Game Review - Transformers: War for Cybertron (PS3)

Story:

The Story of Transformers: War for Cybertron which is available for the PS3 and Xbox 360 takes place on the planet Cybertron, home world of the autobots and decepticons who have been fighting a civil war for millions of years, but Megatron who leads the decepticons has journeyed to a station believing it to hold a legendary power source called "Dark Energon" which he believes will tip the balance in his favour, meanwhile the Autobots are in disarray and need a new leader to help them fight the Decepticons, and the one called Optimus may be the only one to do it.

War for Cybertron has a very compelling story that unlike the two recent live action movies is consistent and holds your interest, although there are some complaining about how the story progresses, there is only one way this could end and I won't give that away but you may already know what that is but with that out of the way, let's see how the game feels as a whole:

Visuals:

Visuals range from very good to average, the look of the game is slightly reminiscent of last year's Borderlands in that it has a slightly animated feel to the main game play but the cut scenes are well done and nicely rendered when it comes to the main characters, but where the graphics fail is the environment, Cybertron's interiors don't have that much difference to them and will grate some players, but the exteriors are nicely particularly in the flying levels which reminded me very much of Return of the Jedi's into the death star sequence and that was a cool feeling indeed.

Gameplay:

Now here is where this game really shines and that is the mechanics, in pre release interviews Matt Tieger (the game director) and his team at High Moon Studios pressed on to no end about making the game feel right when you're playing it and if they have sacrificed graphic beauty for that then good on them, I've played a number of games that looked good, very good even but didn't play right, much like how I can dismiss a movie for having good effects work but fumbling the ball on the fundamentals of story and characters.

But any who getting back on track, the single player here is a lot of fun, and I mean a lot, the controls here are very fluid and unlike last year's Transformers game Revenge of the Fallen (yes it was one of those movie tie-in games) which not only had bland graphics but terrible controls, this one gets that right especially when it comes to your vehicle mode, again going back to ROTF the vehicle mode in that game was horrible, so much so that you didn't want to use it as you had to hold the button down to stay as your vehicle as well as aim and use your weapons and abilities.

Here all you have to do is press down on L3 and kablam, you're in vehicle mode and all the controls of your robot form are exactly the same, at times in this game it is crucial to your experience whereas in ROTF, it was an afterthought and nothing more.

But I can't mention the single player and not talk about the levels themselves, one could easily spend up to 2 hours or more on them (there are 10 stages in all, 5 a piece with the first of each available right from when you first load the game and you can also join up with some buddies and do them in a 3 player online co-op mode) and they will put you through your paces but also be fun as well, another great addition is the dialogue, High Moon have nailed like a projectile the characterization such as the banter between Megatron and Starscream as well as the individual characters like those aforementioned but also Soundwave, Warpath and Optimus just to name a few.

I know I should also mention the very deep multi-player modes of which there is Escalation, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Countdown to Extinction, Conquest, Power Struggle and Code of Power, now I must admit that I have not played the multiplayer modes (the game wanted me to download a patch before doing so which I didn't want to do) but felt I should mention them to avoid some chopping off my head (though they may do so anyway for mentioning something I haven't played.)

Any Further Objections:

Well there is one and for all of the good this game does (and boy oh boy does it ever) I did lament the absence of Frank Welker as the voice of Megatron, although Peter Cullen is great as Optimus both him and Welker's voices for those respective characters have come to define them, that's not to say that the new voice is bad, it's miles ahead of Hugo Weaving's voice from the live action films which was just his Agent Smith voice put through a modulator, it's that the Megatron voice in this game gets a bit generic if you're playing the game for long stretches of time, if you're only doing short bursts of game play then it isn't too bad.

But I do wish that Welker could have done it and really put the icing on the cake (my guess is that the developers couldn't get him), I mean last year's Batman game Arkham Asylum had both Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprising their roles and Hamill stole the show, here well not having Cullen and Welker face off is a bit of a shame but despite that I can't complain.

However, there is one big thing about this game that I must complain about and that is the glitches, I have never seen a major game to have so many bugs in it, and that range from your A.I. buddies being stuck in one place until you pull a switch to activate a door or a lift to hovering in one place, but that is nothing compared to the freezing of your console after a lengthy period of play, which happened to not only yours truly but others, a pity High Moon couldn't petition for a later release to fix these problems as they do dent what is otherwise a great game.

In Closing:

To wrap this all up, Transformers War for Cybertron should go down as one of 2010's best games, with a great campaign mode and a deep multi player section plus the ability to do online co-op for the levels, there should be a lot here to satisfy gamers until the end of year onslaught, not since the double punch of Fallout 3 and Resistance 2 in 2008 have I enjoyed a game so much, if you're unsure do give it a rental but if you're a Transformers fan well chances are you already have it but this is definitely worth a purchase.