Transformers Fall of Cybertron Cinematic Trailer

So in my Monday post I promised that I will tell you which brand new game trailer uses the Puscifer track: The Humbling River as its soundtrack. It is the new cinematic trailer of the under development transformers game: Fall of Cybertron. This is not an epic trailer, neither it is intended to be one. It is really a teaser since we just have the feeling that it is too short. However with the smooth music of Puscifer we are satisfied and relaxed. So it make the feeling that it is a complete and finished thing. We only know that the big robots are in a deperate fight and one of their best (everybody"s favourite) Bumblebee. We easily figure it out that this is a futile and already lost battle. So the set is very dramatic (and in this sense epic). We see that these robots have a good standard of camaraderie so they help the wounded Bumblebee (actually it is Optimus Prime himself if I 

am right).

Created by: High Moon Studios (Activision, Blizzard,) Hasbro,
Release date: 2011.dec.06.
Official title: Transformers: Fall of Cybertron - Cinematic Trailer

Well Transformers is a franchise where you can easily lost. A lot of complex and difficult things are going on. Mechanical life forms, time fluctuations, planet-transformers, great upgrades etc. So I will not try to untangle the lines (actually time fluctuation allows the story to be inconsistent as well so no hope to get around in one round).But the trailer is nicely done. In general you have smooth music with fitting slow motion animation of a great battle. It has a very heroic atmosphere which fits the story and the set.
We see some blue smoke or mist and the eyes of Optimus are slowly unfolding of this blue mist. The camera starts to pane back from his head and in the background we see some explosions so we realize that it is a war. I think this gradual way of composition is very smooth. Then we have our first shock. Oh My Dear Old... Bumblebee!!!! Cries out the kid in our heart. "WHAT HAPPENED WITH BUMBLEBEE?!!!" And we are already bought.Very cheap buy but certainly effective. Not only seeing them in a great war, but in such an EPIC!, GREAT!!, APOCALYPTIC!!! war where Bumblebee is injured so badly. And we see the robot with an injury and fading (by the loss of sparks?). Anyway the scene from the blue, uninteresting mist elevates to the highest tension in 20 seconds. Hm... that is an acceleration. Well done. The incoming attacking robots cannot reach Optimus and he does not fight for everybody's greatest concern is poor Bumblebee. Well all of us (you can admit) agree with those guys. NO MATTER WHAT BUT DEFEND BUMBLEBEE!

And again! Optimus puts him down and like a father (well a father robot at least) blinks his eyes and "tells him" that everything will be all right. Really touching scene. No matter whether robots can have feelings, no matter what will happen next we now know that it is all safe.

I think this trailer just lets us be kids again. And this is a good thing. It is really innocent. We have those feelings don't we? That these robots are strong allies of us. And we admire them for that.
Of course the final battle is not on the set. They leave us here obviously because the final battle will be included in the game. We only see the higher upgraded dinosour-like robot to throw some fire onto the enemy. And we know that everything will be ok now.

Concerning the render there are some nice things to mention. I think the lights are very evenly distributed while it is really hard to decide how such lights would look like this a good way to make the light-set. It is believable so it might be true. And that is well-enough. Same is true for the animation. This is an other planet (it is not really determined by the comic book how big it is exactly but it is determined definitely that it is indereminate what material builds it up :) no more puzzle please!) where strange creatures live. So we have no idea what is the proper setting for the gravitation. I think they could have been a little bit heavier. But how would you show that? You cannot show it by the damage they make to the environment (it is their own planet) and nor by mass movement (they should have develop some proper muscle-like things to move smoothly). So this is a really difficult task. My suggestion would be that explosion-fire should work the same way as they do on earth since we know that the atmosphere is very similar to our owns. So I think if things blow up the same way there as they do here but everything is more massive and heavier than here then there should be some different relation between explosion there and here. Maybe if bigger explosions would happen and if they would move them to less distance than they would on earth the whole thing would get a better, more alien-like framing.
The textures and materials are good enough, they are mostly the usual damaged metal. The fast changes of light makes it hard to judge what we see but I am sure about one thing. At the beginning Optimus' head looks like as if it was made of plastic. This is an easy mistake since most of us remember these guys from the toys we used to get. But I think this mistake especially for the beginning, and for a closeup and for a slow-motion is just too much. Of course we do not care but they are apparently able to make good materials so they should have corrected this.
The models are of course perfect, they are vividly animated, always turn and tumble and move their parts. So that is really nice. Huge amount of beautiful fires of explosions pampers the eye.
The only thing I miss is some particle systems. So much explosion and fire would certainly produce some soot flying in the air. And a lot of smoke probably. That would improve the visual a lot.
And two more things. One is that if there is fire on this planet there must be flammables as well. But nothing actually burns or heats (so many explosions but no heated or melted metal on the set). And if this is a war, at least some wounded dead robots would be nice since now there is only one wound on the scene the one of Bumblebee. Megatron beats one to death but then it disappears from the set. And if one is beaten to death some external marks are usually present. Like sparks, or short circuits, twitches of the body, malfunction, etc. Something indicating their agony. I think this is important for every fight scene.


Scores:

Story: 8/10 (Heroic, Romantic, Innocently touching. The "I am big but we are bigger" cliché at the end is a usual transformers thing but not necessarily applicable.)
Director: 10/10 (Nice gradual elaboration of the story and the set, and even the transformers universe.)

Modelling: 10/10 (Perfect Meshes.)

Animation: 8/10 (Consistently animated characters but no particle systems. Really rich fire animation but again no smoke or dust.)
Render and lights: 10/10 (There are no inconsistencies in lights they affect beautifully the environment.)
Material/textures: 7/10 (Good overall performance but one serious mistake at the beginning.)
Photography: 9/10 (Nice composition, no messy or empty spaces, no imbalances but there are some "we are posing together on the placard of the game" settings.)
Editing/effects: 10/10 (Very tough work. In such a short video a lot of thing happens. And we don't even feel that we are switching.)
Music: 10/10 (I have been listening to this music for almost a whole day. Great choice. And the audio is again very nicely attached to the music. I appreciate that the music set is not mute but in accordance with the track.)
Visual concept: 7/10 (Overall transformers illustration with some already mentioned mistakes - wounds, smoke.)

____________________
Overall: 8.9

Copyright Notice: The video is made available by http://www.transformersgame.com's youtube channel transformersgame1 by leaving the embed option open for everyone. All intellectual rights for the video are reserved for Activision and High Moon Studios. I only claim the copyright for its interpretation and evaluation.

HASBRO and its logo, TRANSFORMERS, and its associated characters are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. © 2011 Hasbro. All rights reserved. Game © 2011 Activision Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Activision is a registered trademark of Activision Publishing, Inc.