Playing A Game Transformers: War for Cybertron X360

In addition to the curious lack of snap-to-cover, there are a few other less-than-desirable aspects of War for Cybertron that I would be remiss not to mention:

  • Checkpoints are done well in some places, but very poorly in others. There were more than a handful of sequences that I had to replay to the point of controller-tossing frustration due to there being way too many encounters between checkpoints.
  • Relatedly, some of the chapters were just way too long. Sometimes the game would go for over an hour without any breaks in the action. Since much of the combat is repetitive, this tended to feel exhausting, rather than exhilirating.
  • The health system is curiously copied from Resistance: Fall of Man -- the health bar is split into four, and although each quarter can regenerate over time until full, higher quarters won't regenerate until you find a health pack or other healing item. Personally, I think this health system is stupid and has no reason to exist at all.
  • In general, there just isn't enough ammo. I learned early on how valuable my melee move was, simply to conserve ammunition; and there are several lengthy enemy encounters that can easily be made impossible if you waste too many shots in the beginning.
  • The final few stages become difficult when they throw A) way too many enemies at you, B) enemy shots at you which can halve your life in an instant, and kill you in another one, or C) both of these things. The game does have some clever enemy and level designs, but falls back on these cheap challenges way too easily.

As for the, uh, transforming aspect of the game, there's an Autobot counterpart to the Decepticon jet-flying mission I mentioned before -- but a particularly irritating boss fight with invisible sky walls really mars the experience. Other than that, and occasionally transforming just to move faster (or to use the tank/car weapons since you've run out of ammo), the dual nature of the transformers is criminally underutilized.

If you're in love with the Transformers franchise, you'll love this game; and if you just like robots shooting at each other, there's some fun in here too. But as the game marches on, sloppiness and general mediocrity bring the experience down. Other than the impressive visuals, and the fact that it doesn't suck, there's nothing really remarkable here.

Better than: Ghostbusters: The Video Game (PC, PS3, X360)
Not as good as: Vanquish
Oh, yeah: if you care about online multiplayer, I've read that this one is pretty good

Progress: Finished the Decepticon and Autobot campaigns on Normal

Rating: Meh