Review | Transformers: Dark of the Moon

In Transformers: Dark of the Moon the player-driven Transformers reload their arm-cannons manually. By that I mean that they reach their left robotic appendage over to their right one and tug clumsily on a ratcheting mechanism of some kind to slot-in a new set of rounds. Why this could not have occurred automatically, as a function of the engineered physiology of the Autobots, is beyond me. It’s a convenient example, i’m afraid, almost a thesis statement for the game as a whole, because Transformers: Dark of the Moon doesn’t feel as much like a Transformers game as it does an above average arcady bargain-bin action title from a decade ago, painted over with the Michael Bay brush. Thankfully though, it does avoid many of the obvious criminal acts that even much better games have a weakness for.

An original storyline is told: One that takes place before the events of Michael Bay’s third CG extravaganza. It’d be easy for me to let my cynical lobes take control, immediately trashing the writing and the production values of the presentation. But, in all honesty, I could not imagine a better plot for a Transformers game: It’s incredibly simple, rather wholesome, and is told in a way that is not at all obtrusive. It might not matter or be completely coherent, but in the occasional blessedly-brief cutscene Optimus Prime’s prime optimism managed to instill a weird, false sense of nostalgia in me. He’s such a nice guy, he doesn’t have to save the inhabitants of planet earth – he, and his Autobot companions only do so because they think it’s right. I can always get behind that.

After the fantastically short, unobtrusive cutscenes are over, it’s on to the fast-paced arcady combat sequences that make up the entirety of the game’s play time. Every Autobot (You play as Prime, Bumblebee, Ironhide and Mirage as well four Decepticons) can exist in one of three forms at any time: The iconic bipedal robot, the equally iconic vehicle they collapse stylishly into and a kind of hybrid “stealth-force” mode where you take the form of the vehicle but also have a bunch of cannons coming out of your roof and are able to maneuver easily in all directions like a sort of super-charged hovercraft.

It’s the shifting between the three forms that lifts Dark of the Moon’s combat above a generic march through waves of near identical laser wielding foes, if only by a small distance. I’ll admit that the first time I dealt to a group of enemies in the humanoid form, then shifted down into Bumblebee’s yellow compact and sped into another minion, was rather satisfying. That’s why I wish I could dismiss it with more than a one word answer, but after the opening mission was over the combat had already gotten repetitive. Some respite from the repetitiveness is provided whenever you take control of a new character, who all have slightly different weapon sets, but that fades pretty quickly.

Allowing you to switch adds layers of depth in theory, but it’s further undermined by the fact that the intermediate stealth-force form you can take at any time has more firepower, more mobility and more fortification than your upright form. As a conventional mech you have a slight edge when it comes to accuracy, but that’s about it. In Transformers media, the moment of Transformation should be ludicrously epic – you should feel the inevitable coolness with every ‘click’ and ‘zip’ as the mechanical giant assembles – but in this game the walking-form is so fragile that you are actively encouraged to shy away from it.

Actually transforming looks great, it’s satisfyingly complex while being over remarkably quickly. The bots you play as look good too, but that’s where the visual impressiveness ends. “Stock” might be the best word to describe the environments, they are bland, generic, and lack any kind of detail or any kind of dynamic reactions to your input. A 20 tonne robot can leap onto the roof of a saloon-car and absolutely nothing will happen. The physics are just not that impressive and the animations in the context of the world feel stiff. You just don’t feel like a massive Transformer.

It’s just as problematic when you are stealth-forcing your merry way around a combat arena (Which is either a set of large boulders or maybe some broken cars and buildings). There is absolutely no sense of weight whatsoever; you slip-and-slide up and down cliff faces with an awkward self-compensating system that means there’s absolutely no chance of flipping upside down. I can see why they did it, it would be frustrating to constantly find yourself on your back, but it’s these sorts of presentation cliches that make the game feel like it’s from a decade ago.

A multiplayer mode is here, and it’s good and bad for all of the same reasons. The ability to shift into a fast car provides mobility at the touch of a button, and that makes it stand out slightly from the multiplayer crowd, but if you are wanting to be competitive you can’t exactly squint and pretend that changing back into a proper robot was in fact for the best (like you sort of can in the single player portion).

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is never aggressively bad. As I said, the cutscenes are unobtrusive and it does not commit any of the other obvious action-games crimes that so many do. There are, for example, no frustrating escort missions (There is one where you ‘protect’ a fallen companion, but he can’t really take damage so it doesn’t matter). It’s this that makes it really tempting to recommend the game to to ‘fans of the franchise’ or ‘those looking for a generic action title’ but i’m sorry to say that I can’t do that either. See, Transformers: War for Cybertron was released last year and is superior in almost every way, as well as becoming cheaper with age. Dark of the Moon might be proud of its status as an above-average licensed movie game, hampered as they all are by pressure to release alongside the film, but it still is unlikely to be worth purchasing thanks to its overachieving older brother. [5]