Transformers: War For Cybertron Review

Now we all remember the Transformers in one form or another, from its humble beginnings as a Saturday morning cartoon, through it's multiple generations, the animated movie up to the more recent Michael Bay adaptation. The Transformers would have touched you during your life in some form, it would have shown its power to you.

The franchise has most definitely become a love affair with millions upon the planet. Now when it comes to games, Transformers has had mixed success across various platforms, the fairly well liked PS2 title was the previous cream of the crop while the the obligatory film to game tie in games based on the Michael Bay vision are better left forgotten in all honesty. However War for Cybertron has been able to do something no other development team has been able to do with the Transformers license, to go back to the Transformers roots and really sink their teeth into the events that led to the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons on Cybertron.

The start of Transformers: War for Cybertron lies within the Decepticon camp, allowing players to take the role of Megatron in his quest for Dark Energon and the eventual extinction of the Autobot race from Cybertron. Players will go through various levels, with a selection of three Transformers available to you per level, however in single player it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll be selecting the main names of the series; Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave etc..

From the discovery of Dark Energon itself, defended by then Sky Commander Starscream, to the forceful acquisition of the Omega Key out of the hands of Zeta Prime (Yes Optimus is just a normal soldier in the beginning) ending with an epic battle against Omega Supreme, who is quite literally a one Autobot fortress of impressive proportions.

After you've completed the Decepticon campaign and witnessed the catalysts that ignited the eventual war on Cybertron, you are then brought forward in time to take control of the Autobots and their counter attack on the Decepticon offensive. The campaign is playable on your own or in co-op with another two players, while three player co-operative gaming seems like an odd number it does work rather well, once you've finally fought over who takes control of Megatron/Optimus in the campaigns. In addition to the campaign you may battle it out in the game's Escalation mode which is essentially a survival game style where you battle wave upon wave of oncoming assailants.

For those after even more wanton destruction, then War for Cybertron delivers in its various multiplayer modes. While the obligatory and self explanatory Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch modes are present, the bulk of the play will no doubt be in the control point or CTF variations. The game adopts a class based system with upgraded weapons and player models obtainable by the XP system in the game. You may choose between Scout, Soldier, Scientist or Leader, all of which have their own characteristics and their own look when transformed. The Scout is fast and agile, with the ability to cloak, it's ideal for those who want to get behind enemy lines quickly to cause as much trouble as possible then get out as fast as they got in. The Soldier is the work horse class, able to soak up some damage while being able to increase your own by hovering. Scientists are your medic class, with an Energon ray that is able to heal your comrades in the thick of battle, and also may be used to dish out some damage in it's own right.

The game is your typical 3rd person shooter affair minus the cover mechanic, which is a good thing as you'll get to witness your character seamlessly morph between forms whenever you deem it necessary to transform. The single player campaign should span around 15 - 20 hours for the average player with plenty of replayability found in the co-op and MP modes.

Visually the game is a treat, using Epic's Unreal Engine to great effect to recreate the Transformers homeworld of Cybertron in all of its scale and glory. As you would expect, it's all smooth surfaces and more metal than you can shake a recycling stick at. As this is essentially the prologue to the Transformers story, the development team had total freedom on the design of the characters themselves. You see as this is the beginning of the Transformers time line as we know it, the different alternate forms as we know them wouldn't exist, for example Optimus is not a huge truck like we know from the cartoons/film adaptaion purely because they have not reached Earth to simulate our vehichles to blend in.

Also on the audio side of things, you'll be glad to know that the game does have the voice talent of Peter Cullen, and if you don't know who that is, you're clearly not a Transformers fan as everyone should know he is the voice of Optimus Prime. Unfortunately we don't have Frank Weller as Megatron but we can't have everything can we.

Overall fans of Transformers will surely love this, even if you're not a fan of Transformers then I would still recommend the title as it is a fairly solid shooter, worthy of your playtime.