Finally, a Transformers game worthy of the licence. Since the dire outings that were the film tie-in games, fans have been crying out for a game that meets more of the mythos surrounding the Transformers universe.
High Moon Studios are best known for their last gen console release of the average Darkwatch, and below average The Bourne Conspiracy, which makes them an odd choice for such a popular franchise. Entitled Transformers: War for Cybertron, this game is a far cry from anything movie related. Taking most of its inspiration from the original 80s cartoons, the story plays out on the planet of Cybertron, home-world of the Transformers instead of previous earth-bound titles. The game revolves around Megatron’s rise to power, whereby the Autobots current leader, Zeta Prime, is defeated and Optimus must become the last Prime. Many fans of the original show will be familiar with the inevitable outcome of the war and new-comers to the series may have their questions answered about the origins of the Transformers.
Gameplay plays out in standard 3rd person shooter fashion. It has elements that remind the player of Gears of War, though there is no cover system implemented, relying instead on the ability to hide behind static scenery. Players may choose to fight alone, or co-operatively with two other people, through the campaign. However, the decision to play as Autobots or Decepticons has no effect on the storyline and it is worth noting that playing as the Decepticons first makes more sense, as the storyline will flow in a coherent fashion.
Throughout the campaign, players will face off against hordes of nameless and faceless automotons, no matter what campaign they are playing. Though they are quite similar in terms of colour, there is a good enough variety of enemy types to keep the player on their toes. Add to this, the sometimes enormous boss battles to engage in, it is easy to overlook this minor failing. Anyone looking for an engaging shooter with a modicum of challenge should most definitely turn the difficulty up to hard on this title, as playing on easy leads to a rather unchallenging run and gun experience.
The real fun in this title comes from the fact that the player takes on the role of some of the most famous Transformers from the cartoons. It is a simple pleasure to watch your character transform between vehicle and robot form. Watching closely, it can be seen that High Moon has taken care, and great detail, to create different animations for each of the characters transformations. From an aesthetic stand-point, this has to be one of the most fantastic parts of the game, as the scenery in the game can be very bland aside from the parts of the environment that actively transform in front of the player.
Obviously, with the game taking place on the home-world of a robotic life form, one would expect everything to be very metallic and in this Transformers suffers from the same visual illness most modern day shooters suffer from. In games like Modern Warfare players are assaulted with constant browns and Gears of War vomits mostly grey and brown into the players eyes, but here on Cybertron there is a sickening level of gun-metal grey. It seems hard to explain that there can be too many metallic shades on a metal planet, but just a splash of colour would have been nice, take for example some of the brighter character models.
All in all the single player campaign is quite fun, but it seems that the multiplayer is the main draw and staying power of the game. High Moon have created a character creation system akin to that of shooters like Modern Warfare, alongside the use of class systems. The class system is broken down into four categories; soldier, scout, scientist and leader. Players are then able to choose colour and chassis variants for both Decepticon and Autobot warriors, based on the major characters from the storyline, giving the whole experience the personal touch. It’s worth noting that the player will likely be the only one to notice, as the action can get so frantic it’s hard to tell the difference between opposing teams never mind individual robots.
With an XP system in operation, the player can unlock new abilities to assign to their created character, along with kill streak rewards, in the style of Modern Warfare. Though many comparisons can be made to many of the popular FPS games of the current generation, Transformers stands on its own two feet by combining an old-school frantic shoot-em up with modern concepts, which provides for a fun fast-paced experience. There are several game modes including team death match, death match (free-for-all), conquest (think domination) and several objective based team games that involve capturing a neutral goal or assaulting enemy territory for access to the objective.
A third game mode is available to players in the form of Escalation, which plays out like a cross between Gears of War’s Horde mode and Call of Duty: World at War’s Zombie Nazi games. The game mode can be played co-operatively with up to four people, wherein points are scored by destroying enemy soldiers until the wave has been eliminated. In between waves, players will scramble to spend points on ammo, weapons or to unlock doors to access new areas before the countdown ends and the next, more deadly wave, begins its assault. Though this type of game-mode is common place in a lot of games, it is once again the attraction of playing as a Transformer that brings the experience to life.
The Transformers franchise has finally come home with this title. It is unabashedly tongue-in-cheek with it’s voice acting and it has managed to steer clear of the pitfalls of a movie tie-in and has provided fans, new and old, with a fresh look at the Transformers universe.
VideogameUK verdict: 8/10
