Battle for the Allspark
|
<imagemap>File:Tfgame2007 logo.png|center|500px default {{#if:Transformers games|Transformers games|Transformers The Game}} desc none </imagemap> |
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||
 {{#if: |}}}} | |||||||
| {{#if: | {{#if: | }}
(')}} {{#if:| ""}} | |||||||
| Developer | }} | ||||||
| Developers | }} | ||||||
| Publishers | }} | ||||||
| Publisher | Activision}} | ||||||
| Writer | }} | ||||||
| Written by | }} | ||||||
| Additional writing | }} | ||||||
| Story | }} | ||||||
| Platform | }} | ||||||
| Platforms | Online}} | ||||||
| Release date | April 27, 2007}} | ||||||
| End of service | }} | ||||||
| Continuity | }} | ||||||
| Chronology | }} | ||||||
| Rating | }} | ||||||
| Ratings | }} | ||||||
| Standard Retail Price | }} | ||||||
| [[|Credits]]}} | |||||||
Battle for the Allspark was a multiplayer browser game set in the expanded continuity of the 2007 Transformers movie. It was provided under a free-to-play model and did not feature any monetization beyond serving as a promotional vehicle for the then-upcoming 2007 movie game, with the main characters of this title being the seven types of drone units later featured in the retail game.
In it, the Autobot/Decepticon conflict had broken out worldwide, and hundreds of players engaged in 1-on-1 battles in 20 world zones. These zones were designated as "Autobot" or "Decepticon" controlled, depending on each faction's win ratio. Tallied cumulatively, this system would determine which side was winning the larger war. The combat was turn-based and featured a text chat box, ensuing the chaos and toxicity you'd expect from an online PvP game in the late 2000s.
The game was shutdown in April 14, 2009, when the transformersgame.com website was updated to promote the upcoming Revenge of the Fallen video game. A few weeks later, said website would get Battle for the Allspark v2, an all-new (and far more stripped down) sequel based around the enemy units of said game. Both the original Battle for the Allspark and its v2 are now considered lost media, with no online archive of their contents being known to exist and very little footage being available on the net.
Gameplay
[edit]
Players began by creating a unique login. They then chose a faction, a player unit, and assigned a name to that unit. This character would then be connected to that account, and creating a new character would require creating a new account. From there, players moved to a world map which displayed the 20 available combat zones. Players could view how many active units are in each zone, as well as the total win-loss ratio for each zone as well as for the overall game.
Once players chose a zone, they moved to another screen which showed all the players currently within said zone spread out across a grid. From there, players may challenge a member of the opposing faction to a fight by heading to their specific square. This was aided by the inclusion of a chat box that was connected to either the world map or a specific zone, depending on where the player was located - though, of course, as with most public video game chat boxes, most discussions just turned into banter and mutual trash talk rather than cordial invites for duels.
Combat was turn-based, allowing each player to choose one of several attacks (the number of attacks increasing as the player's rank increased), each of which drained a certain amount of the player's energy reserves. Once both players had selected an attack, an initiative roll determined who strikes first. At the beginning of each new round, players regained a certain amount of energy, but if a player's energy reserves were insufficient, the player could not attack. Combat continued until one player either depleted their life reserves or exited the game, thus resulting in their opponents' victory.
Gallery
[edit]-
The world map with a player's profile open. -
The zone system. -
The battle system.
Ranks
[edit]
Private — 0-19 wins, 3 attacks
Lieutenant — 20-59 wins, 4 attacks
Captain — 60 - 119 wins, 5 attacks
Major — 120+ wins, 6 attacks
Units
[edit]
Players were able to choose among seven body types, all of them being based on the drone units which were introduced with the retail game and can belong to either affiliation. Unlike the retail game, they do not have different color schemes based on their faction, but they do retain the different head designs: Autobot-aligned units have a helmet and facemask that vaguely resembles Optimus Prime, while Decepticon-aligned units have the empurata-like single-lens design.
A "Sector Seven unit" was also planned to be part of the character roster at some point, but ultimately ended up being scrapped.
Reception
[edit]
By almost any standard, Battle for the Allspark was a resounding success. 6.5 million games were played by almost a million players, with the vast majority of participation taking place after the film hit theaters. Other notable stats include:
- As of May 7th, ~25,000 people had registered and fought ~100,000 battles.
- As of June 2nd, ~65,000 people had registered and fought ~350,000 battles.
- As of Nov 2nd, 2008 ~975,000 people had registered.
The game was apparently abandoned by developers in June 2007 following a survey of the features players would like to see added to the game. Most of those features ended up making their way into AllSpark Wars, the online tie-in for the Nintendo DS game developed by the same group. It received a minor code update on November 21, 2008, the only visible effect of which appeared to be a rendering bug which caused the chatbox to overflow its borders.