Transformers: War for Cybertron (All Platforms, 2010)

Written by David Nolen | 29 July 2010

Synopsis

Megatron has lit the fires of rebellion within the city state of Kaon.  In the ensuing conflict he killed Sentinel Prime in one on one combat thus starting the great Cybertronian Civil War which has ravaged the world for uncounted millenia.  Now, however, Megatron thinks he's found a source of power that will enable him to tip the balance of power in the war permanently into his favor.  Though Megatron may have killed or rendered ineffective every other commander of the Autobot forces, the field commander Optimus will not quietly wait for slavery or death to come for him and his fellow Autobots, no matter the cost.

Review

It's going to be hard to do this review in such a way as to divorce my own personal views concerning the Transformers, it's troubled history, current popularity, and the like from what should be the main focus here. That being if this game is any good and what makes it either good or bad. Given that this is a game that's going to be carrying around the history of the Transformers brand, both good and bad, regardless of weather the core game is good or not…I take it back, this isn't going to be hard, this is going to prove impossible to me. To be fair, how could I? I'm one of the biggest Transformers fans I know of, and that almost guarantees me buying and playing this game on those merits alone, regardless weather the game is good or not. I make these statements because it is a game that comes with baggage, and honestly, a good lot of it is not good baggage despite the property's current popularity. The game, however, as a game on its own, is fucking incredible, and uses the vehicle of the Transformers to give one a play experience that, while not always perfect, is a whole helluva lot of fun. With the general story outline of the Transformers, as well as cherry picking from the aforementioned baggage, they wound up creating an experience that long time fans have burned to see since the original series began in 1984, and that those who aren't even fans, will find enjoyable in the extreme as a game. A lot like Batman: Arkham Asylum, they first started out to make a good goddamn game, but then added the elements of a good Transformers story into it, to make it the very first Transformers game that could be considered truly excellent (though the Transformers: Armada game came close).

Voice Acting

I'm going to break from the flow of this review to get this out of the way right now. I do this because those that know me also know what a big fan I am of the voice actors I grew up with. I enjoyed how they would play differing characters, many of which in the same show, and never sound the same and never be acted the same by these incredibly talented individuals. Back then, there was a lot more distribution, so you'd not have the current problem of one guy always being cast to play a certain type of character, so not every plucky young teenager would sound like Edward Elric for example. You'd get to experience the full wide range of the talents these people brought to bear on the mediums the VA's stared in. It wasn't until the advent of the internet when I finally was able to look up things like, "Who did Optimus Prime?" that I was able to find out who they all were, and all they'd done. Truly it's mindboggling and more than a little awe inspiring; just look at Frank Welker's collection alone. You wouldn't even know a good portion of those were him with a range from Freddy Jones of Scooby Doo to Megatron of the original Transformers series, and that's understating matters. Hell, with the movies, one of the things we desperately tried to get was Welker and Cullen back into the mix as Megatron and Optimus Prime, and though only Peter Cullen was able to reprise his role for the first movie, Frank Welker returned for the second reprising his role as Soundwave from the original series as well. I note all this because there were rumors floating around that they were going to round up as much of the original G1 cast as possible, as well as some more surprising additions that was going to make this a truly impressive experience all around. Well, near as I can tell, aside from Peter Cullen who's currently very popular due to the Michael Bay movies (and deservedly so) THEY DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO GET ANYONE ELSE! Though Steve Blum DID do a good impression of Corey Burton for Shockwave as you can see in this commercial (which is all levels of awesome). It's exceedingly obvious they pretty much went with the Bang Zoom voiceover party pack special. There are about three reasons I can think of off hand for them to do this (or some combination of the three). First, they were too damn lazy. This is the usual reason, since every time you ask a voice actor why he or she didn't reprise their role; the response is ninety-nine times out of a hundred: "I was never asked." The second is pure ignorance, and is probably the second biggest one. Directors still have no idea that we give a damn about voice actors or even who those people are and why they'd be important. To them, most VA's are a disposable commodity, though that attitude is slowly changing. The third one is that the director had a certain vision, and damn everything else, it was THEIR VISION that was to be realized. I understand this mentality more than I care to go into; problem is that while you can do this for certain properties, others like the Transformers have that history that comes with it. You have to be both good enough to pick and choose and respectful enough to know what should and should not be dropped in regards to fan expectations and YOUR VISION. From what I've read and what I saw it was a combination of reason one and reason three. I find this disappointing because the story of this game was a real attempt at an interactive telling of a history of the war, and it would have been…proper…to include those that helped make that history be something that could be of importance to us. It's even funnier when you consider they had Peter Cullen, and didn't even bother to cast him as the other character he was known for, that being Ironhide. Now, with that out of the way, I will say that those that they cast for the characters, especially Fred Tatasciore's portrayal of Megatron, did an outstanding job. In terms of acting and fitting the characters, I have absolutely no complaints at all; the job was indeed done as far as that went. The problem I found was that they didn't go quite as far as required in order to make it the homage to the series the series they were obviously aiming for and I doubt it would have taken any real work at all to do so. I find it telling that people (and I don't count, being quite unknown to the Transformers fan community) refused to question closely who'd be in the game short of confirming who Optimus was to be voiced by; that article I linked is about it as far as questioning went. I think the big thing is that I'd like to have played with my friends again…especially in this game that was finally the game the series had always deserved, but never gotten.

Story

Getting off the soap box, let's talk story. The campaigns of the game are divided into several chapters and two storylines; the first being the Decepticon storyline and then the Autobots. You don't have to play them in this order, but it REALLY helps to keep the flow consistent. The story of the War for Cybertron borrows heavily from various sources within the Transformers mythos without actually calling them out by name, short of the various trophies you can get (and if you can place all the trophy names, give yourself a medal for defending your geek credentials). This in and of itself makes it a fun juggling contest because it was obvious they wanted to make and do their own thing, but had to contend with stories such as "The War Within", "Megatron: Origins", even "War Dawn", and strangely enough the absolutely HORRID "Transformers: Cybertron" animated series. So they do little more than allude to certain things having happened with a healthy dose of plausible deniability and the occasional smile, nod, and inclusion of whatever they decided to work into their story from whatever pieces have been left to them by those that have worked on this property before. Instead they concentrate on their own version of how Optimus came to be Prime and how Cybertron became the uninhabitable wasteland it was at the beginning of G1. I actually find this version to be the best as far as how Optimus came to be Prime because it ditches the whole quasi savior Jesus Christ chosen one that everyone else, including most fans who worship at his altar, saddled him with since near day one, and instead shows us a man, talented to be sure, but still just a man who realized there was no one else left that could do the job…so he got pissed, took charge, did the job, and kicked some fucking ass. This fits well with whom Peter Cullen modeled Optimus Prime off of, his brother Larry Cullen, a Marine Captain who served in Vietnam. Bluntly, Optimus is the person of Larry Cullen when you first meet him in The War for Cybertron. The other part of the story is Megatron's which chronicles why the Decepticons follow him as they do, why Starscream joined, and more importantly why Megatron took so long to obliterate him. I mean, sure, we all know that Megatron is one Bad Mother Fucker, but you don't realize just how badass he is until you play through the Decepticon campaign. He's total fucking batshit, but he's so crazy that when he tells you to ram a warship straight into an orbital station (he's right next to you telling you this) you actually believe you're going to survive it and keep going…right up to and past the time he leads you on a full frontal assault against Omega Fucking Supreme with a cry of, "Either he goes down, or we do!" This man believes in what he's doing, and is both powerful and crazy enough to do it. Given that Cybertron's society is often portrayed as one that was static, decadent, ruled by an insanely corrupted oligarchy of senators, guildsmen, and councils who saw their own people as little more than tools to provide them with position and possession (hey, that sounds familiar), the arrival of a man like Megatron to tear it all down wasn't just something that they made possible…it was something they made happen (yes, I just quoted someone…more points if you know who). It's a lesson that's been repeated in our history over and over…and something we're really close to seeing again. I wonder what form our new Megatron will take this time around. In short, yes, I enjoyed the story quite a lot. If ever there was a game that needed an animated movie tie in, this is it. Though there is a book, but…ehh…I'll get to that.

Gameplay

Gameplay wise, the game is constructed around the Unreal Engine in a sort of Gears of War third person action/war game, just without the cover gimmick (though you learn to take cover real quick regardless). This choice allows for extraordinarily stunning visuals of the war torn machine planet, and flowing controls as you maneuver and fight through the various environments you find yourself in. Each mission is comprised of three characters who represent one of four categories of Transformer: Leader, Scout, Scientist, and Soldier…each with their own strengths and weaknesses. You can play these levels with AI controlled partners, or coop with two other people. There's a wide variety of weapons you'll find yourself presented with, many of which are analogous to the primary weapons of several of the Transformers. My only quibble here is that they actually included an ammo system. Yeah, I know…an ammo system for energy weapons; in my opinion they needed to put a little more thought into that, but it's a minor quibble. Each character also has a melee weapon, which is more often than not, a one hit kill. It's not really the focus of combat and for good reason since a lot of coordinated fire can kill you in a hurry when you get too close. Of course, you can't have Transformers without transforming. Most previous Transformer games had real issues with incorporating this dynamic into their play systems, but here it's fluid and more important, useful. There are times when the game makes it worth your while to use your vehicle mode with its weapons and speed, and other times when you just can't do without it, such as the flying stages…which are the most fun in this game. Some of the highlights include playing as Megatron and one hit killing Autobot scum with my fusion cannon. I don't believe I stopped giggling like Mac from Future Weapons the entire Decepticon campaign. While you're not balls to the wall every moment of the game, you're finally treated to what it must have been like during the war at its height, and more, you get to take part in it. After you're done you FEEL like you've just been through a huge fucking battle, so prepare yourself accordingly. There were some problems, however. I played this on the PS3, it happened to me and I've heard reports from others, but the game randomly freezes every so often. It's not often enough to make the game unplayable, and there's a plethora of checkpoints to prevent you from having to replay a huge sequence over and over, but it is annoying to have to eject your game and then reinsert it. Hopefully a future patch will fix that. Also, you occasionally get stuck on the environment. It's not so bad as to be permastuck, but it takes some serious finagling in order to get free. Again, hopefully this is fixed in a future patch. I don't play well with others, so I'll have to leave multiplayer to another reviewer.

Graphics

Graphics, as I alluded to before, are everything you've ever wanted from the Transformers. You're on the machine world of Cybertron and you KNOW it. Everything is metal plates, flashing lights, and alien scenery…twisted, bent, and burnt by the ravages of war. A lot of time went into the environments, and it shows. Truly if they ever wanted to make another animated series, they could just use this game engine to power it, and not bother with costly CGI. The characters are a combination of some of IDW's reimaginings, takes on Don Figuroa's The War Within designs, and their own personal philosophy of what their vehicle and robot modes would look like, and it works better than one might expect. If you watch the characters as they sit still, you'll see plates shift and move all over their bodies; I suppose similar to the way our own muscles tend to move and twitch as we stand motionless. Mouth movements follow the original G1 series with a sort of 'flex metal' allowing a certain amount of nonlinear deformation such as one had with the original series. Most impressive in that regard is Optimus Prime whose face plate does a lot more than just move up and down, but doesn't quite move like a regular mouth making it appear as if he's talking, but very differently than we do. Also, Boss Fights are big, epic, and a feast for the eyes on every level (not to mention hard as fuck).

Music

Music was far better background music than we've been treated to for a long time in Transformers. It incorporated an orchestral score mixed in with heavy metal riffs which fit the Heavy Metal War aspects of the whole story. I've long wanted another epic metal soundtrack that was demonstrated to be so effective in the original 1986 Transformers movie. Michael Bay's musical taste is somewhere in the area between shit and rotten cum squeegee, so good luck on that in the live action iterations. The Japanese versions are about as entertaining as sticking a fire hose into my eye and turning it up full blast; they profess to care, but I can't see how that would be entertaining even over there. And the US versions just haven't really cared since Beast Wars, and it shows. This, on the other hand, was close, real close to what I would call a true Transformers feel, though perhaps it would have been a little better with something like Dragonforce, Rhapsody of Fire, or Hammerfall occasionally playing in the background during an epic fight to really bring out the Beast within. Don't get me wrong, what we had was again, damn fitting, but like Agent Smith, I kept on muttering, "More." Sound effects were suitable, with the stylized transforming sound effect coined originally in G1 and some of the weapons using stylized versions of the laser sound effects from G1 as well. Short of that huge spiel on Voice Acting that I went into at the beginning, I've got no real problems with sound. Oh, and watch the credits when you beat the game…yes, that's exactly who you think it is.

Other Thoughts

One would think Transformers was a property tailor made for kick ass games, but it turns out it's had a major history with extremely BAD games as you'll note from James Rolfe's Angry Video Game Nerd review of some of those games. The movie tie in's, while somewhat entertaining, not to mention bringing in Frank Welker for Megatron, were never more than a slightly mediocre play experience; never quit getting the balance right between melee and ranged weapons not to mention having little idea of how to make transforming a viable part of the game play. There was the Transformers Tataki video game produced under the auspices of Takara a few years ago, but while the initial CG movies and promos looked good, they handed it to a company that had no idea how to handle anything more than a platforming game judging by what I saw; so there was no way they could handle a war game with transforming robots. Predictably the results were so bad that it tanked massively over there. Ironic since they actually had it dubbed in English, with a mode for the English names, in preparation for a release over here. Mind you, the dub was a bunch of foreign no namers who couldn't act their way out of a special ed school talent show, much less something that should be this high profile. It was never released over here, and all I can do is thank whatever god(s) were looking out for us that day. Seriously, the worst enemy of this franchise is its co owner over on the other side of the pond, Takara (now Tomy-Takara). They have absolutely no capacity to make a decent Transformers anything, except for the toys as demonstrated by decades of shit anime, ass music, and games that make one wonder if sodomy might not be the better option for entertainment. Come to think of it, the only other video game that got it right was the Transformers: Armada game simply entitled Transformers. That one was loads of fun, and though not as deep, long, or graphically pleasing as War for Cybertron, I recommend it highly as a polished Transformers game experience.

One thing I did find funny in a gallows humor sort of way was how the producers and guys from Hasbro and High Moon kept on harping about how no one had ever explored the History of the War before, and this was all virgin territory. Any fan who's been around for awhile knows what bullshit that is, and even the game itself borrowed quite a bit from the already existing stories and mythos that did, in fact, do just that. Hell, one of the trophies you get is "The War Within" which was supposed to be a three part series from Dreamwave which dealt with the war overall. Unfortunately the company was undermined and destroyed by its founder, Pat Lee, so part three was never finished. I find it disingenuous and disconcerting that people who should know better would utter such a blatant lie even for marketing purposes. Simply saying we're doing a slightly different take on the events would be good enough. The game stands on its own, and stands on that ground solidly…there was no need to disrespect the authors and artists who've broken this ground previously like the PR representatives from Hasbro and High Moon did when they stated it'd never been done before.

The in game dialog between the characters is some of the most surprising, entertaining, and occasionally funny that I've heard since Beast Wars in any Transformers medium, though Animated had some damn good crowning moments of funny. For some reason, Transformers is hard to work humor into, given its overall grim nature, and it doesn't help that whenever Takara has had direction of the series they hand it over to writers whose idea of humor (not to mention story telling) is taken from a kindergarten classroom toilet humor, and the lower dregs of it at that. The comic books are all serious all the time, since they're usually balls to the wall both sides trying to kill and getting killed in some of the most gruesome ways they can think of. So listening in on the battle field banter you tend to find in real life while you're cheating certain death is quite refreshing.

There is a novel quite loosely based upon this game called Transformers: Exodus: The Official History of the War for Cybertron.. And by quite loosely I mean barely pays lip service to some of the plot points of the game. It is also plagued by some pacing issues in that you sometimes don't know how the characters got to the point they're at from chapter to chapter, so you have to go back and reread to fill in the blanks with what must have logically happened to get you there. Another problem is that at times it's not sure what sort of story it wants to be and who it wants to be told by. I suspect this is to keep the book shorter, but it's really a disservice to the battles fought and the characters introduced in such a slipshod manner. On the other hand, it's not unreadable, though much of what was done…wasn't quite how I'd do it. However, it was done fairly logically and consistent, and was overall a good waste of a day and a half. Its greatest strength though is also its greatest weakness. The author took every continuity of the Transformers (and I do mean ALL of them), every iteration of every character mentioned, several years of hanging out on forums taking part in discussions and forming theories, and then combined and fused them into a coherent whole within this book. It very much proves the point that everything that has been done can be used with everything else while mixing and matching compatible and competing concepts to make the whole story that much richer and exciting. The weakness is that if you don't know what the author is talking about, you'll be lost at several points. You almost have to have been watching the property since 1984 to get the full effect of this book. It was a story written by a fan for the fans, and doesn't try to be anything else.

Conclusion

Finally, a Transformers game where I'm just fucking shit up, twisting metal, and killing everything in site without those stupid fucking fleshlings and their stupid fucking drama fucking my story all to shit. More, it's a game where the story of the big metal killing machines is given its appropriate gravitas even in its moments of levity. With the use of the Unreal Engine and the talent of good programmers, environment and character modelers, damn good writers, and even decent voice actors, not only did we get a fucking awesome Transformers game, but a fucking awesome GAME in and of itself. My only regret is that there wasn't more of it. I went through the game in about twenty hours, and then only because I was savoring it as much as I could. The multiplayer looks pretty good if you're into that sort of thing, and it comes with several exclusive characters, twoof which were not mechs I expected to see, but after the redesign, fit quite well. I'm curious if there's going to be an expansion pack to this game which will give us a few more chapters or if another game is in the works. I look forward to either, but until then…transform and rise up!