Well to start, in all honesty it exceeded the expectations that I had for it. I usually find that I enjoy rpg's and fps' and so when I first played this, a third person shooter I thought "well, it looks like a good enough use of space on my Xbox 360 hard drive" but what I got was something unexpected: it is a game that I simply have not tired of at all in any aspect. Alright, let's just get it out of the way first and foremost, the game does have frame rate issues, and sometimes it gets pretty annoying but that's all I have against the single player...sort of.
The story is very enjoyable, I actually disagree with the other major reviewers in that sense. I was never jarred from one game play experience to the other and I fully enjoyed it the whole way through evenly. The end fights were grand in scale and the game even on the medium difficulty was challenging at times. Between the challenge and the lack of namby pamby Gears of War cover mechanics I must say the single player aspect was a much better find than I had expected. I also enjoy how the story was canon that made it a little sweeter for me. It wasn't always perfect though, sometimes I looked back on even just the last chapter I had played through and I had already forgotten exactly what the point was of that chapter but ultimately it comes down to having a fun time playing the campaign and that's what I did.
The graphics are good, but not amazing. For what it's worth I would say I'm happy with the graphics except for a few things such as some odd glitches while looking in "water" or whatever that liquid was, and especially the Cybertronian body cuff things...you'll know once you see them what I mean...but those sorts of things are acceptable. On a bigger scale the actually look of the game was somewhat of a disappointment to me. Here's the thing, the game takes place on a world made entirely of metal and subsequent machinery. It's tough to complain about the style of the visuals since they're all modeled after one type of thing but I must. After a while of seeing such similar things I got a little bored of the visuals. I enjoyed the space missions and all but the constant flow of running past ever darkening or ever more purple metal threw me off a little.
Moving past the story mode and the visuals I could sum up Escalation Mode which is the horde type mode in Transformers: WFC in a simple few words: standard mode of wave after wave of enemies, fun to play with friends. Boom, that was what, 13 words? Yes well in any case it is fun to play although I was never much of a fan of those types of modes but even so I'm glad to see it as an option.
Now on to the online multiplayer, my favorite part. Simply put I find this to be so much more fun than I would have originally though it would be. I was a little scared at first that I wasn't going to enjoy it all that much or that I wouldn't have found it to be worth the money I paid, but I was stupid to fear those things. I really enjoy playing team death match in shooters and so when I first played it in this game not only was I pleasantly surprised but I was also engrossed in it within just two games (I needed to get used to the online gameplay/not an excuse or anything). Even while I'm typing this review of which I don't even know how many of you will read I have a hankering to go play it. It is an open style third person shooter that doesn't take itself too seriously and that is just the sort of game I've been looking for because I have fun playing it no matter how poorly I do. By the way I'm awesome at the game so saying that was for everyone else. Of course, team death match isn't the only game type and I enjoy the others as well there are the standard modes you may find in other games just with the added bonus of being played by a bunch of transforming robots. Unfortunately the game is rather laggy, and at times that does get in the way, but every game has lagged before this is not the first one.
But in any case I get so much satisfaction out of the most simply mechanic of the game which is transforming and it is all the little things that make this game just the transformers game, if not THE game, that I've been looking to play. Stealing a little from the IGN review for a second I do enjoy the emphasis on the screams of the robots about to blow up and like I said cruising as a car, transforming into the robot form, then jumping onto and performing a melee attack on an opponent is an epic feel and developer's High Moon has done a great job with this game. I just wish the explosions were a little better, when a Cybertronian dies they sort of go poof instead of boom.
Overall, this game is a good buy for this summers line up of games and you would not be dissapointed with your purchase. Even if you are not a fan of the Transformer's franchise it is still a good game to be introduced into and if you are then it will be a refresher for all the bad Transformer games that has ever been released.
Henchmen Rating:
5.5 out of 6
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Sunday, July 4, 2010
This game wasn't half as bad as people made it to be. Although, when you look at IGN they gave it a 9.0. Seriously? a 9.0 perhaps they were TOO generous with this game.
I really enjoyed this game, thanks for the review!