Transformers: War for Cybertron Review
- Posted July 5th, 2010 at 17:17 EDT by Steven Williamson
- 18 Comments
Review Score
Transformers: War for Cybertron
- PSU Review Score
- 7.5
- Avg. user review score:
- 5.3
Summary
The best game to ever don the Transformers logo.
We like
- The meaty weaponry
- The fluid, anytime you like, transformation from bot to vehicle and back again
- The plot
We dislike
- The bland, characterless locations
- The lack of any decent reasons to transform other than for speed of movement
- The multiplayer by numbers
See PSU's review on Metacritic & GameRankings
Some franchises come in a bag of bees – mess them around and you’ll get a face full of venomous pins, treat them with a care and attention approaching love and you’ll get the sweetest of honeys. Transformers is, clearly after that last sentence, one such franchise. It’s not hard to see why – robots that can transform with the fluidity of a Mazda MX hard top folding its roof down, into cars, bikes, jet planes, tanks and damn well anything else metallic your average ten year old boy is gonna love can’t fail to pick up some dogged admirers.
And for every man-child out there who once had a thing for the sons of Cybertron the good news is that High Moon Studios has come at this particular sack of stingers with a mother’s love. The third person shooter, Transformers: War For Cybertron, goes back to pre-80s cartoon Transformers, back to when the Autobots and Decepticons battled for their home planet, to fill in the gaps in Transformers history. Split into two separate tales, you play as both factions in a detailed, immersive plot that feels like the writers knew their subject matter and were into it as much as any fan.
It doesn’t take itself too seriously either; playing through as the Decepticons has its chuckles, Megatron’s mock terror of the cannon fodder Autobots and Starscream and Skywarp’s little digs at each other spring to mind, but there’s enough depth to the story to have you involved all the way through. Playing as the Decepticons will roll you along a story that clues you in as to why Starscream has beef with Megatron in the war with the Autobots. Over five chapters, you blast your way through Autobots big and small, named and nameless, fighting your way to Megatron's perceived weapon that will win the war. Before or after that you can play as the Autobots, following a Peter Cullen voiced Optimus Prime as he becomes the last of the Primes, leader of the Autobots.
Optimus isn’t as much fun as Megatron to be honest. You’d rather get stuck in a lift with Megatron. But whatever side you opt to follow, you have a choice from three characters to play as. Optimus Prime, Bumble Bee, Ratchet, Megatron, Starscream, plenty of recognizable names, each with their own special abilities, each able to transform into playable vehicles. Those transformations are smooth, swift and can be pulled off at any time, except when you’re too close to a wall, which can be extremely annoying, but they come with that distinct Transformers transformation sound that allows you to forgive it any irritations.
All of this really means that as far as fans of Transformers are concerned this game is an absolute must. If the gameplay were half as good as the story they’d be tearing holes in forums screaming about how this game is a ten out of ten. Lucky for them the gameplay is solid. Right from the off the weapons are hefty buggers, Megatron’s cannon arm packs a sweet punch that’s hard to put down, as do some of the rapid fire weapons you pick up. The melee attacks come in handy in close combat, flattening opponents in one clanging wallop, and then there are the fierce turret guns you can tear from their casings and carve bots up left right and centre. One of the game’s truly disappointing moments comes when you realize you can’t transform into a car and keep your turret gun, you’re just going to have to leave it behind.
The bosses are never too hard to see off, though there are some that will definitely kill you off a few times before you can work out how to defeat them – the colossal battle the Decepticons face with Omega Supreme, a colossal Autobot, are satisfying enough to keep on ploughing through in the face of a seemingly unstoppable enemy. There is a lot here to enjoy.
But that ten out of ten that certain Transformers fans might holler about isn’t anywhere near the truth. Is this a game that should be bought regardless of your opinion of transforming robots? You’d have to be into your third person shooters for starters. Would a lover of third ... (continued on next page)
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Comments
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Beserker35
- 12:49pm EDT - July 5th, 2010
- 3
To be honest, I think u lot are a bit hash on the bland environments. That is a plain lie. BUT, I do think the MP servers are terrible and frustrating
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Overcast
- 5:24pm EDT - July 5th, 2010
- 7
@thedriffter50 So you wanna do this again huh? Unlike you some of us have lives beyond the computer so I'll just say this and be done with it forever you little bacteria. Don't bother responding hoping to get some kind of feed back so you can feel as though your opinion means anything in any measurement of the spectrum of me giving a crap. All this trolling, internet rage, you sitting back in front of a screen talking bull on your 6th red bull and the hot pockets you've lost count of by now means nothing. You can't deal with the fact that you can't make the entire internet agree with you and then you spaz out on the verge of having a heart attack. I was you once when I was about 12 which is really sad considering the fact that you told everyone you were 17. I had that crazy, not sure how the world worked thing going on with me and thought my opinion was paramount to everyone else's feelings. Then about 2, 3 weeks later I grew out of that phase. That's why you're in trouble kid, you're 17. A year away from being a legal adult in america and about 4 years older than a person with basic maturity which you lack. Don't worry kid I'm here to tell you that you can heal thy self! It's basic and it'll actually be pleasurable. You need a woman. That's step one. Then you need to have relations with said woman. Once your nether regions connect a glorious thing will happen. I call it the diffusion of nerd psychosis. You'll realize how deeply you're wasting your time on this Earth. You'll be able to think straight without all the rage, food taste better. Okay you go do that and then come back.
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O_G_H
- 7:36pm EDT - July 5th, 2010
- 12
@6
Some of you message board types need to look up the words "irony" and "hypocrisy" and learn what you obviously don't know (the difference between them). You are accusing him of being a hypocrite, not being ironic. Ever since that da mned Alanis Morrisette song people have been making up there own definitions of irony and it's sad!
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HiphopopotamusNY
- 12:09pm EDT - July 6th, 2010
- 15
Free roam would be really cool but I bought this because I really support transformers games, I remember playing the one on ps2 when you looked for this small robots and the open terrain. I hope the next one is on earth because I want to play some multiplayer maps in the jungles, desert and even the moon would be sick.
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