After how successful Transformers: War for Cybertron was last year, the latest game has a lot to live up too. With how successful the previous game was, High Moon Studios set the bar extremely high for themselves.
The game takes place two years after the events in the previous film Revenge of the Fallen. Humanity believes that the Decepticons have either fled earth or died however, Optimus Prime knows better and is constantly on the search for the Deceptions.You start the game as Bumblebee, who has been sent to South America to upload a virus that will allow the Autobots to track down all the remaining Decepticons on Earth.
You play each level as a different Transformer, moving from Bumblebee to Ironhide to Mirage. Upon finishing Mirage’s mission you switch to the Decepticons point of view and play as Soundwave, Starscream and then Megatron. Then to finish the game you play as the legendry Optimus Prime. Each Transformer has two different weapons and abilities while in robot form, in vehicle form you have two weapons and a single ability. All the weapons are very standard and do not differ too much, a long ranged weapon (such as a sniper) and a shorter ranged weapon (such as a shotgun). While the abilities in robot form do vary enough to make each Transformer unique, the abilities in vehicle form do not differ as greatly. Each level is of a reasonable length however you could easily finish the game in a day without even trying. The play time can be greatly extended by playing online if you are interested in online play.
With combat making up the whole game you would expect this to be well refined. This is not the case as, although the combat is not cover based combat you do need shelter yourself from incoming fire to sustain yourself though long fights and regenerate your shields. This means that fights can be very difficult in robot form. Luckily there is a way around this problem, stealth force mode, which is a vehicle covered with a multitude of guns. Unfortunately it does mean that the game becomes less of a Transformer game and more like a shooting driving game. This is because when in stealth force mode you have very similar weapons but without the need to reload. Your armour is greatly increased and you are more mobile and a smaller target to hit; making stealth force mode the better form to be in.
As a result of this, when playing though the game most of the time is spent in stealth force mode, apart from when needing to interact with the game world or use a special ability. This changes the game into a vehicle shooter; this is not terrible however it is not what is expected of a Transformers game.
This greatly affects the way that the game is played; personally because most of the game is played in stealth force mode, you lose most of the Transformers effect. This does not mean that the combat is terrible, as you can play the game in robot form; the lack of cover greatly increases the difficulty of the game. If you have ever watched a Transformers film there is very little shooting and the small amount there is, can be rather ineffective; the majority of the combat is done in melee. While in this game the melee is an afterthought and very rarely used as it is very hard to get in to melee range.
The graphics are rather average for today, so there are not many complaints here. The robots resemble the characters in the film and are in proportion to the rest of the world, while the animations for the robots are very fluid with some well animated shooting actions. Despite the graphics looking fine, they are very static; the weapon impacts are lacking and there is no skid marks when drifting around a corner to name a few.
The transformations of the robots look and feel appropriate, everything folding away correctly such as the limbs folding nicely into the vehicle. This helps make the Transformers feel real and as if you were at the films. The vehicles on the other hand seem a little too shiny and clean despite the damage sustained during battle. Other than this, the stealth force mode looks fitting for Transformers with many weapons poking out of the vehicle.
The sound track to the game is rather well done making all the fights seem epic and greatly helping to build suspense. The voice acting is also well done making the game fit with the films.
When the graphics are combined with the sound and voice acting, the game comes across as average however, compared to the bar set so high previously, the game does not match up. It feels as if they have simply copied the previous game and removed some of its better features. Simply copying the previous game does not make this game instantly good, work needs to be done to keep the game up-to-date with today’s standards.
Personally this game had potential working the with the Transformers franchise however, the game does not match up to the same standards as the films and what can be done with the franchise. Finally I feel that the length of the game seems rather short.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
