Zero Punctuation: Transformers: War for Cybertron
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
To me, it seemed more like he was knocking the game for not selling him on the whole, not so much mocking the whole. Like expecting him to care about metal when he is given tinfoil to start with.
Funny review again... And probably right in a lot of ways as always...
Still I rather watch Transformers (as any other '80's cartoon) then the crap they spoonfeed children these days... Guess humanity doesn't see an apocalypse when it's right in front of them 50" 1080p!
Still I think this game is awesome but it lacks a lot of characters... The gameplay is good especially when playing hard-difficulty!
But leveling in multiplayer could go faster...
Hey this review lacks 50% of what the game was intended for! The multiplayer!!!!! Rather walk around as a Transformer shooting players up than a a standard-soldierprick in a overdone modern warfare type of game!
AND ABOUT THE 'CAN'T TELL THE SURROUNDING FROM THE CHARACTERS'-STUFF...
BUY SOME BETTER GLASSES... MAYBE THAT MIGHT DO THE TRICK...
CAN'T WAIT FOR ANOTHER TF:GAME LIKE THIS!
Still I rather watch Transformers (as any other '80's cartoon) then the crap they spoonfeed children these days... Guess humanity doesn't see an apocalypse when it's right in front of them 50" 1080p!
Still I think this game is awesome but it lacks a lot of characters... The gameplay is good especially when playing hard-difficulty!
But leveling in multiplayer could go faster...
Hey this review lacks 50% of what the game was intended for! The multiplayer!!!!! Rather walk around as a Transformer shooting players up than a a standard-soldierprick in a overdone modern warfare type of game!
AND ABOUT THE 'CAN'T TELL THE SURROUNDING FROM THE CHARACTERS'-STUFF...
BUY SOME BETTER GLASSES... MAYBE THAT MIGHT DO THE TRICK...
CAN'T WAIT FOR ANOTHER TF:GAME LIKE THIS!
You may have a point but it could also be said that the games industry never picks up until fall of the given year, games released beforehand are the ones that if released later would never compete with the likes of Black ops or the new Halo. The reason being for the hatred/ having nothing good to say could be the result of this, think about it how far do you have to go back before you find a review that wasn't all bad, you'll find its generally around the last months of the year.Mantonio said:
That's what I think anyway and also lets not forget Yhatzee is famous for his 'hard to please' personality, no game is ever perfect and he is here to show us just that.
what!
i got to wait a two whole weeks before you return from a well deserved holiday?!
I know Ill rent Transformers:War of Cybertron to entertain me.. ^^
i got to wait a two whole weeks before you return from a well deserved holiday?!
I know Ill rent Transformers:War of Cybertron to entertain me.. ^^
no zp next week?! oh well i can survive it since i've been surviving humiliation since high school
Transformers aged relatively poorly in my mind, simply because, as it's been noted time and time again, it was a line of toys looking for a story, and the entire transforming gimmick never really made much sense in the grand scheme of things. Don't get me wrong, I loved the heck out of them when I was a kid and had tons of them, but it was pretty difficult to sit through the movies, though part of that was just how godawful the script was.
Now on the subject of giant robots, when are we getting some more delicious Battletech action? There's a franchise in dire need of some love.
Now on the subject of giant robots, when are we getting some more delicious Battletech action? There's a franchise in dire need of some love.
Well, I'm pretty sure everything I watched as a child was just planting subliminal messages to later purchase one of their products. Transformers trailed a distant third behind my allowance expenditures on GIJOE and TMNT.
There is some nostalgia if you did watch the old series and the cartoon movie, so if you weren't a fan of the series, I can see not getting into the game.
Few things I have to mention though. Transforming didn't matter in the cartoon though unless you were a jet or Megatron. Every other transformer, would change once or twice an episode, and it was mostly just to drive somewhere, than change back into a robot to fight. Jets often stayed jets during a fight, and Megatron would turn into a gun at least once an episode. They're were other exceptions of course, like the Dino-bots, but they never really ever weren't dinosaurs. All in all though, transforming wasn't actually that important to the show. All that mattered was Optimus said "Autobots: Transform and roll out!" and we were good.
One thing I did find interesting was the multiplayer (Yeah, I know Yahtzee doesn't believe in MP or something.) but it was kind of fun and let you play around with the different classes some more and driving around saw more use as a quick way to move around a level.
There is some nostalgia if you did watch the old series and the cartoon movie, so if you weren't a fan of the series, I can see not getting into the game.
Few things I have to mention though. Transforming didn't matter in the cartoon though unless you were a jet or Megatron. Every other transformer, would change once or twice an episode, and it was mostly just to drive somewhere, than change back into a robot to fight. Jets often stayed jets during a fight, and Megatron would turn into a gun at least once an episode. They're were other exceptions of course, like the Dino-bots, but they never really ever weren't dinosaurs. All in all though, transforming wasn't actually that important to the show. All that mattered was Optimus said "Autobots: Transform and roll out!" and we were good.
One thing I did find interesting was the multiplayer (Yeah, I know Yahtzee doesn't believe in MP or something.) but it was kind of fun and let you play around with the different classes some more and driving around saw more use as a quick way to move around a level.
I liked the game, i also enjoyed this review 
Only thing i disagree with would be the transforming, yes they can strafe in car mode but that's for gameplay, otherwise you'd have to transform every time you want to get around or dodge something.
This is pre earth contact so they arn't robots in disguise they just turn into quick moving modes of various functions (a camero doesn't strafe but a space robot does).
Only thing i disagree with would be the transforming, yes they can strafe in car mode but that's for gameplay, otherwise you'd have to transform every time you want to get around or dodge something.
This is pre earth contact so they arn't robots in disguise they just turn into quick moving modes of various functions (a camero doesn't strafe but a space robot does).
skipping 10 pages
I think Yahtz has unintentionally just nailed everything that is generally wrong with the Transformers "reboot" right there, under a harsh light of cold indifference and without any of the normal fan raving. Which I will also try to distance myself from in the next two paragraphs, but probably will fail at.
I know the original series was a complete merch cash-cow - as have been pretty much everything from the late 70s thru to the present day* - but at least they imbued it with a moderate level of awesomeness and interestingness, with well defined characters fitting sensible niches (the only ones kinda hard to tell apart being some of the other jets besides Starscream) and a story that made some rough kind of sense - a civil war on their own planet, a bunch of Autobots decide to GTFO, and are chased down and ambushed causing them to crash on Earth. The comics and movie fleshed it out further - an energy crisis causing a war of attrition (one side favouring co-operation, the other "survival of the fittest"), a need to look off-world for other power sources, the generation of sapient robots being the product of sheer random chance in an infinite universe, and the original transformed modes all being war machines or other things that made more sense than just general road/sky vehicles (the "local organism" shapes they took in order to blend in). Yknow. Something you could even have told in a more classical setting without it necessarily being giant robots. The bots just made it more awesome. A number of old 'toons did this sort of thing quite well, hiding a decent (or in some cases, an ACTUAL literary classic) story under a flashy primary-coloured exterior.
^^ All of which made it a little less shameless and obvious that it was "look at our shiny new toy! LOOK AT THE SHINY! Bug your parents to buy it!". There was what you may call "added value", same as anything else along the same lines that becomes a classic.
The new one though... bleurgh. It's very easy to see how it wouldn't win over any new fans. Even those who are familiar with the concept and what remains of the original characters simply can't tell WTF is going on, or even one character from another in a lot of cases. Newbies haven't got a hope. And despite a last desperate attempt to try and introduce something resembling a human-identifiable story into it on the robot side (without the interference of LeBouf & co), e.g. chasing down the mcguffin that's the new reason robots have life (rather than galactic darwinism), or a return to the old energy crisis thing (with what is basically some kind of wierd dyson-sphere jobbie, totally overdoing it) it ends up utterly lame. It's Go-Bots, really. As in an also-ran lookalikey that's only there to hang on to the shirt tails of an already popular series and ape it as much as possible, rather than actually breaking any new ground or writing its own good stories.
Obligatory semi-fan wanktext:
The original death of Prime actually meant something and had a bit of emotion attached - the unbreakable, lawful good, exceptionally badass hero who's single handedly kept the good fight going in some cases - dead, after a battle to save him. And when they did revive him, it was clear the attempt was a horrific failure and he was going to have to stay dead. The new one killed him near instantly... then brought him back five minutes later, unscathed. Cheap and totally meaningless. What the hell?
Jaekin: I have to disagree. A lot of the other 'bots had a bit of a point to their transforming. Prime himself was, literally, a juggernaut. He could either shoot you, hack you up with his axe, beat you to a pulp with his fists ... or hunker down into a truck and _run you the fuck over at 70mph_. Also, the trailer (like 90% of Megatron's mass, conveniently and inexplicably disappearing when not needed)... it could carry all manner of stuff including recon drones (or dead comrades) and turn into a mobile battle station with an assload of AA-guns and the like.
The autobot forms in general were both genuinely useful AND good camo - particularly the old Bumblebee who was just a beat up VW that no-one would look twice at rather than a showroom-fresh current-year Camaro, Hound (original, all-terrain Jeep with holographic driver, winch etc), Prowl (police car - move quickly through a crowded human city, get access to restricted areas), Rachet (ambulance with similar movement priveleges and a range of human and 'bot patch-up equipment), and the various cranes, fire trucks, non-constructicon building site vehicles, rescue 'copters, so on and so forth which granted the relevant character a (limited, and therefore plot-token-granting and requiring of chess strategy) range of extra skills other than "dur I am big bipedal lump of animated metal"... and, when used for human benefit, allowed them to make good on their "we are the good guys" claim. The decepticons also had forms that granted skills in espionage, sabotage, jamming and energy draining (soundwave and his crew), extra firepower (whatsisname who turned into a goddamn tank), unaided spaceflight (the otherwise ludicrous Astrotrain), wide scale demolition (the ironically named constructicons), yadda yadda. Though mostly they were all about the jets. Someone in Japan must have let their Gran Turismo side out and thought it would be a really good idea to make one 'con for each of the major US and Russian jet types, even though most people couldn't tell an F14 from a MiG-29 at fifty paces.
Unfortunately it all started to get a bit silly when they ran out of real-life things to copy and started just basically making shit up and twisting the storylines to suit. The Dinobots, albeit awesome when taken in their own right, are an example of this, as is Beastwars. Including Arcee as a sop to equality was also a bit wierd (and Blurr?), when the characters were effectively neuter (and raceless) up to that point and only given male pronouns out of convenience (though you could argue it's a neuter robot wanting to embrace more feminine ideals after being exposed to human culture - and really all of the autobots should ultimately be female and the decepticons male?). And at some point, my brother had some transformer toy that had, I shit you not, SEVEN different forms, one of them being a cougar that was the same size as its tank form. Can't even remember its name and I can't offer any explanation for its existence.
/end OSFWT
BTW TF games have always sucked, regardless of generation. Shouldn't expect this one to be any better.
* with a few wierd exceptions, e.g. the old cities of gold 'toon. It's actually taken rabid-fan clamour for any merch to actually be produced, and then it's more commemorative ornaments for your work desk and other such wierd shit rather than kids' toys
I think Yahtz has unintentionally just nailed everything that is generally wrong with the Transformers "reboot" right there, under a harsh light of cold indifference and without any of the normal fan raving. Which I will also try to distance myself from in the next two paragraphs, but probably will fail at.
I know the original series was a complete merch cash-cow - as have been pretty much everything from the late 70s thru to the present day* - but at least they imbued it with a moderate level of awesomeness and interestingness, with well defined characters fitting sensible niches (the only ones kinda hard to tell apart being some of the other jets besides Starscream) and a story that made some rough kind of sense - a civil war on their own planet, a bunch of Autobots decide to GTFO, and are chased down and ambushed causing them to crash on Earth. The comics and movie fleshed it out further - an energy crisis causing a war of attrition (one side favouring co-operation, the other "survival of the fittest"), a need to look off-world for other power sources, the generation of sapient robots being the product of sheer random chance in an infinite universe, and the original transformed modes all being war machines or other things that made more sense than just general road/sky vehicles (the "local organism" shapes they took in order to blend in). Yknow. Something you could even have told in a more classical setting without it necessarily being giant robots. The bots just made it more awesome. A number of old 'toons did this sort of thing quite well, hiding a decent (or in some cases, an ACTUAL literary classic) story under a flashy primary-coloured exterior.
^^ All of which made it a little less shameless and obvious that it was "look at our shiny new toy! LOOK AT THE SHINY! Bug your parents to buy it!". There was what you may call "added value", same as anything else along the same lines that becomes a classic.
The new one though... bleurgh. It's very easy to see how it wouldn't win over any new fans. Even those who are familiar with the concept and what remains of the original characters simply can't tell WTF is going on, or even one character from another in a lot of cases. Newbies haven't got a hope. And despite a last desperate attempt to try and introduce something resembling a human-identifiable story into it on the robot side (without the interference of LeBouf & co), e.g. chasing down the mcguffin that's the new reason robots have life (rather than galactic darwinism), or a return to the old energy crisis thing (with what is basically some kind of wierd dyson-sphere jobbie, totally overdoing it) it ends up utterly lame. It's Go-Bots, really. As in an also-ran lookalikey that's only there to hang on to the shirt tails of an already popular series and ape it as much as possible, rather than actually breaking any new ground or writing its own good stories.
Obligatory semi-fan wanktext:
The original death of Prime actually meant something and had a bit of emotion attached - the unbreakable, lawful good, exceptionally badass hero who's single handedly kept the good fight going in some cases - dead, after a battle to save him. And when they did revive him, it was clear the attempt was a horrific failure and he was going to have to stay dead. The new one killed him near instantly... then brought him back five minutes later, unscathed. Cheap and totally meaningless. What the hell?
Jaekin: I have to disagree. A lot of the other 'bots had a bit of a point to their transforming. Prime himself was, literally, a juggernaut. He could either shoot you, hack you up with his axe, beat you to a pulp with his fists ... or hunker down into a truck and _run you the fuck over at 70mph_. Also, the trailer (like 90% of Megatron's mass, conveniently and inexplicably disappearing when not needed)... it could carry all manner of stuff including recon drones (or dead comrades) and turn into a mobile battle station with an assload of AA-guns and the like.
The autobot forms in general were both genuinely useful AND good camo - particularly the old Bumblebee who was just a beat up VW that no-one would look twice at rather than a showroom-fresh current-year Camaro, Hound (original, all-terrain Jeep with holographic driver, winch etc), Prowl (police car - move quickly through a crowded human city, get access to restricted areas), Rachet (ambulance with similar movement priveleges and a range of human and 'bot patch-up equipment), and the various cranes, fire trucks, non-constructicon building site vehicles, rescue 'copters, so on and so forth which granted the relevant character a (limited, and therefore plot-token-granting and requiring of chess strategy) range of extra skills other than "dur I am big bipedal lump of animated metal"... and, when used for human benefit, allowed them to make good on their "we are the good guys" claim. The decepticons also had forms that granted skills in espionage, sabotage, jamming and energy draining (soundwave and his crew), extra firepower (whatsisname who turned into a goddamn tank), unaided spaceflight (the otherwise ludicrous Astrotrain), wide scale demolition (the ironically named constructicons), yadda yadda. Though mostly they were all about the jets. Someone in Japan must have let their Gran Turismo side out and thought it would be a really good idea to make one 'con for each of the major US and Russian jet types, even though most people couldn't tell an F14 from a MiG-29 at fifty paces.
Unfortunately it all started to get a bit silly when they ran out of real-life things to copy and started just basically making shit up and twisting the storylines to suit. The Dinobots, albeit awesome when taken in their own right, are an example of this, as is Beastwars. Including Arcee as a sop to equality was also a bit wierd (and Blurr?), when the characters were effectively neuter (and raceless) up to that point and only given male pronouns out of convenience (though you could argue it's a neuter robot wanting to embrace more feminine ideals after being exposed to human culture - and really all of the autobots should ultimately be female and the decepticons male?). And at some point, my brother had some transformer toy that had, I shit you not, SEVEN different forms, one of them being a cougar that was the same size as its tank form. Can't even remember its name and I can't offer any explanation for its existence.
/end OSFWT
BTW TF games have always sucked, regardless of generation. Shouldn't expect this one to be any better.
* with a few wierd exceptions, e.g. the old cities of gold 'toon. It's actually taken rabid-fan clamour for any merch to actually be produced, and then it's more commemorative ornaments for your work desk and other such wierd shit rather than kids' toys
I've seen and liked the film series and nothing else. I think I'm in the same boat as Yahtzee here- it's a toy franchise that a lot of people like, but the game can't just pander to the fans if I'm going to give it a go. That said, I won't give it a go, because Yahtzee's done that for me.
Oh god, I loved watching inexplicable eastern European cartoons as a kid. And the occasional bizarre one from Canada. I'm going to have to spend a few hours on Youtube searching for things now. Also, this was one of the first ZP videos in ages that I considered sharing with non-gamer friends - a game so blandly indicative of marketing that it could have been a review for almost anything.
Sidenote, Youtube has just directed me to an elderly Italian cartoon clip called Happy Betty Factory, and although I don't understand what they're saying, it looks suspiciously like an analogy for capitalism. Or possibly communism. Joy!
Sidenote, Youtube has just directed me to an elderly Italian cartoon clip called Happy Betty Factory, and although I don't understand what they're saying, it looks suspiciously like an analogy for capitalism. Or possibly communism. Joy!
@Yahtzee Croshaw
If you really had to "grind your face" on the vertical shaft as the flying decepticon...
You REALLY have some issues with your gaming skills.
If you really had to "grind your face" on the vertical shaft as the flying decepticon...
You REALLY have some issues with your gaming skills.
While it is true that he's not exactly the most skilled gamer in the planet, he's not all thumbs as you might expect; I'd say on the bottom quadrant of average to above-average, since he still managed to 4-star Freebird on Hard, which is difficult for your average gamer, and not something to brag about if you're an above-average gamer (you'd probably brag about 5-starring Psychobilly Freakout instead).AzureDemon said:
He was merely using hyperbole for humor, which is standard fare for Yahtzee, in order to highlight how bad the vehicle controls were.
...'cause it is?Mangue Surfer said:
No, really, it is. Did yo not notice that the pit where Omega Supreme lands and which you circle around him has cover for you to avoid his attacks? How about the hanging a lampshade on the "terribly outdated" cubes (i.e. crates) in the first mission?
Anyway. I am a TF fanboy. I enjoyed this game quite a lot. But I agree with Yahtzee. This game was aimed at fanboys. If they'd put into innovating gameplay half the effort they did cramming the game with fanservice and mythology gags, it might have rated an 8.5. At the very least, a longer single-player campaign, perhaps one that felt like it wasn't from the days when Warcraft II's campaign structure was creative,
As it is, it was the first new game I'd purchased in 7 years, having finally gotten a new computer not two months earlier (and having spent those two months with old games that I could play with everything maxed out), and so perhaps my perspective is not the best.
But! In the game's defense, I will note that Yahtzee apparently devoted no attention to multiplayer, which was where most of the attention was--or so I think, anyway. That was well-done.