Battle for the Allspark v2
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| Platforms | Online | ||||||
| Release date | 2009 | ||||||
Battle for the Allspark v2 was an online game serving as a tie-in to the upcoming Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen video game, being a follow-up of the original Battle for the Allspark (itself also a tie-in to the 2007 Transformers video game). Much like the original, it was free-to-play and void of any monetization, with the server costs presumably being covered by sales of the retail games.
The original Battle for the Allspark online game was an incredible success; more than a million registered users from around the world played 6.5 million games against one another. So naturally the game returned in 2009 for the second movie, now sporting the gameplay of Rise of the Chevy Autobots which no one liked, and lacking the dynamic fight graphics of either game. Great.
The game has gone offline sometime since, with the fact that we can't even find out exactly when it went offline being more than enough of an indicator of how loved this title was compared to its original version.
Gameplay
When players sign up they choose to be Autobots or Decepticons. They can then choose one of the four standard characters or a fifth unlockable gold character (see notes). Unfortunately, once a character is chosen, you can't choose another. This choice determines starting attributes which are then customized using the starting set of "power up points". The attributes are: "Agility", "Accuracy", "Strength", "Weapons", and "Armor".
Launch version
The debut version of Battle for the Allspark v2 was considered broadly underwhelming, providing players with a stripped down game that was missing many of the core features from the original 2007 title - most notably; the world map, the zone system, and the player chat box - and instead focusing exclusively on the combat component. Unfortunately, the combat component also sucked.
Once a character is created, a player can challenge other players from the opposing faction into a combat encounter that lasts five rounds, with all actions within those five rounds being preemptively "pre-programmed" by the player and sent out to their adversary (the combat actions chosen naturally being hidden), who can then accept the combat request by also choosing their own set of actions across the five rounds (these also being hidden). Each round allows for an offensive and defensive action, with the offensive actions being "Primary Weapon", "Secondary Weapon", and "Hand to Hand" and the defensive actions being "Block", "Parry", and "Dodge". The player also chooses the strength of their attack from 0 to 100% through a "power meter" slider bar. Each attack type has its own "power meter" which gets used up, reducing the power available in future combat rounds. Presumably a combination of the two characters' attributes, choice of actions, and "power meter" settings determines who wins a combat round. However, the game gives no indication why a player wins or loses any given round, so the actual fundamental mechanics of how the combat works are basically a complete mystery.
The game featured a leader board based on points which are determined by wins, losses, advances, and retreats. There was also a "War Room" which showed the amount of global wins across Autobots and Decepticons, one of the very few elements from the original game that managed to survive into this version. An advance is when a player's challenge is not answered and a retreat is when a player does not answer another player's challenge. A player can also earn more "power up points"... Whatever those would even do in the obscurantist combat mechanics of this game.
Update 1
Sometime in May, the game received its first and only update, which attempted to bring back some of the missing features from the original Battle for the Allspark. Combat is now turn-based, allowing both players to choose their moves live across each of the game's rounds, and finally featuring an actual summary of what happened during combat at the end of each round. This, however; required both players to be simultaneously online (you could previously just respond to the pre-programmed five-round invites at any time you desired), and they only had one minute to accept a battle invite to boot, which eventually made finding opponents across the dwindling population of the game a lot harder. A chat window was added but, with the lack of an overworld and a zone system like that of its predecessor, it was only restricted to chatting during combat. A "Battle History" system was also added which, as self-explanatory, provided a record of battles that the player had previously engaged with.
Perhaps the most anticipated new feature was the introduction of actual animated battles, except... They were kind of a mess. Rather than this being integrated into the aforementioned round-based system, viewing an animated simulation of the combat was only an option that you'd get at the end of a match, and even then, these animations were incredibly janky and buggy, so much so that the feature was removed entirely shortly after being implemented. Ultimately, despite the developers' best attempts to correct the mistakes of the game's launch, it seems that Battle for the Allspark v2 was doomed to die by the shadow of its more beloved and refined predecessor.
Characters
Much like how the original Battle for the Allspark featured the enemy drone units of the 2007 retail game, v2 featured the enemy units of the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen retail game.
Autobots
Decepticons
Notes
- The Omni Warrior Gold and Gold Stunticon Scout 2 were available through a promotional tie-in with the second Revenge of the Fallen movie trailer, where a code written in Cybertronian could be decoded and then used to unlock the two characters.
