TFormers had a chance to see an exclusive preview of Activision's new game for the "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" movie coming June 24th from Dreamworks. Until now, we've only heard and seen some teases for this game. We've got the scoop with so many details on the game.You are going to want to read every bit of our report with screen shots including Devastator, Stunticons and more!.

Back to the Drawing Board

Luxoflux is a team of hard core gamers who started off working with games like Vigilante 8, then worked on True Crimes Streets of LA. Then they kind of surprised everyone with a game called Shrek 2 which was a licensed kids title that actually did really well. On the heels of that, they finished Kung Fu Panda which was received well. Their goal is simple. To make a great game.

Their approach for the "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Game" has been to look at the feedback from the previous title. They received a whole lot of "freaking" feedback from Transformers fans that they looked at for what to do with the new game. They saw two things they needed to focus on. First, was player choice. In the "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Game," you have the ability to play the character of your choice-on the Autobots side or the Decepticons side.

Xbox 360 screen shot

Next, they let players jump from a hub based system with a linear story telling system to a non-linear based system with missions and projects that are available. There's an Autobot War room and a Decepticon War room where players get missions that vary between story based missions, which unlock other side missions. This allows players to choose any mission available, then choose their favorite character to play. For instance, fans of Bumblebee can play the character from the movie with all his skills and attributes for hours of missions. Likewise for the Decepticons side. Starscream fans can play as him with more flight based missions etc.

Luxoflux also spent time focusing on the Transformation system. They wanted to make use of the reasons that Transformers move between vehicle and robot modes. They use all this momentum to pull off seemingly impossible maneuvers that could not be done otherwise. If you remember the clip from the movie where Ironhide races towards the enemy, he transforms into robot mode and uses all that momentum to blow the enemy away, then transforms back to vehicle mode and just keeps on going. It is that kind of action that Luxoflux has tried to capture for this game. This can be used throughout the game to your advantage in the game environment.

Another thing has been added to this game that everyone asked for: the ability for fans to play against each other in a full featured, online multiplayer environment. Games inspired by death match, capture the flag and others were the genesis for some of the ways this feature is incorporated in the "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Game."

Revenge of the Fallen The Game

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Game" picks up from the end of the 2007 movie. Megatron has been defeated and the Autobots think the war is over, but it is not. There is still planning going on in secret amongst the Decepticons hiding on Earth. With the human military aligned with the Autobots, they are hunting down the remaining Decepticons. Just when the good guys think they've found the last of the baddies, there's a Decepticon incursion in Shanghai, China. Ironhide is sent out to investigate as the first mission of the game.

Xbox 360 screen shot

With Devastator making an appearance in the movie, Activision is using the opportunity to recreate one of the scenes from the film for fans to play themselves. The scene is a boss fight between Optimus Prime and the fully combined Devastator robot. The leader of the Autobots takes on the massive beast. Devastator is bigger, but much slower and barely able to keep up with Prime as he rains down on the lumbering mechanical beast. The ground shakes and rattles as the two tango for the upper hand.

The "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Game" not only has the largest number of Transformers ever assembled in a game, we're getting full featured robots, detailed transformations and a multiplayer experience. This, added to the quality of the Transformers shown, the variety of weaponry, combat that you encounter, and the fact that you're just a giant freaking robot that transforms changes the way you play a game like this. The game is not just a death match scenario. For the first time, you can incorporate your skills with a strategy. Players can do things like go head to head or play in faction mode on teams.

All the game designs Activision uses come from ILM and Hasbro because they really want to be faithful to the characters created for the movie. They see a lot of the assets from the movie, but they actually develop a lot of the content themselves to fill the 100s of hours of gameplay. What's great is, as fans, that gives them a chance to dig deep into the Transformers lore and incorporate it into various parts of the game. This means they can use a lot of unique characters that might or might not be in the movie.

Xbox 360 screen shot

The games will not feature any drones this time! There's a lot more unique enemies this time around. Some of the classes of bots are trans-scanned from a tank or a helicopter and all sorts of vehicles that end up in factions. Luxoflux has taken a lot of inspiration from factions like the Arielbots, Protectobots, Omninbots, and Stunticons that show up as a lot of the enemies you see in the game. Likewise, you'll see some of the characters from the movie that we only get a glimpse of.

Giant Freaking Robots Now Playing

Every single character in the game has their own unique ability. For example, Ironhide has his two range weapons. He has a double shotgun as well as his grenade launcher. He also has the ability to drop a turret for more agile enemies like Starscream. The characters also have differing degrees of power with respect to melee combat, charged attacks, and transformation based attacks. This gives players a barrage of options to use in combat.

Wii screen shot

All missions are made to be scalable. Casual fans can play just the core objective to find Sam and escort him to safety while gamers who want to go deeper can look for all kind of unlockables that will show up in their leader boards as stats and prizes. Additional elements of gameplay include keeping Sam alive with 100% health, playing through fights and challenges that have specific mission goals, such as taking out a certain number of enemies or scoring a high number of head shots, among others. These secondary objectives grant players access that unlock extra content like comic book covers, pins, characters, and a whole lot of cool stuff that will be announced soon by Hasbro.

As you progress, advanced moves increase your character's overdrive meter. When it is maxed a press of a button gives your robot a limited time of play where your primary or secondary weapons won't over heat and you are invulnerable to damage from other combatants. Where this makes a difference, is every mission has a leader board that keeps track of your time played on the mission. Learning to use overdrive can improve your mission times. Medals are given to the best players and for others to compete with.

Another cool feature are the Leader Boards. These are laid out to allow players to see all kinds of stats on their and other player's history. Stats cover things like number of kills, awards, pins, and other details that apply to single and multi-players will be revealed in more details soon.

What's really nifty is your history follows you online as well. So your strength and even the weapons you earn in single player mode carry over. For example, if you earn a sniper ability playing alone, you'll have that ability when you go against online players, too. Speaking of weapons, your bots now have the ability to drop things like mines when being pursued or use them to defend the perimeter of their bases.

Wii screen shot

The Luxoflux designers are pretty hardcore. They worked close with Hasbro to incorporate every level of detail possible on a character by character basis making sure each is true to their tech spec abilities. They also factor in user testing to ensure the characters are playable and make tweaks based on feedback from players.

If you are wondering, 90% of the time you can choose any Transformer to play in any situation. However, where the scene is really specific to some characters, they want to do the movie justice by making those characters specific to that part of the game.

Overall, this game looks very promising. Everything is cleaner and more polished looking than what we previously saw. We were treated to a number of short scenes showing Ironhide, Bumblebee and Sam, Sideways, Starscream, and the Prime vs Devstator sequence. The latter one looked especially good. For the city type scenes, the look and action was very reminiscent of the 2007 game. Otherwise, the air combat and Boss fights were visually stunning and captured the enormity of these robots in excellent detail.

Game Details

Publisher: Activision Publishing, Inc.
Developer: Luxoflux (Xbox 360 and PS3)
Beenox Studios (PC)
Krome Studios (Wii and PS2 - NOTE: gameplay/content may vary)
Vicarious Visions (DS - NOTE: gameplay/content may vary)
Savage Entertainment (PSP - NOTE: gameplay/content may vary)
Release Date: Summer 2009
Platforms:
Xbox 360â„¢ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft
PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system
Windows® PC
Nintendo Wiiâ„¢
PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system
Nintendo DSâ„¢
PSP® (PlayStation®Portable)

Suggested Retail Price: TBD

ESRB Rating for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC: Rating pending

Stay tuned to Tformers.com for more details as they are made available. Your best resource for all the Transformers news and community every day.