Transformers: War For Cybertron
Game » consists of 20 releases. Released Jun 22, 2010
A depiction of the beginning of the infamous war between the noble Autobots and the nefarious Decepticons, set on the Transformers' homeworld, Cybertron, long before they had even heard of humans or the planet Earth.
My Transformers: War for Cybertron review
Edited By delta_ass
"Optimus..."
"This is the end of the road, Bayformers! Now... light our darkest hour..."
This game... this licensed video game... what is it? I'll tell you what it is. Transformers: War for Cybertron is a near masterpiece, and indubitably this year's Arkham Asylum. People (and I) kept hoping and praying that it would be, that this game might turn out to do for Transformers games what Arkham Asylum did for Batman games. And they were right. Absolutely. Though, to be completely honest... I actually enjoyed this game much more then Arkham Asylum. Arkham Asylum was a good game and quite fun but in hindsight, a lot of the gameplay was composed of overly simplistic mechanics that wore thin. To become completely silent, you just had to crouch. To grab a guy from above, you just had to press a button prompt. To swing to a gargoyle, you just had to aim in the general direction of one. War for Cybertron isn't exactly an incredibly experimental game with tricks up every one of its sleeves, but it does combine 3rd person shooting with vehicular transformation in a very fresh and exciting way that always feels satisfying and true to its universe.
Who knew High Moon Studios could come up with this amazing experience? Hell, who had even heard of High Moon before? I sure hadn't. Apparently they'd gone and made some sort of Bourne Conspiracy game that reviewed alright, but that's hardly an impressive pedigree. To follow up that effort with WFC is a truly impressive feat. It's too bad it had to come out in the same year as ME2, because, so far... it could've been my GOTY otherwise. It's that good. This is at last the Transformers game I've been waiting for. The Transformers game every Transformers fan had been waiting for, just as The Dark Knight was the film every Batman fan had been waiting for. There's a pageantry and a majesty to the whole affair. It's a great shooter, period. Matt Tieger always seemed like a really nice guy in all the interviews on the various gaming websites and now we've found out he isn't just a decent fella with a predilection for shaving his head. The dude can actually back that up with some crazy good game directin'. In fact, I dub him Tiegerus Prime now. After the twin trainwrecks that were Transformers Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers: Animated, him and the rest of High Moon Studios really did light our darkest hour with this game.
The combat, the shooting... it all feels solid. But of course, there isn't just 3rd person shooting. There's also thrilling flight sequences in vehicle mode, as well as environmental puzzles to solve. Anyone who liked Descent will love the seeker sequences in this campaign. Both Decepticon and Autobot have a chapter completely dedicated to flying around in Descent fashion. If you thought the gameplay videos of space combat in Halo Reach were amazing, I'm sorry... but it's really nothing compared to the stuff in this game. It'll blow your fucking mind.
What I'm gonna focus on now are the little things, the small details that really make this game great and better than the sum of its parts. In an interview I watched a while back, Mr. Tiegerus Prime described how picking up a weapon would actually change the little lights glowing on the weapon itself. If you were an Autobot, the weapon lights would change to red, reflecting its allegiance had changed to Autobot. It's not anything all that important or compelling, but that was just a little detail that really spoke about the dedication and love that went into this product. It's a little thing, but you know what... those little things, they add up, and they end up as the polish in a game that really allows it to rise up above its peers and shine forth as something special, something to be remembered in the halls of glory. Sorry, that last bit was me relapsing into some Star Trek episode about Klingons. But uh, you get what I mean.
Another example? The fanservice sprinkled throughout the campaign. My mouth dropped open when Ironhide said the universal greeting. Fucking insane that they would include that in there. It was the sort of surprise that's wholly unexpected but in the best way possible. Just, just great fanservice. There's others, like when I ran into a fucking energon cube vending machine. No real purpose, since you can get energon cubes any old way... but they actually thought to have one dispensed from a Cybertronian vending machine. Got a chuckle out of me. Oh yes, a good early example was in the first chapter, when Megatron went onboard the space station. I liked the touch of them letting you kill all the Autobot prisoners in restraints if you wanted to. Really made you feel like you were Megatron, sparing no one. I do believe I smashed them all to pieces with my melee attack.
Dialogue in the game is very good, with some of the G1 voice actors coming back. Peter Cullen obviously being the big one. Unfortunately, Frank Welker doesn't reprise his role of Megatron, or Chris Latta as Starscream. Latta being dead is uh, a big hurdle to overcome, I admit. Still, the guy they did get for Starscream doesn't do as good of a Latta impression as I was hoping for. Um, the guy who does the voice of Bumblebee is certainly not the original Bumblebee, and it shows. He sounds more like a young uppity punk then the G1 Bumblebee, who was just kinda soft and doughy and ineffectual. Moving on from the actual voice acting, Thundercracker and Skywarp have some nice banter back and forth. They're like siblings who haven't ever gotten along and it works well. Another standout performance comes from the Decepticon scout, either Barricade or Breakdown, I can never tell between the two. But uh, he injects some great humor as well. One line that really stood out in my mind is near the end of the Decepticon campaign, where he goes "Another elevator?! That didn't work out too well for us last time..."
The Omega Supreme boss fight... just wow. Both final boss fights in the singleplayer were amazing. Absolutely incredible experiences. They really remind me of WoW raid bosses I used to do, except now I'm just taking along two invincible meatshields. Truly epic setpieces that allow the campaigns to go out on a bang, not a whimper. This is again where I have to invoke Arkham Asylum, which unfortunately had absolutely shit boss encounters. I mean, I guess Bane and Scarecrow were alright. But the rest of em: Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, Harley Quinn, Joker... just awful rubbish fights. I don't mind taking the piss out of em, they were bad. Just not the case at all in WFC, all the boss fights are fine, with particular highlights going to Soundwave and the two mega bosses. The sheer sight of Omega Supreme and Trypticon are awe inspiring, but to actually stand up to them and fight them, and die several times... and then finally defeat them? Well, that is just about as satisfying as a singleplayer experience gets. And the great thing is, they each take up about two chapters, which you would never have expected. When has a boss fight in a game ever taken up multiple chapters? It's unheard of. Yet High Moon believed, and god bless them for this, that these were such epic and incredible foes that they deserved to be shown in two chapters, to build them up more and more. And it works, it works splendidly. These implacable giants, titans of metal and energon, required that much content for us to digest in their full glory. Just genius.
Talking about epic encounters... how about that Decepticon chapter with the seekers taking out the Aerialbot flying fortress? I wasn't sure if it was some sort of carrier or dropship or cruiser. First you had to fly around and destroy all the missile launchers mounted on it, then the bays opened up and Aerialbots flew out to duel with you in the skies. Was that not awesome? Finally, in the third stage, you had to actually fly inside and battle your way to the engine core and detonate it. I still remember clearing out the security forces inside, and spotting the few survivors. They were all barricaded up in the bridge while I blew up the core. Wickedly delightful. Flying through the jagged hole to escape... Jesus. What an epic moment to see it fall and splash into the energon river.
Matt Tieger and High Moon made a very risky decision in forgoing regenerating health for a health pickup system. It works well in adding a sense of difficulty, as well as staying true to the Transformers lore of constantly hungering for more energon cubes. Hard difficulty is certainly not a cakewalk, the game is legitimately difficult. Really difficult. In fact, on Hard difficulty, I actually found two really frustrating sections where it was perhaps a bit too hard. First is protecting Ratchet while he repairs Omega Supreme. At a certain point there are so many enemies (including a couple of heavy weapon brutes) that you'll either get shredded or watch helplessly as Ratchet gets shredded and bleed out. The second is the very end, where you fight Trypticon in his 2nd phase. The tail attack can be hard to avoid and the truck handling isn't quite as nimble as you'd like. Plus, Trypticon has about four different attacks you have to be on your toes to watch out for. Both sections had me wishing for a ton more checkpoints.
The AI for your 2 squadbots is okay, but we understand that they're just stand-ins for your co-op buddies. They generally work well to move toward the next objective and act like invincible bullet sponges. There were a few sections where the puzzle-like navigation required was a bit much, and in those parts they eventually just teleported to my location. Very rarely, they'll present roadblocks in your way, such as directly blocking a path up a ramp in the Trypticon battle, and that certainly led to me dying to a volley of missiles, but it's no big deal.
Graphically, the game has a very Quake 4/Unreal Tournament-ish art aesthetic for its levels. This might turn some people off, but I don't mind it at all, since it's supposed to be on fucking Cybertron, a completely mechanical planet. It is wholly appropriate and High Moon does a good job of varying up the level layout once you get out of the first chapter, which does have a somewhat generic layout. Now, I have noticed this game has that Unreal 3 Engine characteristic fog or haze that permeates everything in the distance. Or, it seems to be applied very liberally. That kinda gets irritating at times, when you're trying to divine something at a distance and don't want the cataract experience anymore. For enemies, I've stated before in my demo impressions that it can be somewhat less then ideal trying to shoot at metallic robotic entities standing and moving against a metallic robotic backdrop. There's a sorta camo effect that naturally flows from that dynamic. This is greatly alleviated in the campaign with the addition of a red triangular target overlay on all enemies that you're aiming at. Great move upgrading our optics, it helps a lot.
It took me about half the campaign before I went into the Extras menu and found the concept art section. Which is great, cause you've gotta unlock the galleries in there by playing through the campaign. Honestly, it all looks amazing. I highly recommend everyone go and check it out when they've unlocked most of the galleries. The artwork is top notch and just goes to show how talented High Moon is. I felt a much greater appreciation for the actual gameplay and levels and character designs after witnessing them firsthand and then combining that experience with the concept sketches on paper that you see (there are ink smudges and stains and everything faithfully represented).
Alrighty, enough of the good feelings. I think I've praised this game enough. Time for some of my critiques:
-The fusion cannon projectile is a bit too slow for my liking. The fusion cannon in this game is basically a somewhat slow video game rocket launcher. The travel time of the projectile basically means that for medium to long range enemies that are not stationary, which happens quite often in this game, you're generally going to miss horribly. Which isn't good, considering you only have 20 max ammo for the gun. 20 shots. Cmon, that is so fucking low. Each enemy takes about 2 fusion blasts to kill. The dev team seems to have balanced this gun around dealing a lot of splash damage at close range, sacrificing its use for long distance shots. Also, it uses ammo. Who knew you had to reload a giant fusion cannon? Who knew you could?
-When you run out of fusion cannon ammo for Megatron, you've gotta use a different weapon. I want to play Megatron with his fusion cannon, it's the most iconic weapon in Transformers universe. Feels wrong to use another lesser weapon.
-Went to the multiplayer menu ingame and checked out the 2 new classes, Scientist and Leader. The Leader's four weapons are the fusion cannon, ion blaster, grenade launcher, and battle pistol. Now... do you see the issue here? Do you see what's wrong here? The Fusion Cannon, unquestionably the most impressive, renowned, and iconic weapon in the Transformers universe... can only be used by Leaders. The Fusion cannon is a Leader weapon. It cannot be used in a Soldier loadout. But see, the Megatron chassis is a Soldier. So... basically, what this means is that you'll have Optimus Primes and Soundwaves running around with fusion cannons, while the Megatron chassis can't. -That is just wrong. I cannot believe they actually decided to do this. Part of the reason I was so excited about this game was for the opportunity to finally run around and play multiplayer as Megatron, with his big, intimidating, amazingly phallic Fusion Cannon. Now, if I want to use it online, I'll have to be a Leader and look like Optimus Prime, or Ratchet, or Ironhide, or Soundwave. Those are the only chassis you can use for the Leader class. It's so very disappointing.
-The Null Ray is supposed to be a stun ray, not a sniper rifle. Many G1 episodes to support this.
-So far, not much experience with Escalation. But... right now, I gotta say... Escalation's stations aren't good, should have had other ways to regain health and ammo. It's not fun to stand in front of a station watching as you feed it credits to get items. Same reason I didn't like Counter-Strike, messing around with money to buy stuff is not enjoyable when you just want to shoot stuff. They could've just had ammo and health pickups drop off of enemy bodies like most other horde modes in games. I dunno, I never played Nazi Zombies.
-Why does Ratchet have a British accent voice? He didn't in original G1 cartoon. He sounds weird.
-Omega Supreme's dark energon crystals clipped through his missile launcher flaps.
-The ammo system in War for Cybertron is terribly outdated and inefficient. If you're missing one round of ammo for a gun, running over an ammo pickup will consume the pickup and give you one round of ammo. This sucks, if you're missing ammo later on and want to backtrack to get more. The ammo pickup should not go away just because you gained one round from it to fill up your ammo capacity. Many games, such as Halo, do this in a smart way, where the gun/ammo pickup doesn't magically go away until you have completely exhausted its supply of ammo.
-For some reason, seekers have infinite ammo in vehicle form. But no other vehicle mode has this. Other vehicles have limited ammo and have to find more. It doesn't make sense.
-Clouds of Energon shards are used to power up your abilities in singleplayer. However, they only last a certain amount of time after you kill an enemy. They eventually despawn, so if you're not quick you can miss them. This is dumb. If you're playing cautiously, you shouldn't be punished for that.
-The button prompts can be hard to see. It's a small blue X button along with words in thin white font. Often, this gets hidden in the graphics on the bottom of your screen.
-Just found an area with infinite respawning enemies. In the Decepticon campaign, you have to destroy some anti-aircraft cannons to allow your bombers to fly through. Well, the cannons are protected by turrets that seem to be constantly reinforced by respawning enemies. I've completely run out of ammo blasting them.
-Ran into more infinite respawning enemies in the Autobot campaign. You have to get past this open plaza with stairs leading upwards. There's pieces of debris for cover and tons of Decepticons swarming down from the stairs. Sitting back and sniping them just leads to ammo depletion.
-More infinite respawning enemies in the breakout from the Prison Cells. They just keep coming and coming, but I keep running out of ammo. It's completely unfair.
-Zeta Prime's boss battle was way too easy. It seemed like all the clones were swarming around Soundwave and Barricade. Just had to sit back and blow them away. Plus, I had the nucleon shock cannon from the earlier miniboss.
-Very ugly pixellation in the Kaon Prison Cells in the Autobot campaign. You have to rescue Air Raid and there's a series of tunnels off to one side with cells. Peering in the cells will reveal very blocky pixellated walls surrounded by a whitish mist. It's hard to miss. I think they just screwed up on some textures or filtering on that section.
-Kinda disappointed that Chapter 10 just ended with the defeat of Trypticon. I was really expecting that the Chapter would start with you finishing off Trypticon and then going on to take on Megatron in a final boss fight. Wasn't everyone thinking the same thing? How could you not end a Transformers game with a great final showdown between Optimus Prime and Megatron? Alas, it seems this was sacrificed for a sequel, and... I suppose, defeating Megatron in too decisive a manner would kinda not make sense with what happened in G1.
Finally, I want to touch on Hasbro's decision to make this game's story G1 canon. Now, there's a few details that popped up that made me worry, since they did not align correctly with the G1 cartoon we all knew and loved as kids. But, thinking on them, pondering a bit... I've come up with reasonable solutions, for some of them. I think I've reconciled the Jetfire problem with this game being G1 canon. In this game, Jetfire betrays the Decepticons and goes over to the Autobot side while on Cybertron. On the show, Skyfire betrayed the Decepticons after he was thawed out on Earth. See, that was Skyfire in the cartoon, right? This Jetfire isn't the same character as Skyfire. Jetfire is the autobot guy in this game who starts as Starscream's right hand guy, while Skyfire was another scientist who Starscream was also friends with back in the past. They're just separate characters. Who happen to look very very similar. Who knows, maybe Jetfire and Skyfire are brothers or something. Who both happen to betray Starscream. That's uh, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Another problem is Trypticon. See, in G1 he was a giant T-Rex who was built on Earth out of a city. Well, the Trypticon in this game can't be a T-Rex, right? Because they hadn't gone to Earth yet and didn't know what a T-Rex was. Well, the way I see it is... Trypticon in the game really isn't actually a T-Rex. If you look at the design they created, it looks very different from a T-Rex, because of its large arms. The head is also very small in comparison to the rest of its body. Both are elements that diverge from the T-Rex's body. So, really... Trypticon is just a big ass Decepticon who had a lizard-like appearance and had an alt mode as a giant orbital gun, while they eventually rebuilt him back on Earth as a giant T-Rex with a city mode. This preserves the continuity.
Ya know, the more I think about this game, the more I get a little bit pissed off. Why? Well, because this game came out right around the time of Alpha Protocol's release. In proximity, let's say. Alpha Protocol, developed by the dubiously infamous Obsidian dev team, with their legions of frothing, mindless fanboys and their weird Bioware-hating fetishes. Obsidian gets to release the absolute trash that was Alpha Protocol, and gets a wall of excuses from its fans as a defense from any criticism. Alpha Protocol... the game is a horrible piece of vile trash that never should've seen the light of day. But people buy into it, because it looks like Mass Effect and because Chris Avellone apparently is a neat dude. Now on the other hand, High Moon goes and works its butt off and gives us a nostalgic treasure... an iridescent labor of love that delivers on almost every promise, and yet... frankly, it'll probably be ignored by some people, maybe many people, because of the shitty history of past Transformers games, and the trend of shitty licensed games in general. They are going to miss out, while some people out there are actually handing over 60 hard earned dollars to continue to fund the throbbing headache that is Obsidian. That just really grinds my gears.
Score: I've gotta concur with IGN's Arthur Gies, War for Cybertron is a solid 9 out of 10. And if you're a hardcore Transformers G1 fan with nostalgia issues, you might as well bump that up to a 9.5. At the beginning of this review, I said this was the Transformers game I'd been waiting for. More correctly, this was the game I didn't realize I was waiting for. It's one of the year's best.
"Let this mark the end of the Cybertronian wars as we march forward to a new age of peace and happiness... Till all are one!"
"Optimus..."
"This is the end of the road, Bayformers! Now... light our darkest hour..."
This game... this licensed video game... what is it? I'll tell you what it is. Transformers: War for Cybertron is a near masterpiece, and indubitably this year's Arkham Asylum. People (and I) kept hoping and praying that it would be, that this game might turn out to do for Transformers games what Arkham Asylum did for Batman games. And they were right. Absolutely. Though, to be completely honest... I actually enjoyed this game much more then Arkham Asylum. Arkham Asylum was a good game and quite fun but in hindsight, a lot of the gameplay was composed of overly simplistic mechanics that wore thin. To become completely silent, you just had to crouch. To grab a guy from above, you just had to press a button prompt. To swing to a gargoyle, you just had to aim in the general direction of one. War for Cybertron isn't exactly an incredibly experimental game with tricks up every one of its sleeves, but it does combine 3rd person shooting with vehicular transformation in a very fresh and exciting way that always feels satisfying and true to its universe.
Who knew High Moon Studios could come up with this amazing experience? Hell, who had even heard of High Moon before? I sure hadn't. Apparently they'd gone and made some sort of Bourne Conspiracy game that reviewed alright, but that's hardly an impressive pedigree. To follow up that effort with WFC is a truly impressive feat. It's too bad it had to come out in the same year as ME2, because, so far... it could've been my GOTY otherwise. It's that good. This is at last the Transformers game I've been waiting for. The Transformers game every Transformers fan had been waiting for, just as The Dark Knight was the film every Batman fan had been waiting for. There's a pageantry and a majesty to the whole affair. It's a great shooter, period. Matt Tieger always seemed like a really nice guy in all the interviews on the various gaming websites and now we've found out he isn't just a decent fella with a predilection for shaving his head. The dude can actually back that up with some crazy good game directin'. In fact, I dub him Tiegerus Prime now. After the twin trainwrecks that were Transformers Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers: Animated, him and the rest of High Moon Studios really did light our darkest hour with this game.
The combat, the shooting... it all feels solid. But of course, there isn't just 3rd person shooting. There's also thrilling flight sequences in vehicle mode, as well as environmental puzzles to solve. Anyone who liked Descent will love the seeker sequences in this campaign. Both Decepticon and Autobot have a chapter completely dedicated to flying around in Descent fashion. If you thought the gameplay videos of space combat in Halo Reach were amazing, I'm sorry... but it's really nothing compared to the stuff in this game. It'll blow your fucking mind.
What I'm gonna focus on now are the little things, the small details that really make this game great and better than the sum of its parts. In an interview I watched a while back, Mr. Tiegerus Prime described how picking up a weapon would actually change the little lights glowing on the weapon itself. If you were an Autobot, the weapon lights would change to red, reflecting its allegiance had changed to Autobot. It's not anything all that important or compelling, but that was just a little detail that really spoke about the dedication and love that went into this product. It's a little thing, but you know what... those little things, they add up, and they end up as the polish in a game that really allows it to rise up above its peers and shine forth as something special, something to be remembered in the halls of glory. Sorry, that last bit was me relapsing into some Star Trek episode about Klingons. But uh, you get what I mean.
Another example? The fanservice sprinkled throughout the campaign. My mouth dropped open when Ironhide said the universal greeting. Fucking insane that they would include that in there. It was the sort of surprise that's wholly unexpected but in the best way possible. Just, just great fanservice. There's others, like when I ran into a fucking energon cube vending machine. No real purpose, since you can get energon cubes any old way... but they actually thought to have one dispensed from a Cybertronian vending machine. Got a chuckle out of me. Oh yes, a good early example was in the first chapter, when Megatron went onboard the space station. I liked the touch of them letting you kill all the Autobot prisoners in restraints if you wanted to. Really made you feel like you were Megatron, sparing no one. I do believe I smashed them all to pieces with my melee attack.
Dialogue in the game is very good, with some of the G1 voice actors coming back. Peter Cullen obviously being the big one. Unfortunately, Frank Welker doesn't reprise his role of Megatron, or Chris Latta as Starscream. Latta being dead is uh, a big hurdle to overcome, I admit. Still, the guy they did get for Starscream doesn't do as good of a Latta impression as I was hoping for. Um, the guy who does the voice of Bumblebee is certainly not the original Bumblebee, and it shows. He sounds more like a young uppity punk then the G1 Bumblebee, who was just kinda soft and doughy and ineffectual. Moving on from the actual voice acting, Thundercracker and Skywarp have some nice banter back and forth. They're like siblings who haven't ever gotten along and it works well. Another standout performance comes from the Decepticon scout, either Barricade or Breakdown, I can never tell between the two. But uh, he injects some great humor as well. One line that really stood out in my mind is near the end of the Decepticon campaign, where he goes "Another elevator?! That didn't work out too well for us last time..."
The Omega Supreme boss fight... just wow. Both final boss fights in the singleplayer were amazing. Absolutely incredible experiences. They really remind me of WoW raid bosses I used to do, except now I'm just taking along two invincible meatshields. Truly epic setpieces that allow the campaigns to go out on a bang, not a whimper. This is again where I have to invoke Arkham Asylum, which unfortunately had absolutely shit boss encounters. I mean, I guess Bane and Scarecrow were alright. But the rest of em: Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, Harley Quinn, Joker... just awful rubbish fights. I don't mind taking the piss out of em, they were bad. Just not the case at all in WFC, all the boss fights are fine, with particular highlights going to Soundwave and the two mega bosses. The sheer sight of Omega Supreme and Trypticon are awe inspiring, but to actually stand up to them and fight them, and die several times... and then finally defeat them? Well, that is just about as satisfying as a singleplayer experience gets. And the great thing is, they each take up about two chapters, which you would never have expected. When has a boss fight in a game ever taken up multiple chapters? It's unheard of. Yet High Moon believed, and god bless them for this, that these were such epic and incredible foes that they deserved to be shown in two chapters, to build them up more and more. And it works, it works splendidly. These implacable giants, titans of metal and energon, required that much content for us to digest in their full glory. Just genius.
Talking about epic encounters... how about that Decepticon chapter with the seekers taking out the Aerialbot flying fortress? I wasn't sure if it was some sort of carrier or dropship or cruiser. First you had to fly around and destroy all the missile launchers mounted on it, then the bays opened up and Aerialbots flew out to duel with you in the skies. Was that not awesome? Finally, in the third stage, you had to actually fly inside and battle your way to the engine core and detonate it. I still remember clearing out the security forces inside, and spotting the few survivors. They were all barricaded up in the bridge while I blew up the core. Wickedly delightful. Flying through the jagged hole to escape... Jesus. What an epic moment to see it fall and splash into the energon river.
Matt Tieger and High Moon made a very risky decision in forgoing regenerating health for a health pickup system. It works well in adding a sense of difficulty, as well as staying true to the Transformers lore of constantly hungering for more energon cubes. Hard difficulty is certainly not a cakewalk, the game is legitimately difficult. Really difficult. In fact, on Hard difficulty, I actually found two really frustrating sections where it was perhaps a bit too hard. First is protecting Ratchet while he repairs Omega Supreme. At a certain point there are so many enemies (including a couple of heavy weapon brutes) that you'll either get shredded or watch helplessly as Ratchet gets shredded and bleed out. The second is the very end, where you fight Trypticon in his 2nd phase. The tail attack can be hard to avoid and the truck handling isn't quite as nimble as you'd like. Plus, Trypticon has about four different attacks you have to be on your toes to watch out for. Both sections had me wishing for a ton more checkpoints.
The AI for your 2 squadbots is okay, but we understand that they're just stand-ins for your co-op buddies. They generally work well to move toward the next objective and act like invincible bullet sponges. There were a few sections where the puzzle-like navigation required was a bit much, and in those parts they eventually just teleported to my location. Very rarely, they'll present roadblocks in your way, such as directly blocking a path up a ramp in the Trypticon battle, and that certainly led to me dying to a volley of missiles, but it's no big deal.
Graphically, the game has a very Quake 4/Unreal Tournament-ish art aesthetic for its levels. This might turn some people off, but I don't mind it at all, since it's supposed to be on fucking Cybertron, a completely mechanical planet. It is wholly appropriate and High Moon does a good job of varying up the level layout once you get out of the first chapter, which does have a somewhat generic layout. Now, I have noticed this game has that Unreal 3 Engine characteristic fog or haze that permeates everything in the distance. Or, it seems to be applied very liberally. That kinda gets irritating at times, when you're trying to divine something at a distance and don't want the cataract experience anymore. For enemies, I've stated before in my demo impressions that it can be somewhat less then ideal trying to shoot at metallic robotic entities standing and moving against a metallic robotic backdrop. There's a sorta camo effect that naturally flows from that dynamic. This is greatly alleviated in the campaign with the addition of a red triangular target overlay on all enemies that you're aiming at. Great move upgrading our optics, it helps a lot.
It took me about half the campaign before I went into the Extras menu and found the concept art section. Which is great, cause you've gotta unlock the galleries in there by playing through the campaign. Honestly, it all looks amazing. I highly recommend everyone go and check it out when they've unlocked most of the galleries. The artwork is top notch and just goes to show how talented High Moon is. I felt a much greater appreciation for the actual gameplay and levels and character designs after witnessing them firsthand and then combining that experience with the concept sketches on paper that you see (there are ink smudges and stains and everything faithfully represented).
Alrighty, enough of the good feelings. I think I've praised this game enough. Time for some of my critiques:
-The fusion cannon projectile is a bit too slow for my liking. The fusion cannon in this game is basically a somewhat slow video game rocket launcher. The travel time of the projectile basically means that for medium to long range enemies that are not stationary, which happens quite often in this game, you're generally going to miss horribly. Which isn't good, considering you only have 20 max ammo for the gun. 20 shots. Cmon, that is so fucking low. Each enemy takes about 2 fusion blasts to kill. The dev team seems to have balanced this gun around dealing a lot of splash damage at close range, sacrificing its use for long distance shots. Also, it uses ammo. Who knew you had to reload a giant fusion cannon? Who knew you could?
-When you run out of fusion cannon ammo for Megatron, you've gotta use a different weapon. I want to play Megatron with his fusion cannon, it's the most iconic weapon in Transformers universe. Feels wrong to use another lesser weapon.
-Went to the multiplayer menu ingame and checked out the 2 new classes, Scientist and Leader. The Leader's four weapons are the fusion cannon, ion blaster, grenade launcher, and battle pistol. Now... do you see the issue here? Do you see what's wrong here? The Fusion Cannon, unquestionably the most impressive, renowned, and iconic weapon in the Transformers universe... can only be used by Leaders. The Fusion cannon is a Leader weapon. It cannot be used in a Soldier loadout. But see, the Megatron chassis is a Soldier. So... basically, what this means is that you'll have Optimus Primes and Soundwaves running around with fusion cannons, while the Megatron chassis can't. -That is just wrong. I cannot believe they actually decided to do this. Part of the reason I was so excited about this game was for the opportunity to finally run around and play multiplayer as Megatron, with his big, intimidating, amazingly phallic Fusion Cannon. Now, if I want to use it online, I'll have to be a Leader and look like Optimus Prime, or Ratchet, or Ironhide, or Soundwave. Those are the only chassis you can use for the Leader class. It's so very disappointing.
-The Null Ray is supposed to be a stun ray, not a sniper rifle. Many G1 episodes to support this.
-So far, not much experience with Escalation. But... right now, I gotta say... Escalation's stations aren't good, should have had other ways to regain health and ammo. It's not fun to stand in front of a station watching as you feed it credits to get items. Same reason I didn't like Counter-Strike, messing around with money to buy stuff is not enjoyable when you just want to shoot stuff. They could've just had ammo and health pickups drop off of enemy bodies like most other horde modes in games. I dunno, I never played Nazi Zombies.
-Why does Ratchet have a British accent voice? He didn't in original G1 cartoon. He sounds weird.
-Omega Supreme's dark energon crystals clipped through his missile launcher flaps.
-The ammo system in War for Cybertron is terribly outdated and inefficient. If you're missing one round of ammo for a gun, running over an ammo pickup will consume the pickup and give you one round of ammo. This sucks, if you're missing ammo later on and want to backtrack to get more. The ammo pickup should not go away just because you gained one round from it to fill up your ammo capacity. Many games, such as Halo, do this in a smart way, where the gun/ammo pickup doesn't magically go away until you have completely exhausted its supply of ammo.
-For some reason, seekers have infinite ammo in vehicle form. But no other vehicle mode has this. Other vehicles have limited ammo and have to find more. It doesn't make sense.
-Clouds of Energon shards are used to power up your abilities in singleplayer. However, they only last a certain amount of time after you kill an enemy. They eventually despawn, so if you're not quick you can miss them. This is dumb. If you're playing cautiously, you shouldn't be punished for that.
-The button prompts can be hard to see. It's a small blue X button along with words in thin white font. Often, this gets hidden in the graphics on the bottom of your screen.
-Just found an area with infinite respawning enemies. In the Decepticon campaign, you have to destroy some anti-aircraft cannons to allow your bombers to fly through. Well, the cannons are protected by turrets that seem to be constantly reinforced by respawning enemies. I've completely run out of ammo blasting them.
-Ran into more infinite respawning enemies in the Autobot campaign. You have to get past this open plaza with stairs leading upwards. There's pieces of debris for cover and tons of Decepticons swarming down from the stairs. Sitting back and sniping them just leads to ammo depletion.
-More infinite respawning enemies in the breakout from the Prison Cells. They just keep coming and coming, but I keep running out of ammo. It's completely unfair.
-Zeta Prime's boss battle was way too easy. It seemed like all the clones were swarming around Soundwave and Barricade. Just had to sit back and blow them away. Plus, I had the nucleon shock cannon from the earlier miniboss.
-Very ugly pixellation in the Kaon Prison Cells in the Autobot campaign. You have to rescue Air Raid and there's a series of tunnels off to one side with cells. Peering in the cells will reveal very blocky pixellated walls surrounded by a whitish mist. It's hard to miss. I think they just screwed up on some textures or filtering on that section.
-Kinda disappointed that Chapter 10 just ended with the defeat of Trypticon. I was really expecting that the Chapter would start with you finishing off Trypticon and then going on to take on Megatron in a final boss fight. Wasn't everyone thinking the same thing? How could you not end a Transformers game with a great final showdown between Optimus Prime and Megatron? Alas, it seems this was sacrificed for a sequel, and... I suppose, defeating Megatron in too decisive a manner would kinda not make sense with what happened in G1.
Finally, I want to touch on Hasbro's decision to make this game's story G1 canon. Now, there's a few details that popped up that made me worry, since they did not align correctly with the G1 cartoon we all knew and loved as kids. But, thinking on them, pondering a bit... I've come up with reasonable solutions, for some of them. I think I've reconciled the Jetfire problem with this game being G1 canon. In this game, Jetfire betrays the Decepticons and goes over to the Autobot side while on Cybertron. On the show, Skyfire betrayed the Decepticons after he was thawed out on Earth. See, that was Skyfire in the cartoon, right? This Jetfire isn't the same character as Skyfire. Jetfire is the autobot guy in this game who starts as Starscream's right hand guy, while Skyfire was another scientist who Starscream was also friends with back in the past. They're just separate characters. Who happen to look very very similar. Who knows, maybe Jetfire and Skyfire are brothers or something. Who both happen to betray Starscream. That's uh, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Another problem is Trypticon. See, in G1 he was a giant T-Rex who was built on Earth out of a city. Well, the Trypticon in this game can't be a T-Rex, right? Because they hadn't gone to Earth yet and didn't know what a T-Rex was. Well, the way I see it is... Trypticon in the game really isn't actually a T-Rex. If you look at the design they created, it looks very different from a T-Rex, because of its large arms. The head is also very small in comparison to the rest of its body. Both are elements that diverge from the T-Rex's body. So, really... Trypticon is just a big ass Decepticon who had a lizard-like appearance and had an alt mode as a giant orbital gun, while they eventually rebuilt him back on Earth as a giant T-Rex with a city mode. This preserves the continuity.
Ya know, the more I think about this game, the more I get a little bit pissed off. Why? Well, because this game came out right around the time of Alpha Protocol's release. In proximity, let's say. Alpha Protocol, developed by the dubiously infamous Obsidian dev team, with their legions of frothing, mindless fanboys and their weird Bioware-hating fetishes. Obsidian gets to release the absolute trash that was Alpha Protocol, and gets a wall of excuses from its fans as a defense from any criticism. Alpha Protocol... the game is a horrible piece of vile trash that never should've seen the light of day. But people buy into it, because it looks like Mass Effect and because Chris Avellone apparently is a neat dude. Now on the other hand, High Moon goes and works its butt off and gives us a nostalgic treasure... an iridescent labor of love that delivers on almost every promise, and yet... frankly, it'll probably be ignored by some people, maybe many people, because of the shitty history of past Transformers games, and the trend of shitty licensed games in general. They are going to miss out, while some people out there are actually handing over 60 hard earned dollars to continue to fund the throbbing headache that is Obsidian. That just really grinds my gears.
Score: I've gotta concur with IGN's Arthur Gies, War for Cybertron is a solid 9 out of 10. And if you're a hardcore Transformers G1 fan with nostalgia issues, you might as well bump that up to a 9.5. At the beginning of this review, I said this was the Transformers game I'd been waiting for. More correctly, this was the game I didn't realize I was waiting for. It's one of the year's best.
"Let this mark the end of the Cybertronian wars as we march forward to a new age of peace and happiness... Till all are one!"
" why didnt u just post an actual review? "He did. Then posted here. Most likely so he could get the quest points.
Also @demonbear said:
" Bah weep granah weep nini bong. "What he said. lol ;)
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