So, the latest gaming installments of the Transformers franchise have been poor, due to the fact that they have been tied into the Michael Bay destructothons that are the movies, and a true fan can only expect that a movie license free version of the game has to be better. Is this the case, or have High Moon Studios dropped the ball on one of the biggest franchises of all time. Has a company nailed it at last?
Due to the fact that the demo is multiplayer only, it is hard to comment on the package as a whole. The demo allows players access to one map, Molten, two character classes; the scout and the soldier, two game modes and some of the perks and weapons. Firstly, gameplay…is it any good? Transformers: War For Cybertron plays like a standard first or third person shooter. The controls are deliberately simple so as to avoid the confusion the movie tie-in games created. With a simple click of the left stick your character transforms into either a tank, for the soldier class, or a car, when playing as a scout. The characters move smoothly and react to your commands in good time and I found little or no lag in the demo. Aiming is a standard affair, pull left trigger to fine aim and pull the right to unleash a barrage of bullets or rockets. It plays like any other shooter, which despite the ultra cool fact you are a Transformer, may actually be the downfall of the game on release.
The weapon choices are class specific with the soldier carrying the heavy fire power like rocket launchers and gattling guns, and the scouts using what could only be described as the games equivalent to submachine guns and sniper rifles. Both classes differ in speed and ability to withstand punishment as you might guess. The vehicle controls are easy and intuitive and have special abilities, e.g. the tank can rotate 180 degress quickly as it is a slow moving beast, and each vehicle has their own gun which can be fired at will.
Character classes provide the player with choice beyond the ability to choose weapons. In the demo, experience is capped at level 3, allowing access to only the earlier perks and abilities. The player can create a custom class for each of the two available and even name them. The full version promises more customisation in the form of colour schemes and different chassis’ for your robots and access to the other two classes, leader and scientist.
The level design for the map featured in the demo is as simple as it could be, to the point that it reminds me of playing Unreal or Quake, which is not such a bad thing for a team based shooter. The map is symmetrical with each side having a spawn point in an identical room, with doors leading up, down and straight ahead into an open cavern with one large bridge in the center of the map. This style of map design lends itself well to game modes such as conquest, seen most often in the Call of Duty series as domination.
The audio in the game is fantastic. From the sounds of the robots transforming to the announcer, either Optimus Prime (played by the original voice actor) or Megatron, calling the scores or berating you for poor performance, it all sounds like Transformers should.
This small outing has given me a taste of what’s to come from this latest Transformers game and if the storyline and single player campaign come together, along with more fantastic maps, robots and abilities for the multiplayer, we could potentially have a nice little treat at last from the Transformers universe.
