From the Vault — originally published July 15, 2010. Some links, videos or prices may be out of date.
Transformers War for Cybertron is now in stores and there is no movie in sight. That was the first indicator to me that this game might be worth checking into. Also Reviews for this particular Transformers game has been pretty good so I had to give it a shot.
The art style in the game is very good. The characters all appear to be inspired by the Generation 1 cartoon designs which will please many fans of the original cartoon and toys. Plenty of nostalgia is there thanks to the art and the inclusion of many of the original voice actors and voice actors close to the originals. The banter between characters is pretty well done and somewhat works to shape the personalities as it should and did in the cartoon. Transformers War for Cybertron does not always strictly follow Transformers cannon and some of the origins and back-stories it presents are contrived though there is plenty of nostalgia in the characters it does present.
For the most part you will be platforming and shooting enemies down. The enemy AI is not that great though it doesn’t hinder the fun that much. You transform by clicking in the left stick and there are different abilities available when you are in robot or vehicle modes.
At the beginning of each stage you can choose from a selection of Transformers to run though the game. You play half of the game as a Decepticon and the latter half as a Autobot. There is also online co-op and competitive multiplayer modes. The competitive multiplayer mode was much more fun than I anticipated and may be a sleeper hit.
The game is a third person shooter that runs on Unreal Engine 3. And my biggest issue with this game on Playstation 3 is the tearing and frame rate drops. The game tears A LOT. Its jarring at times. It was much too easy to pick these torn frames from the footage I captured and its very noticeable when playing.
Couple the constantly torn frames that with the fact that for some odd reason they decided to mute the colors on the Transformers in the game it becomes hard to distinguish your character from the intricate background designs. So at times its really hard to see whats going on. The characters look colorful in the character select screen but in game they are dull and its a problem.
My verdict after a few hours with the game is that it is indeed fun and worth playing through. Not $60 fun but maybe $29 fun or maybe $39 fun for old Transformer fans.
