High Moon Studios whole-heartedly loves the Transformers franchise and this was evident after we spent a day playing and drooling over Transformers: War for Cybertron out at High Moon Studios. If you had doubts about the idea of a good Transformers game, leave them at the door because T:WfC looks to please Transformers fans and shooter enthusiasts alike. We spent time playing through a small portion of the single player campaigns as well as a decent amount of time blowing apart the opposition in some of the various multiplayer modes the game will offer when it hits shelves. The single player portion as many of you most likely already know consists of two campaigns, one being a Decepticon campaign, and serves as the prequel to the opposing campaign, which of course stars the Autobots. High Moon made it very clear that each campaign will feature and entirely different story as well as levels that do not repeat. The Autobot campaign will feature the message of “hope” as we will see Optimus before he is Optimus Prime, as well as the many other stage setting plot points that lead up to Transformers G1 including the meeting of Optimus and Bumblebee. With the Decepticons, you’ll explore the rise of Megatron as he fights to restore what he believes to be “order” the planet of Cybertron. Hasbro has become so excited with the world and story that High Moon has created that T:WfC has been adopted as the official back-story of the Transformers universe and with good reason. We played a short piece of each campaign and the game definitely has a cinematic scale as well as gameplay and controls that feel very fluid. Each campaign features drop-in/drop-out co-op that we didn’t get a chance to try, but even if you don’t have any friends to fight alongside, the other two Transformers will be controlled by AI. When you start each mission, you can choose between one of these three characters each featuring different abilities and transformations.
With the Autobots, we played as Optimus, Bumblebee and Ratchet as we had a stand-off on a large staircase against waves of Decepticons. We also had a chance to take on the Decepticon War Machine, a large robot with three legs and a center core within the center of a large room. It was a fight that kept us on our toes as we transformed in and out of vehicle mode to escape the searing laser beam fired around the room. This was a great opportunity to utilize transformations to escape dodgy situations and it could be done as frequently as possible as transforming can be performed at your leisure. It doesn’t sound like a big component, but it was a relief to see that High Moon didn’t put any restraints on transforming. We also had a chance to see some hands-off gameplay revolving around the last boss of the Autobot campaign, but we will avoid spoiling the battle, but we’ll at least clue you into the scale of the boss, it’s massive and we had a tough time refraining from stealing the controller from our hosts. That really seemed to be one of the components that really excites us about the final product is the scale and scope of the bosses. The guys and gals at High Moon seemed extremely passionate about their work and it shined in what we played of the single player portion of the game. We can’t wait to see what High Moon has in store for Optimus and Megatron as we’re positive this great team will deliver the first truly great Transformers experience. The world within the game has been well crafted with lots of love being poured into the game. Cybertron almost looks and feels like a massive Transformer with doors and set pieces that “transform.” High Moon has even gone as far as creating a language that can be translated and they are confident that fans of the series will quickly translate the loading screens and in game text to English. Character design is excellent, especially transforming in and out of vehicles. There was a lot put into this game, and a lot of hardcore Transformers fans working on it. We are confident that the Transformers universe couldn’t have been placed in more capable hands.
Moving on the Multiplayer made the day at High Moon all the better as it is a high-octane frag fest with players taking to the skies and chaos on the ground. We tried to play types, Team Deathmatch and Conquest both of which consisted of 10-player bouts. It’s frantic, fast paced, and as much as we dislike making comparisons it left a taste of Unreal Tournament in our mouths as well as other various big name multiplayer games. You can choose from four different classes including the Scout, Scientist, Leader and Solider. Each has different abilities, transformations and kill-streaks keeping each class well balanced between one another. The Scout Has a cloaking feature but low health, the Scientist takes to the skies as a Jet and can heal fellow players as well as drain the life out of the opposition. The Leader class is well rounded with Warcry which temporarily boosts you and your team’s attributes. Finally, the Soldier is a powerhouse who can activate an Overshield and drop ammo for your team. You can easily swap classes between respawns and everyone will find a class that they perform best with. There is an in-depth character customization with different load outs that can be created swapping out weapons and kill-streaks with each class, as well as an awesome character editor that lets you choose style and colors of your Transformer. T:WfC also features a leveling system with challenges similar to CoD, with a level cap of 25. When you hit the cap you have to the option to do another set of leveling up called Prime mode, again much like CoD’s Prestiege mode.
All of these attributes of the multiplayer created an experience we didn’t really expect from a Transformers game; a good one. The multiplayer is a blast with Jets flying into a firefight and quickly transforming out into a melee attack. It is frantic, and hellishly fun. We could go on all day about how much fun the single and multiplayer is, but in all honesty in the words of Matt Tieger, Lead on the game “All I want you to do is just *%#%^#@ play it, just play it. If you don’t like it, oh well.” It’s really a game that fans of Transformers shouldn’t miss and a game that fans of shooters should try for a bit, and odds are you won’t be able to walk away from it without having enjoyed yourself. High Moon stands behind the fact that they didn’t set out to make a good Transformers game, they set out to make a great 3rd-person shooter. After the time that we spent with War for Cybertron we completely stand behind this statement. We haven’t played through the final retail version of the game, but we are firmly confident that Transformers will be a standout title this year. It’s got everything that one would hope for in a great Transformers game, and a great multiplayer to boot. You can reserve your judgment for when the game releases in June, but for the sake of High Moon Studios, give them a bit of your time playing the game. We’re positive you won’t regret a minute of it. Stay tuned to PlanetXbox360.com for all the latest Transformers: War for Cybertron news as the release nears.
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