PixlBit

These days I'm always impressed by what can be accomplished on the relatively underpowered DS hardware. Vicarious Visions has always managed to be quite good at maxing out the system's graphical capabilities for the games they deliver. Transformers: War for Cybertron is a great example of some impressive system pushing graphical work. Unfortunately for Vicarious Visions, the accompanying gameplay, though a decent attempt given the subject matter at hand,is not quite as compelling

Transformers: War for Cybertron on the DS comes in two flavors: one for an Autobot campaign and the other a Decepticon campaign. Each title has players controlling the titular group of Transformers through a completely unique third person shooting, battling, and platforming quest. As players complete missions and collect data disks in the levels, they unlock new Transformers to play with as well as stat upgrades to improve their current bots.

At the start of each mission, players choose two bots to take into combat. Every bot has a ranged attack and a melee move, each of which are of a different type. There are three types in the game, square, triangle, and circle, thus, players must build a set of two characters that cover all three types, in order to be most effective in combat. Throughout the mission, players will encounter enemies of each of the types and must use the corresponding attack in order to quickly and easily dispatch them.

In order to quickly switch between characters and easily utilize all types of attacks, Vicarious Visions has implemented a simple control scheme to make it quick and easy. Pushing the A Button will switch between your two chosen bots, the B button jumps, X button is ranged shot, and the Y button is a melee attack. Though this control mechanism is effective in combat, it fails in the game's platforming segments.

As mentioned earlier, War for Cybertron is part platformer, requiring players to jump between platforms in missions in order to reach new areas. This can become extremely frustrating due to bot movement and the iffy edge detection. Nearly every level in the game has a platforming section, preventing players from avoiding the frustration. Even worse, falling off a platform nearly always results in instant death forcing players to redo the entire level.

This issue is expounded by bot movement. Players move their bot around with the D-Pad, wherein left and right turn the view and up and down move forward and back. This is awkward because an entire dimension of control is missing, as strafing and upward and downward look are completely unrepresented. Worse, the left and right turning feels entirely too sensitive, preventing me from getting my view in the ideal position unless I'm willing to fidget back and forth with the camera until it's perfectly in place. When jumping between a series of platforms while enemies are attacking, view adjustment is an impossibility. Furthermore, left and right view change also forces some slight circular movement which has resulted in death a few times.

Control issues are definitely the most prominent issue of the game, but with some patience and some familiarity with the way the game controls, eventually they become a bit less frustrating to work with. All of the other mechanics of the game work well, and the three types of attacks go a long way in giving the game a bit of strategy. Because players' health and firepower recharge independently for each bot, players are forced to pay attention to their situation at all times when handling a large number of enemies. This holds especially true in the Arena mode, which provides players with a number of waves of enemies until the mission is complete.

Though the game is a solid attempt, it doesn't quite succeed in being very fun or interesting. Even after mastering the controls and figuring out the quirks of the engine, I didn't find myself having much fun completing the missions. From my perception, the game is more geared towards children, so it's likely that they would feel more challenged by the game, thus resulting in a bigger reward upon successfully completing the missions. Parents looking for a decent game for their Transformers loving kid can't go all that wrong with War for Cybertron in either the Autobots or Decepticons flavor.