Clamoring for August 28th for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron to be released? High Moon Studios and Activision have heard the call, and probably saw the draught of games in August, and have pushed forward the release date of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron to August 21st. This will likely help the game as it pushes it earlier into a month that is traditionally lacking in new releases and further separates it from the deluge of games set to release in September until November.

To celebrate the new release date, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is also releasing a new trailer which can be seen after the jump. In it, Metroplex is prominently featured in stages of his transformation from a part of the city to the largest Autobot around that will hopefully give his compatriots time to escape the planet.

Check out the full trailer after the jump and stick to the Flickcast next week where we will be getting exclusive hands-on multiplayer access to Transformers: Fall of Cybertron at San Diego Comic-Con.

After being pulled away from the G1 experience because of the movie tie-in for the third Michael Bay abomination, the team at High Moon Studios brings us back to Cybertron to continue the epic they began with Transformers: War for Cybertron. This time, they came back with more of what people loved about G1 including the Dinobots and the voices of both Optimus Prime and Grimlock. Alongside Gregg Berger who brings back the iconic voice of Grimlock, Peter Cullen will be reprising the role that he made famous with Optimus Prime

In the interview trailer below, Cullen talks about the character of Optimus and the differences in recording for the cartoon, the movie and the game. It is very notable that Cullen heavily praises the game’s story and it seems that he feels a lot more investment in the character through Transformers: Fall of Cybertron than he did with the movie.

From the look of things in this trailer, it appears there will be a head on confrontation between Optimus and Megatron. Also, it looks like Bumblebee is back in action despite the previous Metroplex trailer should Bumblebee being out of commission and being carried on to a transport ship. Strangely absent from the trailer though are the Dinobots and the Combaticons. This may be one of those instances where the less we see of them in advance of the game being released, the more awesome their presence will be once we get to play.

“All of your cities lie in dust.” There’s no line of music more fitting for the tone of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. With Transformers: War for Cybertron, the Autobots were left with a world on the brink of collapse at the hands of Megatron. What looks to be their only option left is to fight to survive. Even with the brief glimpses of hope seen at the end of War for Cybertron, things look bleak. This new E3 trailer captures that tone and shows what little hope remains for the Autobots.

The trailer features all the main Transformers that will be appearing in Transformers: Fall of Cyberton including Optimus Prime, an injured Bumblebee, the Dinobots, Megtron, Soundwave and Starscream. It also reveals possibly the most epic of the Transformers, the city-sized Metroplex. The reveal may give some insight into a Decepticon portion of the campaign. While the Autobots will get a heroic moment when they recruit the Dinobots, the Decepticons may take down the last hope of the Autobots by disabling Metroplex.

Take a look at the trailer after the jump.

Since their announcement in the upcoming Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, Transformers purists have debated how the Dinobots would fit into the G1 canon storyline for the game. As stated in our previous post which revealed Grimlock in combat and Slug, Snarl and Swoop’s designs, the Dinobots were created on planet earth in the cartoon. Now, High Moon Studios has taken a step in ret-conning Transformers history along with Hasbro by retelling the origin story of the Dinobots in a different way.

As seen below, the game’s director Matt Tieger talks about the process of rewriting history with Hasbro’s blessing and reveals the new origin to the Dinobots for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. Original a crack special ops unit, the group falls victim to the experiments of Decepticon mad scientist Shockwave. Using a connection to earth (I won’t spoil the whole video for you), Shockwave creates the new designs for the Dinobots.

Take a look below and make sure to give your thoughts on the Dinobots and their new origin story. Stick to The Flickcast for more on the Dinobots and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron before it launches late August of this year for XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Grimlock. Slag. Snarl. Swoop. Sludge. These are the names of the infamous Dinobots that many of us grew up loving. Having these toys made your Transformers collection the envy of any of your friends. And even though Slag has undergone a slight name change to Slug because of the offensive British slang, the fan favorites continue to make their way to Transformers: Fall of Cybertron.

In the most recent set of screen shots from High Moon Studios, we get to see more of Grimlock in action as well as the reveal of three more Dinobots: Slug, Snarl and Swoop. Still missing so far is Sludge, the robotic Apatosaurus. Slug is seen below in both his robot and Triceratops dinosaur mode as is Swoop who appears in both robotic and pterodactyl modes. Snarl can also be seen below but only in his stegosaurus dinosaur mode. What impact these modes will have on gameplay is still up for discussion and debate as it hasn’t been revealed fully which of the Dinobots, aside from Grimlock, will be playable characters or if they will just be NPCs alongside the player.

Check out the full gallery of screens after the jump and stay tuned to the Flickcast for more on the Dinobots and all news Transformers: Fall of Cybertron including the reveal of Sludge and the Combaticons in the near future. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is set to come out in late August for the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Ever since Transformers: Fall of Cybertron was announced, there was one thing on the minds of Transformers fans: the Dinobots. With the reveal of Grimlock at New York Comic Con, speculation has run rampant about what this in canon story will reveal about the origins of the Dinobots. As we saw with Transformers: War for Cybertron, ideas only hinted at in the show were explained such as the fall and rise of Starscream. Now, the team at High Moon Studios gets to do the same for the Dinobots.

While in the original series, the Dinobots were said to be made on earth by Wheeljack and Ratchet, the Marvel comics series had the Dinobots being of Cybertronian origin. The Marvel series did leave this fairly ambiguous though and not many details were given about these origins. This seems like the space that High Moon will be responsible for filling in as Fall of Cybertron takes place long before the Autobots head to earth.

When playing as Grimlock, as seen in the trailer below, players get to experience a more hack and slash based gameplay as opposed to the more third person shooter with occasional melee combat seen in the characters of Transformers: War for Cybertron. Having both a sword and shield, Grimlock lends himself to a more in your face combat style which transitions into the much anticipated tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur form.

What is the one thing that has been missing from both the recent Transformers game reboot with War for Cybertron and the Michael Bay film franchise? Ponder that for a moment.

Last summer kicked off with Transformers: War for Cybertron, a return to the much heralded Transformers original G1 continuity. And we all know that for purists of a series, continuity is everything. Players got to take on the roles of both the Autobots and Decepticons as their civil war ripped all of Cybertron apart. The rise of Optimus Prime and the decent of Starscream were both key story elements as well as the Autobots being brought down to their weakest moments before the story ended in somewhat of a cliffhanger of the fate of the world.

This summer, High Moon Studios had to step back from the series and put out the Transformers: Dark of the Moon tie-in game, which while good for movie game standards, it was no War for Cybertron. Thankfully, the folks at Activision and High Moon Studios have heard the cry of Transformer fanboys world wide and are continuing with the story we have been hungering for over the past year.

At New York Comic Con, Activision released the first trailer for the game with only this statement:

Transformers: War for Cybertron has been one of the favorite licensed games in recent memory for us. Especially after seeing what Michael Bay did to the film franchise, it was great to see people who had a true appreciation for the source material get their hands on it and get to play around with the world.

At Comic-Con, we spoke to the game’s director Matt Tieger and he walked us through the now recently released DLC content that was announced at the Con. Make sure to check out the full interview with Tieger for more of his insight into the game.

The first thing you notice when playing the new content is the great variety of additional character models and loadouts for the game’s Multiplayer and Escalation mode. Classic favorites like Jazz, Demolisher and Shockwave make their return to the Transformers universe that were previously only available as pre-order bonuses while never before seen Scattershot and Onslaught make their way to Cybertron.

As expected from the high values of this production team, all the models look beautiful and do a great job of separating themselves from the others already on the battlefield. It is easy to spot these new characters in online play, especially the uniquely shaped head of Shockwave. These new models do a great job of preventing games that feel like the final fight in Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen where Michael Bay’s horde of clone-like Decepticons cannot be told apart during the chaos.

At Comic-Con, we got the chance to sit down with Matt Tieger , one of the developers for Transformers: War for Cybertron and discuss his work on the game. Also, check out some screens and the trailer for the Transformers: War for Cybertron Map and Character Pack which was released this week for the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 which features five new multiplayer character models and four new multiplayer maps.

The Flickcast: Activision just announced that we are going to be getting five new DLC characters and a map pack with four new maps for the game so obviously this is going to be a multiplayer focused DLC pack. Can you talk to us a little bit about why you wanted to do some DLC for this game?

Matt Tieger: What we do is we try and listen. We read the forums. We talk to Transformers fans. We talk to gamers. And we listen to all the things they were really excited about within the game and wanted more of, were hungry for more of and that’s what we put in this pack.

So, five new characters right, several new of those you know were pre-order characters and people were just rabid to get them so we listened and we put those in the pack. Shockwave, Jazz and Demolisher, all available in this DLC pack.

From the very announcement of the title, Transformers: War for Cybertron had a lot of pressure on it. For the first time in easily over a decade, fans of the original series have been given a chance to experience a new canonical tale of the true Transformers universe. And this story isn’t one that real fans would want taken lightly.

Transformers: War for Cybertron covers what happens before Optimus and his Autobots come to Earth and continue their war against the Decepticons. This game is almost like what the Phantom Menace is to Star Wars… Scratch that since I actually like Transformers: War for Cybertron.

Gameplay

Transformers: War for Cybertron plays out as a third person shooter with the addition of transforming robots. The gameplay comes across as almost brutally simple at times. There is no character advancement throughout levels and most of the characters play very similarly with only a few changes in weapons and special abilities.

With a push of the left analog stick, characters transform into their vehicle form which are basic variations of cars and tanks, except for the two levels of the campaign where players play as the jet fighter Transformers. These play very similarly to all other vehicles except for the ability to stop and hover in mid-air.