Zero Punctuation: Transformers: War for Cybertron

DarkhoIlow

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Dec 31, 2009
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Good and funny review.

I'm hoping that in a few weeks he will review Mafia 2,can't wait to see what he thinks of it!
 

tredecim

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Aug 25, 2010
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TheBlueRabbit said:
tredecim said:
I was completely aware they existed only to sell toys. I didn't care - the toys were awesome.

I'm actually disappointed that T:WFC isn't any good. It seemed like it had potential.

Why can't any decent developer actually make a game which takes advantage of the fact things transform into other things! The last game to do that was M.A.S.K. on the ZX Spectrum!
Wait. THERE WAS A M.A.S.K. GAME? Why didn't I know this?!?!

OT: I think we all knew it was a marketing ploy by Hasbro. Most of the kids I knew didn't care. We were hooked anyway.

As for nostalgia being enough to make a game likeable, I'm ashamed to admit..........in this case it worked for me.
There was indeed. Actually there were three of them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.A.S.K.#Video_games

But I think it was the 2nd one I had. I remember getting to choose vehicles.

I miss being 5. Being able to play with Transformers, M.A.S.K., Visionaries, Manta Force, GI Joe and the lighters I kept nicking from my relatives.

My mum once walked into the bathroom where I'd constructed a massive 'death web' of toilet paper, strung all over every available surface and meeting in the middle, where Matt Trakker was about to meet his demise. I had JUST got the lighter ready to set the entire lot ablaze.

Bloody spoilsport woman. :(
 

C_Topher

Senior Member
May 17, 2009
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I always enjoy it when a critic gives an honest review of something with a blindly loyal fan base. Yahtzee's right, most tie-ins are just for the fan boys, which is why we need a non-fan to review it as a game instead of a fan wank.
 

chinangel

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Sep 25, 2009
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i was never a fan of transformers, despite growing up int he appropriate generation. I also wasn't a fan of ninja turtles or practically any other cartoon. So I had no preconceptions going into this game except 'wow this is going to suck' i was wrong. I greatly enjoyed the game and had no real problem telling one thing from another. Though I did find the dialogue hammy.
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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Hmmm, well I didn't buy this game so you can thus guess what I thought of it. I figured it was "budget bin fodder" right from the beginning, and this is despite having really liked "The Transformers" quite a bit as a kid.

One point I will make though is that while like a lot of 80s cartoons "Transformers" was a glorified toy commercial, it managed to do so well because it actually had something resembling a coherant storyline. As much as it will make people scream, it was one of the first encounters by mainstream American with what we now recognize as "Anime", and yes there are plenty of people who will point to the slightly less commercialized Japanese version, the differances, and numerous continuations of the stories and mythos that went beyond that we had here in the US.

I think in retrospect it's a comparitive thing.

I'll also say flat out that from the 1980s my favorite cartoon was "Thundercats" and I also have a degree of appreciation for "He-Man" and "Silverhawks", all above "Transformers" which arguably slides in at a distant 4th tied with "GI Joe". The thing is that there were truckloads of cartoons during that time period, and only a handfull of them are remembered with any amounts of nostolgia. Do some research into the tripe that was painfully ejected from the shared memory of my generation and you'll probably understand a bit better what made some of these things good enough to inspire fond memories.

It's possible to take anything that is pretty old (especially childrens entertainment) and call it unmitigated cr@p from a crappy era, simply based on new innovations and higher standards that come with them, but also understand that your pretentious superiority in your "current" material will be equally mocked a couple decades later just the same.

Otherwise the review did make me laugh, and the bit about the flying pretty much confirmed my thoughts on this being a giant, poorly designed nostolgia cash in.
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
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Hehe. Loved tghe opening, I can only imagine mad fanboys will be incoming...

Awesome review though, and, glad not got it yet =D
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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Aug 22, 2010
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Onyx Oblivion said:
*goes to play the Armada based game on the PS2*

*shoulder rams decepticlones off of cliffs*

Now that was the best TF game ever.
Amen brother, lovely visuals, an excellent combat system and weapons mechanic. A sense of being huge (helped by an Earth locale for the most part) and a subtle self-awareness motif running through the whole thing that made it woosh crikey fun.

As a Transformer fan of many of the different offerings of the franchise, one might think this review offended me. It did not. WFC was a shambles of a game that made me glade I only paid 50 bucks for it (half price down in Aus, though that might have been a clue) and frankly Yahtzee's given it the serve that it deserves.


Also there's something oddly compelling about the way he pronounces Autobots and Decepticons......hmm
 

BlueHighwind

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Jan 24, 2010
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Michael Bay should make a movie based on those weird Eastern European Commie cartoons. It will be an awful, awful movie, but people love it when Michael Bay makes shit. So enjoy.
 

Smexers

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Jul 31, 2010
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maddawg IAJI said:
Ricky Cabrera said:
this is just to make the "FIRST!!" people cry
Then you're just as bad as the people who shout "FIRST!" your intention was to get the first post, same as them. The only difference is that you did it to spite them. So you're really not acting any better then them.

OT: I still wanna get this game, not because I like Transformers, but because I like 3rd person shooters. When done right, they're quite literally my favorite genre.
I more or less accidentally ran into this video, though i think yahtzee is awesome i was watching an "Unskippable" episode then saw the ZP review on cybertron in the related videos and thought to myself "how'd i miss this?" checked the comments and thought if i saw "comments (blank)" i wouldnt mind rubbing it in those "FIRST!!" people faces, its kind of like coincidentally seeing the local bakery open and as you see 30 fat kids getting out of a car running to the door you get there and go 1/2 way down on a freshly baked cookie and point and laugh as 1/3 of them are down for the count due to exhaustion. In short I'm awesome.
 

Forgetitnow344

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Jan 8, 2010
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101194 said:
Ricky Cabrera said:
this is just to make the "FIRST!!" people cry
Clever.

ZP:

Clever, But mean. Half of us grew up on transformers no reason to diss the entire series just for one game.
He didn't diss the entire series. He claimed not to care, which is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. None of the Transformers media he has been exposed to (Transformers, RotF, WfC...) has been positive. If you're just complaining about Yahtzee bashing something, then I suppose all there is to say is:

Ha, ha.
 

Stabby Joe

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Jul 30, 2008
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I'm not a Transformers fan but from what I've seen, it's looks like a true Transformers game BUT also a somewhat run of the mill third person shooter with a slight twist of its own (transforming).

I wanted to play the demo but its multiplayer only. Now I'm sure the online could be fun, maybe even where the experience lasts but like all games the singe player will be my first priority.

This one will have to wait for a price drop.
 

Kimarous

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Sep 23, 2009
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Lucane said:
It's a little dated now but...

(snip)
Woah... talk about a trip down Memory Lane. I still have that game, although I haven't played it for years.

On topic: I've played "War for Cybertron" for a while now. The first time I ever took an interest in Transformers was after trying the "Revenge of the Fallen" game and, I must say, I actually liked that game more than I do "War for Cybertron". It isn't so much a "bad" game in my eyes, but it most certainly is "disappointing".
 

zwober

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Nov 20, 2009
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WOPR said:
**looks at shelf of transformers collectibles**
so, you never actually played with any transformers as a young child ?
or did you keep one set for playing with and one set for putting on a shelf and thinking "oh boy, im going to score some major geekpoints for this when i grow old" - Btw, Shall we play a game ? (im guessing you get that quite often, but.. i just had to!)

on topic tho: i feel a sudden need to write down an idea for a game similar to katamari damaci (sorry if i typed that wrong) - basicly you just change into a bigger form of a transformer, from an egg to a T-rex, jumping around on other "formers" to get new parts.. kinda.. like.. mixing the Maw with Katamari and then, throw in some transformers.. yay or nay ?

Oh - And finally, the dandellion-rebellion has begun!
 

thublihnk

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Jul 24, 2009
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I like that both Yahtzee and Yahtzee's fanboys are prattling on about all this 'hate mail' and 'fanboy whining' when a thorough reading of the comment thread that has ensued so far has been unabashed Yahtzee tongue bathing. Maybe it'll spring up later. Doubt it.

OT: Fuckin' hate Transformers, don't give a shit about the game, good review.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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I hate nostalgia. Few things were ever as good as we remember them, and even fewer things deserve to be put up on pedestals. Transformers was a fun cartoon, but the way it's treated as some sort of cultural icon really does demonstrate just how bad we are at resisting marketing.
 

I am AFK

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Sep 20, 2009
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so true any thing with contekt with mikle bay is going to go more south then a com viktim in a room full of zombeis. like any super nateral creter stephenie meyers tuches sill become a winy little ***** full of more anxt then all the animai carictors of the world comine.......... OH SHIT!!! we must protekt pirimed head!!
 

TheEnglishman

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Jun 13, 2009
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Well I think you're a different generation to me Yahtzee, but my generations Othello was the death of Wizardmon.

I also thank you for the Shia Le Bouf analogy. Saying that giant transfomring robots will just be too much for us and we need to focus on Shia Le Bouf to have any chance of comprehending what's going on is an insult to my and most normal people's intelligence.
 

Lucane

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Mar 24, 2008
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Not G. Ivingname said:
Lucane said:
For an answer in the Transformers universe itself:​
"We used stealth by turning into loud vechiles that no robot had ever seen that could only really ram into other robot's."

Somehow that made even less logical sense then I thought it would. :p
The Decepticons where the more violent ones so they would likely incorperate weapons sooner into the vehicle modes than Autobots, and they weren't built at the beginning of the universe they were built for mechanical slave labor while starships and mass transit devices already exsisted.Decepticons wouldn't know what was a treat right away when the Autobots 1st learned how to transform into transport shuttles and such You'd waste resources and energy shooting/attacking anything that could possibly be an Autobot or just a normal energon cargo feighter.
 

ReverendJ

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Mar 18, 2009
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The joys of growing up. Interesting phenomena, this. Since business properly 'discovered' the youth markets around the 50s, children have been increasingly marketed to (as Yahtzee pointed out). The generation raised on the cartoons of the 80s got it bad, right up to where the milking machine analogy is true. Those shows were nothing but extended commercials, and people got/get rabid about it. Yay, geek culture.

Here's the beauty of it... They not only got your parents' cash when you were a young 'un, they've found that thanks to the beauty of nostalgia they can turn you around, decades after having lost you as a targeted demographic, and hit you AGAIN with the same crap! As well as catching a bunch of the new generation. You'll either accept or despise the way it's been repackaged, and even if you despise it, well, you'll probably at least go see the movie. Those of us who have children, meanwhile, now have an internal motivation to push their crap on our kids too, under the guise of 'sharing what we loved.'

My father took my son to see that P.O.S. Underdog movie for those very reasons. That man is one cheap bastard, but this ploy managed to wring $15 out of him. Good show, sirs.