Last week I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of the new Transformers: War for Cybertron for PS3.
I’ve played a few Transformers game in my time, most recently the Autobots/Decepticons games that were released around the same time as the 2nd (Michael Bay) Transformers movie. Since then, I’ve noticed two more Transformers games released: G1 Awakening for iPhone (which has been around in one form or another since 2008) and the just-released Transformers: War for Cybertron. What’s interesting about these two games is that they focus on the earlier years of the Transformers franchise rather than the more recent “re-telling” that are Michael Bay’s film interpretations. War for Cybertron concentrates on the pre-Earth days on Cybertron. Here we get to witness when Starscream first joins Megatron and when Optimus Prime rises to become leader of the Autobots after the death of Zeta Prime.
I have to admit I’m enjoying this one. The visuals are good (though not great), the sound is great and the general story is quite interesting to an old fan like myself who still remembers seeing the original animated movie in the 80s.
On the topic of the visuals, I’m finding myself a little frustrated. The screenshots that are out there (like the one above) make the game look incredible — but I can’t seem to re-create that for myself. And I suspect the problem isn’t so much the quality of the visuals but of the in-game lighting. I’m not seeing a lot of the rich detailed textures because the lighting is too dark or there’s a lack of contrast between my character and the surroundings (metal transforming characters battling in a metal transforming world). This is something that could probably be fixed in a sequel – or maybe even in a patch – but as it is I’m not a fan of this. I might have to play with the settings somewhere to see if I can improve this.
I haven’t had a chance to try the multiplayer mode but, from a quick browse of the relevant in-game multiplayer menus, it looks quite rich and engaging. You can customise your characters (I coloured all of my Decepticons pink) and the different styles of character you can play and customise reminds me of the class-dependent play of Team Fortress 2 (no, really!). The class abilities include invisibility, dashing and so forth. They each transform into different styles of vehicle too.
And this is probably a good time to point out that, although they all look a lot like the robot modes we know so well, in vehicle mode they are distinctly Cybertronian. Optimus Prime is a truck but it’s a funny looking Cybertronian truck. Megatron is a tank. Starscream is still a jet — but a jet that can hover.
Another feature that seems to be appearing in games everywhere is “Escalation”. You may know it as Survival mode in games like Left 4 Dead – wave after wave after wave of enemies to battle through. This is online, too, so I haven’t had a chance to play it but it also looks great.
So, if you get it for PS3, let me know and we’ll have to play online sometime. I’m looking forward to trying out the co-op campaign, which supports up to 3 online players!
If this game has a sequel, they could produce something pretty incredible. Nonetheless, as a game now, I’m looking forward to playing it some more.
More info at the official website: http://www.transformersgame.com/
It looks great on PC, at 1080p. Some have complained that frame rate is locked to 30 fps (looks great, not issues from me) and more have complained that you can't remap keys — the defaults aren't bad, but that customisation would be nice!
Couple of rounds of multiplayer — it's not bad. Needs more players though, most game types aren't being played, only Deathmatch and Conquest. Bomb da base is fun!
SFX deserve a mention. The sound is awesome. Shame there is not more ammo in the campaign!
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I've just started playing the game myself on PS3 and I have to say it's interesting you bring up the sound because I completely agree, the sound is really impressive, obviously I was very pleased to hear THE Optimus Prime voice but the sound effects are all very vibrant and add to the game very nicely.
I was a huge player of Unreal Tournament on the PC online so I wonder if this would have translated fairly easily for me (if my computer could handle it!) since it's using the Unreal engine and I imagine similar keys.
The PS3 controls have been very natural for me so far.
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From that video I can see what you mean about the contrast. I found it hard to distinguish after a while. Pink Decepticons, though… love that.
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Lee Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 7:01 pm
It’s one of the problems I found in the Transformers movie, two robots would be hitting each other and I couldn’t tell them apart.
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