The story in Transformers: War for Cybertron is little more than one megalomaniac robot’s dream for ultimate power and the shining heroes’ attempt to stop his evil ways. It’s not particularly entertaining, but there are a number of clever touches that do a good job of bringing the source material to life. The campaign is broken up into two parts, one in which you control the decepticons, and the other where you man the autobots, and it’s interesting to spend time with the morally opposed factions and see the differences in their demeanor and the manner in which they treat each other. For example, Megatron is a surly, eyes-on-the-prize leader who doesn’t take guff from anyone and thinks joking is beneath him. But he is always being opposed by the upstart Starscream, who doesn’t much care for taking orders and openly mocks his leader. On the good side, Optimus Prime continually dishes out “please” and “I’m sorry” like a guy desperately trying to make people like him. It’s ultimately a lot more entertaining to hang around with the cantankerous bad guys, but no matter which side you’re aligned with, you can count on authentically cheesy Transformers dialogue.
The 10-level campaign stretches for more than 15 hours, but because the majority of the game entails walking through similar-looking corridors gunning down waves of mindless robots, it seems to drag on far longer than that. The core mechanics are certainly well done–jumping around the environment is responsive, and it’s easy enough to swing your sights onto a fast-approaching foe–but there are too many small issues that continually get in the way of the action. For instance, the cramped level design and quantity of enemy fire forces you to take cover often, making the game play like a cover-based shooter. However, you cannot actually snap behind objects, which means it’s easy to have a body part exposed when you thought you were safely hidden. More troubling is the ammunition, or lack thereof. Every gun you fire in your humanoid or vehicle form (except for jets) requires ammo, but your bullets are depleted far too quickly, forcing you to spend time scouring the environment for replenishment rather than busting up bots. This is compounded by an incredibly slow reload process that continually interrupts the flow of combat. Every time you get in a groove, you have to spend precious seconds either reloading or searching for more bullets, continually pulling you away from any of the fun you could be having.
