Hey everybody I'm back
Sorry my PC got wiped and I lost the URL, then I had some terrible times and a particularly bad month and my 360 RRoD, it was a refurb so no warranty, just a lot of sh*t but I'm back now thankfully.
So why not come and review something? Some of you said I was good at it so let's HAVE AT IT.
Ah, War for Cybertron, an absolutely fantastic game and from licensed characters to boot, that's like a double jackpot, the game is clearly a labor of love and the developers where obviously fans as much of the game shows but let's get into the details.
Graphics: Unreal 3 engine here, I've never liked it and think things look horrible with it but it seems that modeling robots is something it can do very well, every character looks fantastic and exactly and instantly recognizable if you have any familiarity with the TF universe, Prime still sports his traditional colors and Ratchet is still white to name a few, the worlds also looks fantastic, they feel, well metallic, exactly as a cybertronian world should, another neat little aspect is that any weapon you pick up will match the color of your bot, so that SMG will be yellow if you're Bumblebee or dark metal grey if you're Megatron. Also this might be a new continuity but a few designs are very similar to old ones, Bumblebee still resembles a small coupe like vehicle and Optimus is still a truck.
The transformations have that distinct transformers feel to them as you see everything fold into somewhere and the vehicle mode emerge, probably my favorite aspect of the bots is the most minor one, if you stand still you see little panels on them moving around or their weapons opening and closing, its such a small detail but one I loved, its that attention to detail that shows how much a developer cares.
Graphically I have 0 complaints.
Sound: Metallic clangs, machine guns, lasers, fusion cannons(what the hell does this even sound like?) and sniper rifle equivalents, everything makes a satisfying sound, you'll never feel like you killed someone despite the fact that it didn't sound that way and the melee crunches are great, it does feel like you're smashing into something with a giant metal body, same with the transforming sound effect, its not the old one but its very similar and does a fine job of evoking feelings of nostalgia. All the voice actors do a great job, there literally isn't a single bad voice in the game.
Also any TF fan will tell you why this deserves its own bullet point.
Peter Cullen voices Optimus Prime, f*ck yea.
Gameplay: Gameplay is your standard 3rd person shooter fair, it doesn't break any new ground outside of being to turn into a vehicle, its Gears of War with the cover system basically, there's 2 missions where you get to use flyers instead of ground robots but again, it won't feel that different to you.
One great aspect is how the enemies work, every single of them feels unique and all of them require different strategies to defeat, machinegunners for example might crumple to a few shots or one melee strike but don't expect a missiler to go down that easy, similarly you have enemies that require teamwork, brutes have a weakspot on their backs which you must fill with lead, titan's are lumbering behemoths carrying the equivalent of a turret gun, this will require concentrated firepower to bring it down and the tank which is a robot at least 3 times your own will require everyone's attention and its like a mini-boss everytime you fight it.
Most chapters end with a boss fight each with its own gimmick but in terms of bringing the boss down they all seem to fall back on being invulnerable for a bit and then giving you a brief window to hurt it.
Gun wise they did an amazing job of making everything useful, there isn't a single useless gun in the game, some are obviously more powerful than others but still, everything has it uses and that's mighty impressive.
The game has campaign co-op which is more than welcome, 3 people can tackle it with the added bonus that you can revive each other if someone goes down, there's a even mode called competitive co-op thus allowing you to tackle the story and compete for points.
It also has 2 unlocks for finishing the deception and auto-bot campaign respectively and there's a few hidden things for achievements, a lot of them reminded me of ghostbusters in the sense that they where very cleverly hidden.
It also has quite possibly one of the most epic moments in video game history.
Overall, the game is very solid.
Multiplayer:And this is where my praise ends, I'll divide this into the 2 flavors that multi comes in.
Escalation: Think horde mode, you fight increasingly stronger waves of autobots or deceptions, you can choose any character from the main game here, the twist is that you gain points for defeating enemies but you use these points to buy ammo, health, new guns, overshields, etc, you also use these points to open doors that lead to new areas that can have better weapons to purchase and will always have ammo and health pick-ups, its very much a team oriented game, working together to open doors is crucial, your 1,500 points can't help if you're dead and we don't have the overshield door open. Its very fun, the only drawback is that its only 2 maps, one for each faction, the DLC will fix this but for now its just the same area.
PvP: Plain ol PvP, Deathmatch, Teamdeath match, capture the node(think territories in Halo 3) and a few others, the biggest problem with multiplayer is that its considerably unbalanced, it uses the Call of Duty level up system to unlock sh*t and as usual, you being a newbie will get wrecked by people with better guns and perks.
Yes perks, this game even has deathstreak awards such as a missile, a health matrix or an orbital beacon(UAV).
You get 2 abilities mapped to your left and right bumpers which you can switch, for example with a scientist I have Drain on one and an EMP burst on the other, you unlock more of these as you level up, the perks are again very similar to CoD, things like increased damage, you take less damage or eliminating a weakness such as the electrical effect when you cloak as a scout.
You get 4 classes.
Soldier: 6 bars of health, slow and lumbering but enormously powerful and get some of the strongest weapons, they also have a nice support ability which allows to drop an ammo beacon and restore everyone's ammo.
Leader: 5 bars of health, middle of the line in terms of speed, they get powerful weapons and buffs that can transfer to your team, let me just say that the leader's war cry buff is unbelievably broken and overpowered.
Scout: 4 bars of health, fastest class on foot and vehicle, can dash everywhere and can cloak, they get a lot of abilities that give them damage bonuses for being cloaked, extended cloak duration or as I said above, eliminating the electrical effect when you do cloak thus perhaps allowing you to escape if you're being shot at, their weapons have no inbetweens, they get short range shotgun and a sniper rifle(long range).
Scientist: 3 bars of health, the glass cannon class but also one of the most fun, scientists can do a lot of damage on their own but they have a very high learning curve, outside of this its a very a team class, all the scientist kill perks are designed to help your team, they get a repair ray and lots of perks to increase its usefulness to heal your team, they also gain a unique ability called disguise, it does exacly what you think it does, you disguise yourself as someone from the other team, there's even perks to make it harder or your opponents to break it, they are also flyers so they can zip around the map with ease, their starting guns are awful though and it takes awhile to level up and get something better, the scientist is an uphill fight for any newbie but its a very fun and you master it you'll be death on the battlefield.
You can also create your autobot and decepticon, choices are limited but you can pick a chassis and colors.
Personally I just don't find the multiplayer balanced thanks to the level system, if we all had the same sh*t that's one thing but we don't, the game hasn't been out for very long but there's quite a number of high level players who will wreck your sh*t, it doesn't help that this is very much a team oriented game and 90% of randoms on XBL don't play like its a team, its even worse in objective gametypes where idiots play like its team deathmatch, I actually lost a node game last night 400-10 which is just ridiculous.
To wrap this up, I would suggest this game to anyone, even non fans, the gameplay is that solid, the only thing that drags it down is unbalanced multiplayer.