A Transformers game not based on a movie awesome right?
Transformers what are you doing in a game that doesn’t have anything to do with a movie? Transformers: War for Cybertron is based on the events leading up to the Transformers seeking refuge on Earth. Since War for Cybertron is not based on any of the movies, its source material gives the developer room to make an actual game and not a movie game.
War for Cybertron is a pretty good sub title, because it tells you almost everything you need to know about what you will be doing in this game. When you first start your game you will notice that you have a choice of playing the first five levels as the Decepticons acting as the Decepticon campaign or play the last five levels as the Autobots acting as the Autobot campaign. When you start the Decepticon campaign and before every mission you will have your choice of Decepticons to play as. The main story for the Decepticons has Megatron trying to harness the power of Dark Energon. Once he has the power of the Dark Energon he wants to take it to Cybertrons core to infect the planet to return Cybertron back to the way it once was.
The Autobot campaign has you fixing all of the problems Megatron made on his way to try to take back the planet. You also have the choice of playing as different Autobots at the start of each level. I did not find the story all too interesting and it felt too drawn out. The story did not pull me in. It was exciting and it made me not care about any of the characters. If you are a big Transformer fan, then you will find enough things in the story to keep you excited.
Each Transformer has their own specific weapon and they can also carry a secondary weapon that they can change out when they come across new ones. There Transformer specific weapon is nothing special. I would have rather had a chance to carry two different weapons I want and not one weapon I am stuck with. Also each Transformer has a special ability like stealing health from enemies or increase damage for a short period of time. These abilities can only be used once you fill up your meter with Energon from fallen enemies.
The game controls like a normal third person shooter, there is no cover mechanic but since you are a Transformer you can change into your vehicle shape and drive or fly around. The combat is not exciting like most third person games. The combat suffers a lot from poor AI. I found myself face to face with an enemy and he was shooting at someone else. He never turned to look at me. I mean you can’t miss me I am a giant robot. But don’t get the idea that the game is easy. I found myself dying a lot on medium difficulty. There would be some corridors that the game throws a shit load of enemies all at once. There aren’t any big set piece moments that help move the game along. It just drags along from checkpoint to checkpoint.
I was shocked by the graphics not because they looked good but because they look so bad. Everything looks like last generation graphics. The cut scenes look good, but when you start playing, it is just amazing how awful it looks. Every environment looks the same, every hallway, and every control room. It all just looks the same. For the most part everything is dark, you can’t see any textures and there are no colors. The game just looks bad.
As you can probably tell I did not enjoy playing this game at all. The only way I would say to play it is if you are a big Transformer fan otherwise stay away. If I was not doing this review for the game, I would have stopped after the first level. The game plays bad, it looks bad, the story I couldn’t get into and I was happy that it was over when I finished it. The one thing I did enjoy was the voice cast, which made it somewhat bearable when I was grinding through the levels. They could have made a great Transformers game since this game didn’t get released alongside a movie. I feel it was a wasted effort, I thought I would somewhat enjoy this game but I guess not. You should only play this game if you are aching for some more Transformer action.
