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(More customer reviews)Strangely enough, gaming seems to be on a roll when it comes down to working with licenses. Last year, Rocksteady Games surprised everyone by not only making Batman: Arkham Asylum one of the few games that were great for a comic book license but it was a great game period, license or not. It doesn't stop there as later this year, developer Beenox is will release Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions which looks to be quite promising with its unique approach by having 4 different art styles with 4 unique gameplay styles and could look to be another solid entry in a franchise that has been very hit or miss. Now we have Transformers: WFC done by High Moon Studios (Bourne Conspiracy) and it's again another surprising entry in a franchise that's just as bad as the previous 2 licenses and like Batman, your attitude will shift from "please be good, please be a good game" to "wait, this is a good game? wow, imagine that". In many ways you can tell this studio genuinely loves the Transformers universe and they took extra care in making everything fit the license from in-jokes to callbacks to designs that looks back towards G1 rather than Michael Bay (which is a really good thing) and with a campaign featuring co-op drop-in/drop-out for up to 3 players, a Horde mode variant called Escalation and a very frantic and addicting multiplayer, this is one of the biggest surprises this year and makes for a great summer game.
Story: Taking place on the planet of Cybertron, there's a huge war raging between the Autobots and the Decepticons as Megatron is trying to take over the planet and rule over everything with an unstable energy known as Dark Energon. Using the uneasy forces of sky commander Starscream, Megatron goes through Cybertron en route for the key to win the war. Meanwhile, after the leader of the Autobots is killed, their side is left without a leader so in comes Optimus Prime to lead the Autobots against the forces of Megatron. Like most installments that have accompanied the Transformers license, you play as both factions with your choice on which soldier to bring. Want to play as Bumblebee? Go for it or the badassness of Soundwave, even? And of course one nice thing is that the game has drop-in/drop-out co op so it's not like Lost Planet 2 which needed a lobby so if you see a friend playing, just join them.
Graphics: The game uses Unreal Engine 3 which occasionally means there's some odd textures but you'd have to look really hard because the game looks really cool. From the awesome character designs and the smooth-as-silk animations during the transformations, the game has a very futuristic look from neon and steel in bizarre architectural patterns and makes the game really feel alien. This has a downside however in that the game at times can get slightly repetitive and unlike games with a snow level, jungle level and desert level, WFC tends to be all metal hallways with the occasional differing locales. I did notice occasional some framerate issues here and there but it's actually a really good looking game otherwise.
Sound/Music: The voice acting is really stellar and when you hear that distorted voice of Soundwave and the awesome tones that is Peter Cullen's Optimus, you know you're back in the 80's again. But then again, when you don't hear that kind of weird high-pitched almost squealing voice of Starscream it kind of sticks out a little bit but the voice acting barely has any problems. Same with the sound design from the transformation sounds, the gun sounds and the game really makes the gameplay standout. It's the score I have a problem with in that it's kind of fine but a lot of times it felt like the music didn't elevate a lot of the firefights and most of the time it just blended into the background and not really take over.
Gameplay: The game is a 3rd person shooter but this is not Gears of War in that you don't take cover but rather this almost has a Lost Planet / Alan Wake feel where it helps to hide behind things so you don't get shot up but you don't take cover in the typical sense. Controls are very intuitive, especially when you're in your vehicle forms and while normally you'd think it would feel clunky and too strange to control, these ones feel remarkably comfortable. The game comes with the choice of 4 classes: scouts (cars, have cloaking abilities to sneak up on people), leaders (trucks that help buff out the party), scientists (jets which are weak but have a healing gun and a turret that reveals cloaked enemies) and the soldiers (the tanks with lots of health and big power melee moves but are slow). The class balance feels really well-tuned and like Aliens vs Predator, there doesn't seem to be that "god class" since tanks can still be taken down by a cloaked scout whereas that class can be found out by a scientist's turret. While they're all fun to use, you might find yourself excelling more in one class so I made a bad scientist yet I did really well as a scout. The game also has that ol familiar Call of Duty approach with challenges for completing certain tasks, XP rewards for accomplishing certain things during the match (such as stopping an enemy's killstreak, meleeing people twice in a row or killing someone with barely any health left). And of course that also means perks which can help you beef out your characters with abilities. The game comes with various modes which are really just renamed and "Transformers" versions of your favorite gametypes so we have Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Conquest, Countdown to Extinction (bomb planting at enemy base), and Power Struggle (CTF) though of course TDM was the landslide favorite.
Another mode the game included is Escalation which a lot of people will compare to Horde mode but really it seems more like Nazi Zombies from Call of Duty: World at War. As you gain kills and assists, you gain points which you put towards purchasing things for your character so since you ammo and health doesn't drop, you have to buy it and if you need access to better weaponry, open up doors and in a cool touch, you don't have to spend all your points at once so for example if you want as a team to have someone carry the healing gun but none of you can afford its high price tag, you can either periodically put points into it which accumulate or just split the difference. Here, you can play as the actual Transformers whereas normal multiplayer just as nameless ones you can paint and rename but if you want to play Escalation as Megatron then go for it. One thing you'll find however is that Escalation gets tough and frequently so in later waves. As the waves progress, more enemy types and just more of them in general show up which can range from big melee-dealing baddies to cloaked scouts to flying jets so it really helps if everyone plays as a different class but even then, health and ammo really start to drain fast and it becomes tough staying alive when your health can drop quite quickly. One slight gripe is that unlike Nazi Zombies which were instantaneous upgrades, you have to wait for a bar to fill before you can access your ammo, health or weapon and even then you have to hold X to acquire it which kind of gets annoying when you need that health drastically and you're filling up a stupid bar.
Edit: In my original review, I remarked that the DLC characters was kind of stupid when they're separated by retailers (with Enslaved and Fallout: New Vegas this fall being the biggest offenders) but the first DLC has been put out for the game with 2 multiplayer maps, 2 Escalation maps as well as 5 pre-order characters including the DLC ones (Jazz, Shockwave, Demolishor) but also adding 2 more (Scattershot, Onslaught) but the thing is unlike Call of Duty or Battlefield, the community for the game is somewhat...small and the chances other people have bought the DLC too might be small so it's kind of tough to recommend it. There's nothing "wrong" with it per se but if you felt annoyed by stuff like Resistance 2 or Bioshock 2 where you felt not everyone bought the map packs then the DLC might not be too favorable.
If you're a Transformers fan, it's hard to argue against the quality in War for Cybertron. But this isn't a case of putting with crap for so long only to find the one non-crap title and think it's the best thing ever because of it but rather this is a really well-made game through and through. From a stellar multiplayer, the addicting Escalation, the fanservice offered and the care and love the studio put into this game, this is definately a game to check out for the summer, provided you're going to be in your house at all, that is.
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Experience the legendary battle between the Autobots and Decepticons before their exodus to Earth in the untold story of the civil war for their home planet, Cybertron. Two distinct and intertwined campaigns chronicle the Autobots heroism in the face of total annihilation and the Decepticons unquenchable thirst for power. Play both campaigns in team-based online co-op, or go head-to-head in several online multiplayer game modes. Battle as your favorite Transformer characters in the war that spawned one of the most brutal conflicts of all time.
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