The latest Transformers game: War for Cybertron has been released with very little fanfare (surprising considering Activision are involved), and that coupled with the fact it’s yet another licensed game may lead you to think that it’s not worth your attention. Is that really the case? Read on to find out.



Let me begin by talking a little about the story. In short: it’s very good indeed. So good in fact that the narrative from this game has been incorporated into the official transformers canon. By playing through two campagns, first as decepticons and then as autobots, we are able to learn exactly what went on during the titular war for Cybertron and just why exactly the transformers came to leave their homeworld. The great reveals don’t stop there though, because during the autobot campaign we also learn how Optimus came to be the leader of the autobots and how he gained the title of ‘Prime’. The story sent many of my childhood memories flooding back and the sense of nostalgia is hard to shift throughout the game.

The high standard of writing is not just limited to the overarching story however. Some of the in game banter that takes place between the robots is, on occasion, laugh out loud funny. Personally I found that between the decepticons to be the most entertaining as various robots questioned the orders of Megatron and then quickly made excuses or changed their minds to save their own backsides.



Each of the two campaigns consists of 5 levels which are all roughly around 45 minutes to an hours worth of gameplay. I did find the first level to be a little annoying as you’re constantly bombarded with requests to view the tutorials through using the pause menu. This really should have been incorporated into the game in a more stylish manner. The days of simply reading tutorials should be long behind us.

Each of these levels is a little formulaic: blast your way through various enemies and then fight some sort of boss at the climax. It’s prevented from being too tedious at first by the fact that you can choose which robot to play as, each having a different form to transform into and different special attacks. My main complaint would be that the standard enemy types which you fight during both campaigns are exactly the same, save for a change in colour. This means that by the time you’ve played the first level of the second campaign then you’ve seen pretty much all the game has to offer.

The game is built on Unreal technology and this is evident within seconds of loading it up. Dark colours prevail throughout and some of the environments are a little difficult to navigate as a result, but the character models do look decent. I was disappointed with some of the textures, one lift in particular featuring those of a standard so low I have not seen the like for some time.



Gameplay is of a run and gun nature and at first it’s super fun to play as your favourite evil decepticon and blast your way through various autobots. You can collect several different guns through each level and again at first experimenting with each type is good fun. Making your robot transform into their vehicle form is just plain awesome and I never got tired of leaping into battle, changing into a tank then blasting an enemy with a rocket before driving over a jump, transforming back to robot form and unleashing hell on enemies. If that sounds like fun it’s because it is. It’s very fun.

The trouble is that the game just cannot sustain itself for as long as the campaign lasts. As fun as the gameplay is there just isn’t enough variation in enemies or even in what you’re doing in the increasingly similar levels to hold your interest. By the time I came to the last couple of missions the only thing keeping me going was the desire to know how the story ended. At the end it was more a feeling of relief than of exhilaration.

The game features a surprising wealth of multiplayer modes. The entire campaign can be played through in co-op and there’s also online versus modes aplenty, plus the rather enjoyable escalation (Horde) mode. I found the multiplayer to be a fun experience, but not one that held my attention for any length of time. It’s worth noting though that the highest number of players I saw online was around 2,000 so I can’t see the online portion of this game having much of a community for any length of time.

Verdict: 7.5/10. Worth a rental