There are some games that can write a review for themselves. The effort put forth is nearly non existent, whether that’s a positive or a negative for the game at hand, is situational. The real challenge is picking a format in which to review said titles. Is extensive elaboration required? Would a paragraph suffice? There’s a lot to mull over in these situations, and this game is no different. It’s easy to review Transformers: War for Cybertron, but whether I should transform what could be said in one paragraph, into a longer, possibly more drawn out critique, is much more difficult. In the end, it might be easier to explain with more detail as to why Transformers: War for Cybertron is one of the most painful gaming experiences in a long while, though I feel just as bored analyzing this title as I was playing it.
While the viewpoints of WFC in the general population are not exactly on polar opposites, a vast majority, for some reason, feel that this is one of the more well rounded gaming experiences of the summer. Would have been nice to play the build they received, as WFC excels in one area, and one area only, while the rest of the package founders between average and abhorrent.
That one and only area in which WFC truly excels in, is the audio package. Aside from the annoyingly whiny Bumblebee (was he an annoying sourpuss in the cartoons as well? Hard to remember), the vocal performance, as well as the epic soundtrack really propel the Transformers universe forward. The voice of Optimus Prime can send chills up your spine, with a strong delivery and equally potent script. Soundwave’s synthetic speech never gets old, even if you feed him the script to Dora the Explorer. There’s just something badass about Soundwave that instantly has you hanging on his every robotized line, no matter what calamity lies in wait for you. Sadly the rest of the package, despite the high praise it’s received, deserves almost none of it. Lets single out some of the “highly touted” aspects of WFC and break down why there’s more than meets the eye to those inflated ratings:
Graphics: These “attention to details” and such are hard to discern. The major handicap has to do with the oppressive environment of Cybertron. The problem is similar to what Lost Planet suffered from, which was a predominance of the same color(s). Where Lost Planet was a blinding white landscape with minimal diversions while you ventured through the snow filled outdoor segments, WFC is skewed mostly to dull, muted colors. Even if you encounter characters and scenery that contain something other than black, gray and other dulled out darker colors, they contain nearly no semblance of life to them. Optimus Prime’s red paint job is dampened by a lack of vibrancy. That’s not to say he needs to be neon red or something similar to that; having a lack of a vivid color palette to your characters ultimately meshes them into the boring, unappealing world around you. You can see a myriad of minuscule details abound, but they are neither impressive nor a stand out from the blandness of the graphics as a whole.
Look at that rich color, further illuminating the visual presentation to levels previously unheard of! Oh wait....
The animation touches they added to idle Transformers is an appreciative touch, though nothing that really improves the visual side of things. Watching segments move up and down can be a bit of fun to watch, and shows the developers were at least trying to breathe a legitimate amount of life into a franchise that has remained stagnant in the video game world. It’s a shame more attention to detail wasn’t given to the world of Cybertron, and we’re not talking once again about the depressing color choices. There’s so little diversity between each stage that you feel as if you’re playing the same stages throughout, with slightly different layouts here and there.
The interior stages are darker than the exterior stages, wit more closed off areas, but that’s as diverse as it gets. Also, why is it that when you and your AI partners transform (at least in the Autobots campaign) results in barely any substantial differences in your vehicular builds from each other? Instead of a dirty red paint job, one would have a dirty white, or a dirty yellow one, otherwise the vehicle builds are barely dissimilar. The Decepticon Campaign offers a minor amount of variety between vehicles, but they still manage to blend together.
Gameplay: “Responsive” is barely an adequate means of describing the controls. While you have enough space in the corridors to navigate while transformed into a vehicular state, there’s still not loose enough for my tastes, or at least the ground based vehicular movement. While in your non vehicular mode, navigation goes off without any hitches, especially with double jumping, in which you’ll always feel that you have full control of your character. While not vital, a cover system would have really helped out the gameplay of WFC. As it stands, it always seems as if no matter what angle you’re standing in while standing behind any type of cover, your opponents always seem to peg a few hits into you, whether your head is barely peaking over the top of a barricade, or if your metal toe is protruding out from cover. Having a legitimate cover mechanic would have alleviated this frustration some, or hell, even a form of crouching would have helped immensely.
Oh, and don’t die a lot, unless you have the game installed on your HDD, as loads between deaths can be upwards of twenty seconds long.
The heal beam works a bit like the Medic's primary in Team Fortress 2, without the invulnerability period.
Strategy between you and your partners, whether it be AI or human, single player or multiplayer, was supposed to play a more potent role in your experience with WFC. Like most of the game in general, it’s half baked. There are no perks to playing with strategy (unleashing Warcry for you and your teammates to augment your powers during crucial battles) as opposed to playing intelligently, and not rushing into a fight solo. Vehicular transformation in the story mode plays absolutely no important role in the development of the story, outside of getting from point A to point B a lot faster. In fact it feels more like a hindrance at times, since your weaponry as a Autobot or Decepticon are vastly superior to your transformed state, not to mention a lot less painful to aim. With the very few dedicated segments to your vehicular modes, they tend to be the most gripping of experiences that can be had in WFC, but nothing that stands out from a pack of highly enthralling games released so far this year. Speaking of weaponry, although they are superior in an untransformed state, the weapons available leave a lot to be desired. Other than the Mortar weapon, there’s nothing inventive nor impressive from the line up.
Playing through the story as either the Autobots or Decepticons provides no thrills, no “memorable” moments, nothing to differentiate it from the cookie-cutter cold of the third person shooter genre. You can interchange the Transformers license with just about anything, from the Gobots to the Smurfs, and the generic third person shooter mold would remain unmolested. Worst of all, each chapter drags on and on and on. You’ll start to wish the game would end already, since it feels like everything is filler, with no substance of any importance. The tedious moments where you’ll need to rescue someone is met with even more tedious, unoriginal plot devices that coincidentally requires you to do a few things before you’re allowed to set them free. Not that this doesn’t build upon a sense of cohesion to the story, but it’s padding, with no thought put into it. It’s unfortunate that enemy models are recycled between scenarios, as you’ll face off against a lot of familiar robots that you defeated in campaign that you previously played through, but in dull Autobot red or dull Decepticon purple.
Then there’s the partner AI that, to be blunt, makes Sheva from Resident Evil 5 seem competent. There’s a battle with Soundwave in which he encases himself in an impenetrable forcefield and sends out his cassette tape minions to take you out. The point of the battle is to take down the minion so that Soundwave runs out of his forcefield bubble revives his fallen comrade, and then runs back in, enabling you to have a small window where you can land an offensive attack on him. Tell that to your AI partners, whom stand there without moving, blasting away at Soundwave, while he’s in his bubble. Not once do they break off and assist you with his minions; you’re basically fighting this battle solo if you do not enlist two friends to aid you in your battle. Aside from the Soundwave debacle, your AI partners rarely offer any offensive firepower that’s potent enough to help clear out a mass of enemies around you. Quite possibly one of the worst partner AI routines in gaming today.
Even with those flashes of primary colors, War for Cybertron still manages to look gloomy and mostly depressing.
Trasnformers: War for Cybertron also has some bug issues that come to play. On three separate occasions I ran into some kind of bug that halted any movements I attempted, with two of the three requiring a reload of my last checkpoint save. The first time saw Optimus Prime get stuck behind an invisible barrier that was six feet away from the wall, which then turned into Optimus becoming rooted to the ground, which thankfully a transformation freed me from my invisible chains. Two other times saw my character teleport six feet to the left into an obstruction, which a transformation wasn’t allowed, attacking was impossible and my only means of escape was to reload my checkpoint save. This happened twice in the same stage, in the same area. That’s not to mention the two occasions where my system straight up locked up in multiplayer, coincidentally they both happened while I was in the middle of a 7+ kill streak. As I was wrapping up my play time with WFC, I skipped a cutscene during the Decepticon campaign that I had seen previously, and when I came out of it, my team and I were invisible. Strangely enough, playing through what looked like a first person perspective, felt like a more proper fit to the gameplay, with an unfortunate death five minutes afterward erasing the rather potent bug.
Multiplayer/Escalation: The first hour or two are going to feel redundant, offering little to nothing of significance. The color palette problem is magnified tenfold, even with the paltry color customization offered. Ground based vehicles all look the same as well, providing nothing but a clone brigade rolling out onto the battlefield. It’s hard telling one map from the other, as they’re all so visually uninspiring in general. There are only four classes to choose from, with no real customization of any importance, further rendering the experience overall with WFC as nothing but a generic third person shooter with the Transformers license.
After the first two hours though, there’s a certain hook that comes in and just gets under your skin enough to keep you interested for a little while. The perk and unlock system keeps you interested and willing to endure battle after battle to unlock something new. There’s nothing that truly distinguishes the experience out of the realm of mediocrity, although transformation plays a more prominent role, as it enables quicker evasive maneuvers and strategic air to land/land to air combat.
Escalation is your take on the Horde mode that, at the time, was an exhilarating experience, but now feels like an “anything you can do I can do better” statement, which mostly falls flat on its face. There’s nothing of importance that stands out with this mode, as its the standard “survive wave after wave of enemies” with the only extras being the ability to purchase new weapons and open up rooms that may hold more powerful weaponry. Even with this gimmick within a gimmick, there’s nothing meaningful to this mode whatsoever.
Not shown (for obvious reasons): the stellar audio package, featuring spot on vocal performances with a power dialog, as well as some mood setting musical compositions.
It boggles the mind to think that there are that many positive viewpoints to this remarkably unremarkable title. While I respectfully disagree with any praise given to this title, I also wish I had the game they were playing instead, as it sounds a helluva lot more robust than what I was left with. Transformers: War for Cybertron doesn’t transform the franchise into an all-powerful vehicle of prestige and creativity, but rather provides an utterly bland, uneventful and generic experience as a whole. With the numerous titles released over the last few months, with a vast amount of quality and legitimate replay value, you’re better off throwing this on your Gamefly queue rather than blow $60 on something that’s barely worth $30. I’m sure the die hard fans of the franchise could milk this for all it’s worth, discover all of the Easter eggs and whatnot, but for the casual fan, the one that enjoyed the cartoons and the movies but didn’t build a shrine to it, there’s little in the way of importance and bonus material. Not a complete failure as a whole, but nothing redeems it enough to warrant a full price purchase.
Rating: 5.0
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