Reviewed: July 22, 2010
Reviewed by: Kyle Hilliard

Publisher
Activisions

Developer
Vicarious Visions

Released: June 22, 2010
Genre: Action
Players: 1-4

7
6
8
7
7.5

Supported Features:

  • Memory Save
  • Wireless Multi-card play

    		•  I remember in High School, we had a night where a few friends and I rented a handful of cult films from Hollywood Video. Our selection included Cannibal the Musical, Redneck Zombies, and the classic 80’s animated Transformers film. After watching Transformers, I turned to my friend (Garrett, the self proclaimed Transformers expert) and asked, “What are the Transformers?” He looked at me confused and asked, “What do you mean?” I responded, “What are the Transformers? Who made them? Where are they from? Were they created by some alien race?” My friend made eye contact with me, and solemnly responded, “maybe you should be asking these questions about yourself, and not the Transformers.” My mind was sufficiently blown. From that day on, I have wondered, who am I? But more importantly, who are the Transformers? Does War for Cybertron answer this question? The short, and sufficient answer is no. Is it a decent shooter? The long and detailed answer, follows this paragraph.

    Transformers: War for Cybertron: Decepticons is not based on either of the Michael Bay catastrophes, and the game benefits from not being a movie tie-in -- to a certain extent. It may not have been sped through development to release next to a film, but there are times when the game does feel somewhat rushed and unpolished. That is not to imply that War for Cybertron is a bad game. It’s almost unfair to compare it to movie tie in, because it is really better than that.

    War for Cybertron: Decepticons places you in the role of the bad guys as you battle the Autobots for control of the planet Cybertron. It’s a bit of an odd motivation, controlling a planet, especially considering they are fully capable of deep space travel. Why don’t they just go grab another planet; one with beautiful beaches, or whatever robots like; beautiful mountains, maybe? But robots will desire what robots desire. I suppose we as humans can relate. The Muslims and Jews have been fighting over Jerusalem for centuries, yet there is a whole planet of beaches and mountains to go hang out in. Maybe Transformers: War for Cybertron is just a metaphor for the religious conflict in Jerusalem! Or maybe, it’s just a thin premise for giant badass robots to transform and shoot at each other. I am thinking probably the latter.

    The beginning of the Decepticons version of the game actually has a pretty interesting twist during the training portion that the Autobots version does not. It’s interesting enough to the point where I won’t spoil it here, but it does make the Decepticons version of the game just a little bit cooler. As mentioned before, you are fighting the Autobots for planet Cybertron. What follows is a series of arbitrary tasks that put you into environments full of robot bees, robot turrets, and straight up robots that you have to shoot or beat up depending on the circumstances. Each level is prefaced by a short conversation setting up the situations that are sometimes voice acted. The voice acting is actually pretty good, especially for a handheld title, and I liked listening to the robots converse.

    War for Cybertron is a third person shooter that thankfully, makes very little use of the touch screen. You make your way through the levels switching between two different transformers that you chose at the beginning of the level. Each transformer has a different set of weapons, strengths, weaknesses and vehicle forms. When you lock onto enemies, their weakness is displayed visually as a colored shape. You have to switch between gun and melee weapon to hit the enemy with the attack it is weakest against. If you don’t have the best weapon in your arsenal to attack the enemy, you can switch to your alternate transformer to take on the robot bee, or whatever you’re fighting. This simple mechanic of figuring out weaknesses goes a long way toward diversifying the gameplay. You are constantly switching between weapons and Transformers in order to hit the enemy as hard as you can.

    The ability to switch to vehicle form exists, and really only serves to unlock a couple of hidden areas. On Earth, Transforming really only functions as camouflage to the unaware humans, so on their home planet, Transforming would seem kind of pointless, with the exception of becoming a secondary weapon or offering a faster mode of travel. I guess you can’t have Transformers without transforming though, and the designers managed to work in plenty of good reasons to change your form.

    The technical aspects of the game are passable at best. The game opens with a pretty nice pre-rendered cutscene, but the actual gameplay is pretty rough. It is a DS game, and I wasn’t expecting Gears of War obviously, but even when compared to other DS games, the world and characters all look pretty muddy. The developers may have realized this though, and decided to compensate by blocking your view as much as possible. The player character takes up almost the entire screen, and then most of the levels take place in fairly cramped hallways. The whole experience ends up feeling kind of claustrophobic, and when you do encounter areas that open up a bit more, the game tends to slow down, so it’s a bit of a lose-lose situation.

    The music is definitely worth mentioning. It is in place, not so much to get you pumped for fighting robots, but rather to establish a sort of strange electronic atmosphere. It’s kind of strange, and electrical sounding, reminiscent of, dare I say, Blade Runner and Mass Effect. You also get sweet 80’s hair metal guitar riffs upon completing the levels, which may seem out of place against the atmospheric electronic tunes, but totally works in the vein of remembering the Transformers, because you can remember the 80’s. It compliments the game well.

    Multiplayer exists here, but there is a real missed opportunity for some online play. There are about 30 different Transformers to unlock between the two games, and they can be used and unlocked in local multiplayer. You and up to three other friends can hit and shoot at each other for the most kills, or capture each other’s flags, or even race to collect the most collectibles. There is also the Ante mode that actually offers some tangible consequences for losing a match. Before entering an Ante match you put up one of your unlocked Transformers as collateral, and the loser of the match loses his or her Transformer to the other player. You don’t lose the Transformer permanently, but you do have to go rescue them in a single player mission, which is a huge pain. It’s an interesting mode, and definitely puts something stronger than bragging rights behind your multiplayer matches.

    In the end Transformers: War for Cybertron: Decepticons ends up being a pretty decent shooter. It could use a facelift, but the sound does just fine, and it’s a pretty fun to play. Story exists, but only to really set up interesting scenarios for gameplay. It won’t be winning any writing awards anytime soon. The other title, Autobots, is actually different enough to merit an additional playthrough, but I wouldn’t recommend emptying your wallets for both games. Find a friend who wants to play, convince him or her to buy the Autobots version, because the Decepticons version is ever so slightly cooler because of the early twist. Play through the single player game; jam out on some multiplayer and then switch carts if you still want to play more. It’s not an awesome game, but certainly exceeded my very low expectations. That’s a compliment, right?