but it just has that something. The dealer is voiced perfectly. The card play is always an edge-of-your-seat affair, the resulting combat? is fun (even if derivative), and I loved adding more cards to the deck for next time. Every game is a new experience and it's one that keeps me returning. This melting pot of concepts has won my heart.

Transformers: Devastation

If you know me, even in the slightest, then you saw this coming. Then you p?rob?ably saw me cumming... all over this. Holy fuck, Platinum... I want to have your babies. All your babies.

Cardinal Quest 2

A fun, traditional roguelike with great classes, skills, and a good art style. Just a really ?solid title, all around. It's a?vailable on Steam and mobile, but don't let the free mobile version scare you. No F2P bullshit at all. Even a passing fan of the genre should give this a go.

Convoy

A strategic, FTL-like, Mad Max-ish game. Survive the wasteland, upgrade your rigs, ??and blow away bandits! Fun stuff and it keeps me coming back ??for more.

Invisible, Inc.

I admit I'm known to hang off the ole Klei dick quite a bit. Games like Don't Starve, Mark of the Ninja, and this are why. A stealthy, XCOM-ish roguelike (guess what my favorite genre is?), Invisible, Inc. ticks all the right boxes for me. I love that it doesn't let you snail through its levels too! It's constantly pushing you forward, forcing you to adapt and learn. In typical Klei fashion, the developer has also continued to support the heck out of the game ??with free patches and such, and recently released a pretty great (and cheap; $5) DLC. *swings around on that Klei dick* Weeeeeeeee!

Renowned Explorers: International Society

"ANOTHER ROGUELITE, MIKE? REALLY?" Darn tooting. It's another one that forces you to dig deeper in order to learn all it has to offer. I like the different take on the combat system, and I love the pre-planning and exploring. This one has had me come back to it multiple times since release. Maybe it's my love of adventure, crazy characters, and this style of game, or maybe it's Maybelline. 

Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide

L4D +?? character progression + rat genocide = yet ano?ther boner.

How many boners can one man have in a year? Untold boners, in my case. Anyway, this game is a beautiful take on the L4D formula. I love the feel of the weapons, I love the characters (dwarf FTW), and I loves me some Skaven murder. The levels are well laid out and the objectives are fun. It was really nice to have a year with at least two great Warhammer games coming out.

--

And with that, I am spe??nt. I know I didn't have many picks for great games this year, but I did what I could. Be??low are a couple of shout-outs to others that didn't get enough attention from me, or didn't hold my attention. I still felt they were great though (maybe just not for me).

Shout-outs: Destiny: TTK, Binding of Isaac: Rebirth + Afterbirth, Fallout 4, Galak-Z, Kero Blaster, Downwell, Moonstrider, Rebel Galaxy, Skyhill, Assault Android Cactus, Deathstate, Zombi, Woah Dave, Helldivers, Oceanhorn, Resident Evil: Revelations 2, Doorkickers, Mortal Kombat X, Reverse Crawl, EDF 4.1, and Lisa... phew! Hope I didn't forget anyone.

The post Mike Martin’s picks for games that he picked in 2015 appeared first on Destructoid.

The People's Choice(es)

2015 was a divisive year -- tremendous in terms of media (TV like Master of None and The 100; movies like Spotlight and The Force Awakens; games like...well, keep reading) and a garbage year in terms of my life. Entertainment became a personal necessity, even when the experiences in question were too "heavy" to be considered traditional escapism. As a result, I dabbled in a veritable cornucopia of video games this year, sampling genres I ?had not touched in years.

Out of the dozens of games I played this year, these were the ten that stuck with me. The best game of the year is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, let's be clear. But my heart is with these ten. This is Mike Cosimano's favorite games of the year, damnit.

(Honorable mentions: Ori and the Blind Forest, Volume, Star Wars Battlefront, Rocket League)

10. Yu-Gi-Oh: Legacy of the Duelist

I got back into Yu-Gi-Oh this year. Please don't ask why, because then I'd have to think of an answer. My local friends decided to join me in this endeavor, which was a true delight. You don't know happiness until you've seen a gaggle of college students playing a child's trading card game while pounding vodka shots like a sequel to Big that takes place entirely in the titular Animal House.

Actually, I might have found patient zero for this newfound cardboard addiction: Legacy of the Duelist, a Yu-Gi-Oh game that goes beyond what you would expect from a licensed title from Konami in the year 2015. It has a surprisingly robust campaign featuring every era of the anime to date, draft play, and multiplayer that would be a lot of fun if anyone was actually playing it. (See also: Titanfall.) Like many of the games on this list, Legacy of the Duelist is a Very Subjective Pick, so I understand if any of you want to rake me over the coals for this one. But also there's a character named Gong?? Strong, so...take that into consideration.

9. Guitar Hero Live

Ever since the first Guitar Hero, purveyors of plastic instruments sold their games on the concept of bringing rock stardom to living rooms across the world. We assumed this had basis in truth, having lived in a world before Guitar Hero Live. This was truly the year of full motion video, but no other developer used it to quite the same effect. The boos of the crowd feel all the more potent when they come from people we recognize as human, and not computer-generated puppets. And, for as realistic as Harmonix's initial guitar controllers may have felt at the time, adding two different rows of buttons makes the player one step closer to a genuine guitar player. Combine the FMV with the i??mproved controller, and you're left with a potent musical simulation that I couldn't help but fall in love with. 

8. Assassin's Creed Syndicate

If a game provides room for improvisation, I am at least 75% more inclined to enjoy it. For example, Assassin's Creed Syndicate allows you to skip over a major part of its side objective routine, simply?? by following an earlier step to its logical conclusion. Over the course of your takeover of London, opposing gang leaders will often stop by and taunt you before throwing some goons in the mix and running away. It's meant to be an establishing character moment; a sliver of motivation so your eventual confrontation carries a modicum of weight.

Or, if you prefer, you can just chase the leader and kill them, skipping the final battle almost entirely. This design ethos continues into the major assassinations; framed as a choice between either a unique kill that requires setup on the player's part, or a hastily sketched-out plan strung together by a plethora of murder tools. Everything about Syndicate is the best possible version of this blindingly polishe??d formula, which is no bad thing.

7. Super Mario Maker

I've seen people all across the games industry engage in level rivalries, I've watched game developers strip well-known design sensibilities to their very core, and I've driven a friend to madness -- all thanks to one game. Perhaps what I did to Myles Cox this past September crossed a line that even I found uncomfortable, because I've only messed around with Super Mario Maker since then, fully aware that I belong in an e-prison. That social element is what takes the game beyond the realm of level creation tool and into a whole other stratum. I had an inordinate amount of fun crafting a torture device for Myles and watching him struggle with the weight of my nightmare engine. Even my tinkering managed to bring a smile to my face, something LittleBigPlanet could certainly learn from.

(Myles, if you're reading this, we should go for Round Two. I want to make a real level this time.)

6. Bloodborne

Is it sacrilegious to say that I didn't find Bloodborne egregiously challenging, and that I appreciated the restraint on display? Yeah, From Software's latest definitely has its moments (Father Gascoigne, Shadows of Yharnam, that one time a guy pops out from behind the corner), but there's a sense of equity to each unique encounter. If you get smashed to a pulp, that's likely because you skipped too many enemies and walked into a fight under-leveled, or perhaps you're still trying to play this game like Dark Souls. Don't pick up that shield, friend! It's a goof!

That pervasive feeling of fairness helped to balance out the perverse sense of dread slowly oozing from every corner of Yharnam like so much, well, blood. Few other worlds shown to us this year were quite as rich in atmosphere; a singular vision brought to life by a monkey's paw, twisted beyond recognition. The immensely satisfying combat (a one-game argument for bringing 'visceral' out of retirement) is certainly the game's hallmark, but the content on the periphery of Bloodborne is what makes it truly special.

5. Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is the purest form of the AAA video game sequel. It's a rip-roaring adventure, featuring a slight open world, a disconnect between story and gameplay, and improvements on the previous ga??me's systems that sound enormous to Fans of the Ge?nre. I am a sucker. I am part of the problem. When you squint at E3 and wonder how it got to this point, rest easy: your villain has been found.

This game is dope, alright? It is sick, it is rad, and the jury's still out vis a vis whether or not it is bodacious, but I'm optimistic. Rise of the Tomb Raider managed to outdo Uncharted, the series it liberally apes at every opportunity, with a more realized evil conspiracy, setpieces with legitimate thrills as opposed to flash-in-the-pan excitement, and a wide range of tools that are fun to use but just inconvenient enough to make the upgrade system worth your time. Tomb Raider's engaging moment-to-moment gameplay adds up to a title that is exactly the sum of its parts: the fifth best game o?f the year.

4. Fallout 4

This was the year people decided they were done with Bethesda's excuses. Not me, though! Keep feeding me these technic??ally incompetent masterpieces, you monsters. Just shove it ri??ght down my gullet. Bathe me in rich world building, drown me in the part where important side characters get stuck on walls. I want to gorge myself on combat that still kinda sucks, all the while smacking my lips in anticipation of the compelling quests I will spend the next month thinking about. Give me a food metaphor, so that I may apply it to this bug report stained with my kisses.

3. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Ha, you thought my little bit at the start of this article meant Wild Hunt wasn't going to make this list. No such luck! Consider this entry my mea culpa; a sort of apology for not putting Geralt's latest adventure at the top of my list, where it rightfully belongs. Every part of The Witcher 3 is? beautifully crafted, from beginning to...uh, where I had to stop because I was going home for the holidays.

Nevertheless! The 20-odd hours I spent in The Witcher's miserable world felt like a master class in dark fantasy. The impending apocalypse was always slightly less important than the broken people who inhabit it. Arguably, the end of the world could even be a blessing in disguise for some of the monsters (literal and metaphorical) who make this sad realm their home. It's a game with a central thesis, a Wii Fit Trainer-esque rarity in the AAA development space. For that alone, Wild Hunt should be lauded -- for su?cceeding??, it deserves much more.

2. Tales from the Borderlands

This game is perhaps the epitome of putting your heart before your head when it comes to Game of the Year. The first couple episodes are kinda weak, it's got that apparently inescapable Telltale Jank (a billion people work at that company by now, somebody should maybe give the console ports a second pass every once in a while), and I do not give a sh-hi-it about Borderlands' lore.

And then, at some point, Tales from the Borderlands clicks. It's different for everyone, but the back half of that game is so good that it makes the first part excellent in retrospect. Telltale Games figured out choice-based, narrative-heavy gameplay a long time ago with undefeated champ The Walking Dead. Now, the studio has made good on The Wolf Among Us' promise -- it figured out style. I really cared about each and every one of these characters; a feat not unheard of in video games, or even for Telltale. At the same time, the needle drops that accompanied each title card were spot on, brilliantly choreographed character work set to killer music. It's like a symphony played entirely by your best friends, right? They're kinda messing up, but they're just going for it and it's almost over and you can ?feel yourself about to leap out of your seat and applaud.

Tales from the Borderlands is the true successor to The Walking Dead, picking up the torch from the profoundly disappointing Walking Dead Season Two and showing the games industry how to make people care about some god damned characters.

1. Transformers: Devastation

Transformers is at its best when someone actually tries to do something with the idea of Transformers; exploring the lore beyond "Autobots hate Decepticons, and they're fighting over a MacGuffin." That's why there are so many awful Transformers things out there -- this franchise is not quite as fully formed as it appears. Michael Bay's first Transformers was a solid example of this because it framed the Autobots and Decepticons as part of a larger narrative, almost incomprehensible to the humans who suddenly found themselves in the deep end of the galactic pool; an extension of ??the basic story concepts seen in Generation 1.

Transformers Animated, conversely, scaled it down. It put a small, ragtag team (Optimus Prime wasn't even the leader of the Autobots -- he was in charge of an asteroid cleanup crew!) at the show's emotional and narrative core. They were a very small part of a larger story, but the humans were even smaller. So you have these failures and rejects suddenly thrust into the unenviable position of being the first and last lines of defense against Megatron and his reborn Decepticon army. They weren't just in the deep end, they were trying to keep a whole planet afloat. It's a Transformers series with an idea, eve??n if that idea lacks any sort of large?r thematic resonance.

That's where Transformers: Devastation comes in. It's not a great Transformers game because it goes back to the well, bringing the iconic G1 designs to the fore once again. It's spectacular because this is a Platinum Games Transformers game, not a Transformers game made by Platinum Games. There's scope to the boss fights, there's weight to the combat, there's style pouring out of every move the player makes. It's an action game made with a propulsi??ve sense of purpose, one that also stand?s as an argument for my well-documented love of this franchise.

Devastation works as a sort of counterpart to my beloved More Than Meets the Eye comic, a work similar in execution if not profoundly dissimilar in tone. This game belongs to Platinum, just as much as MTMTE belongs to James Roberts. In any year, a singular work like this deserves recognition. Consider it luck that the task of recognition falls to someone who adores this particular universe. Transformers Devastation is my profoundly subjective Game of the Year.

The post Mike Cosimano’s personal picks for Game of the Year 2015 appeared first on Destructoid.

None shall fall

I've been a fan of Transformers since I was old enough to understand what television was. The bright colors and? toy lines drew me in, but I've been a fan ever since. It's not merely nostalgia that fuels that fire -- it's an entertaining series that knows just how to camp it up to a perfect degree (the sniveling Brutus-esque Starscream is a classic archetype at this point). So when a G1 Platinum game was announced, I was on board immediately.

I'm glad it managed to meet my expectations.

Transformers Devastation (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One [reviewed])
Developers: Platinum Games
Publisher: Activision
Released: October 6, 2015 
MSRP: $49.99

So let's get right into the thick of it -- the action. As you'd expect from Platinum Games, Devastation has a sound bedrock, with a combination of ranged and close-combat maneuvers. Basic abilities include trigger-based aiming, a combo system with light and heavy attacks, a super button, and of course, the power to transformer at will into various vehicles. Com?bos can even involve transformations on the fly (signified by a blue light with a short window), a slam move can be initiated by transforming mid-air, ranged attacks are capable of headshots, and attacking at top speed brea?ks enemy shields. As you can see, there's a lot of advanced mechanics at work here.

The most technical of all abilities includes the addition of Witch Time (frame-perfect dodging that slows time), a concept taken wholesale from Platinum's own Bayonetta, which I'm totally okay with. Everything feels incredibly smooth. The combos available are just enough to keep action veterans interested without overwhelming newer players. With three difficulty levels to choose from (appropriately balanced, mind -- with three at the start, and two more later), there's something for everyone. Other small touches like NPCs frequently fighting alongside of the player character, 2D sections, and vehicular-based chases or race segments help break u??p the combat a bit.

There's a light amount of exploration involved within Devastation's mission-based structure, similar to most of Platinum's previous work. It's mostly linear, but at various points spokes of that linear wheel will break off, allowing for some form of deviation. That includes conspicuous gates that lead to new chests, or short twitch-based puzzles that provide a reward at the end. I actually really dig this flow, as you can skip a lot of combat sequences if you wish -- just note that many zones will wall off areas until you defeat all the foes wi??thin, so you can't just rush through the whole game.

Much to my surprise, all of the playable characters have different styles. Grimlock is more of a grappler, Bumblebee is quicker and doesn't pack a punch, Sideswipe has access to a quicker dash, and so on. They're not wildly different to?? the point where you'll have to relearn every single fac?et of the game, but they're nuanced enough that there's actually a reason to pick different Autobots.

Devastation also sports an appropriate Saturday morning cartoon narrative that would fit nicely into an afternoon special block. The voices are either spot-on replications (including the campy Teletraan-1), or actual members of the original cast. The gist is ??that Megatron is yet again after another massive power source, and it's up to the Autobots to save the day -- so don't expect anything new here -- but again, the nonstop action helps propel players from start to finish.

There are a few shortcomings, though. For starters, the game is priced at $50, and feels somewhere in-between a full retail release and a downloadable game. There's a lot to sift through here, but I could have gone for more characters, secrets, and unlockable modes (a challenge mode is basically it). Additionally, the RPG syst??ems in place feel like a half-measure, particularly the loot system. While the equippable upgrade chips are a nice touch (and are coupled with a fun little crafting mini-game), managing loot is a nightmare.

Throughout each mission, you'll likely acquire something in the neighborhood of 10 weapons, most of which are garbage or only marginally better than what you're using. To really take advantage of these duds, you'll have to synthesize them into better parts, but it's far too much of a chore to do that constantly when you can just forge ahead to more action. The loot system should have been scrapped?? entirely or pared down far more than its current incarnation. While not a deal-breaker, it could have been handled a lot better.

I'm not even sure if there are G1 fans out there anymore. It shouldn't be a deciding factor when picking up Transformers: Devastation ?though, as it's a great action romp by any right. Just be ready to deal with a few nitpicky issues.

The post Review: Transformers Devastation appeared first on Destructoid.

Autobots, you don't have the touch

Yesterday's North American Spatfest was a unique event, featuring the first of hopefully many brand tie-ins with an outside property. Splatoon's transforming squid kids were tasked to join either team Autobot or team Decepticon in a Transformers themed nat??ionwide ink war. Those who partook in multiple matches may have noticed that team Autobot always came out in red ink, while team Decepticon was always purple. Nice touch, Nintendo. 

On the other hand, the winners of the contest weren't very nice at all. While the valiant Autobots took the popular vote with 58% of the tally, the evil Decepticons prevailed in 56% of the total matches, resulting in a final combined score of 266 for the Decepticons and a meager 234 ?for the Autobots.

Not surprisingly, the Decepticons were supported by Marie, the more evil of the two squid sisters. I suspect that her despicable charms are the primary reason that team Decepticons managed to win the day. Many of Splatoon's most diehard players have pledged undying loyalty to Marie, and will follow her anywhere, even if down the way to oblivion. 

The post Decepticons dominate in Splatoon’s latest Splatfest appeared first on Destructoid.

Childhood...engage

Based on this video, it looks like Platinum Games really nailed the look and feel of G1 in Transformers: Devastation. Yep, it's important to remember that Platinum is behind this, so in addition to a great looking cartoon braw??ler, it will probably ha?ve a pretty good combat system as well.

I mean, there isn't much more to say than this looks incredible on paper. I hope the finished game ends up meeting my expectations, but s??o far, so good.

The post This Transformers??: Devastation trailer is pure G1 goodness appeared first on Destructoid.

Where's Transformers Animated 2??

Today, Hasbro announced the release date for Transformers: Devastation at its SDCC Generations panel. The game will be released on pretty much everything on October 6, 2015. Coincidentally, that will be the day I retreat into a Cybertron-themed cave unt?il either I beat the ga??????????????????????????me or die from hunger.

After playing it at E3 this year, I'm very excited. The combat somehow blends fluidity with the appropriate level of weight you would expect from giant robots, creating something you could only expect from Platinum. Considering the franchise's spotty history with licensed products, it's fair to assume the worst! But the fundamentals -- the way the game plays -- is what sets the great licensed games apart from the piles of trash infes??ting GameStop's bargain bin?s.

There's also a new gameplay trailer, packed with hints about other characters that will be appearing in the game. I spotted Blitzwing, fresh off his mediocre new Generations toy. Shockwave will be in the game as well, and since Megatron appare??ntly won't be the last boss, my money's on him being the final encounter.

SDCC Hasbro Generations Panel Live! [TFW2005]

The post Watch Comic-Con footage of Platinum’s Transformers game appeared first on Destructoid.

[feat. Polygon's Nick Robinson]

I'm going to cover Transformers: Devastation until either the game is cancelled or I have a physical copy in my grubby dork hands. I hope you have all come to terms with this, as I have not. More Than Meets the Eye is one of the best ongoings in comics. Plea?se read it.

Anyway, check out this video we did with Polygon's Nick Robinson! Nick's a great dude, and he's been Destructoid-adjacent thanks to his work at Revision3, so I got really excited wh?en he agreed to stand in front of a camera and listen ??to me get Frankly Too Excited about transforming robots.

(Also, the intro bumper is a little too loud. Just? a?? friendly heads up.)

The post We saw Transformers at E3, and it looks rad appeared first on Destructoid.