Transformers (2004) vs. Transformers: War for Cybertron
These games are by far the two best Transformers video games out there. Both were third person shooters that had you fight hordes of nameless enemies, but the similarities end there. The 2004 game (henceforth simply referred to as Armada) was developed by Melbourne House for the Playstation 2 and was based on the Armada toyline. That game was set on Earth and featured many landscapes ranging from the open sea to dense forests to icy wilderness and ending in a fight inside a Volcano. War for Cybertron was developed by High Moon Studios for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. It took place entirely on Cybertron, giving you more fan-based locations, such as Iacon City, Kaon Prison, a couple orbital stations and down into the core of Cybertron.
Armada, like its toyline and TV show, was primarily dominated by Minicons. All of your weapons and abilities are obtained through finding minicons, and your bullet-time mode was activated by a story-related minicon. Yes, bullet-time. Remember bullet-time? Anyway, the weapons ranged from rocket launchers to sniper rifles to submachine guns with abilities being ‘take less damage from this’ or stuff like ‘glide.’ There was also a button you could press to enter a first person mode and another button you could press to be a truck. Y’know, because this is Transformers, you have to be able to turn into a big red truck. It handled very much like a racing game, press X to boost and press O to stop and reverse. You want to shoot guys as a truck? TOOOOO BAD. Trucks were limited to just being a truck. You could ram into enemies for some damage, but given how they always traveled in packs, it was a bad idea. In total, there were maybe 5 jumps where you needed to be a truck to make it in the entire game, all of which are easily jumpable once you get the Glide minicon.
Armada’s single player adventure took awhile to beat, roughly ten hours or so. That isn’t to say the story is any good. You could sum up the story as the standard “stop Megatron’s evil plot to destroy the world.” What was his actual plot? What did it involve? How would Starscream muck it all up for Megatron in the end? No one knows. It’s never explained. “Stop Megatron.” “Okay.” There’s your story. The environments are what made the game good. You walk out and see a giant ice field. There’s smoke at the end. Take any route you wish to get there. Did I mention it’s a giant ice field? Seriously. It’ll take you an hour to explore it. The levels were HUGE. They didn’t stop to repeat things either. You could explore each level and still find new things. That said it was easy to get lost and with no HUD marker to show your next checkpoint, it sometimes took a long time to get back on track.
In terms of variety, Armada offered little. There were 3 characters to choose from, Prime (the big guy), Red Alert (the regular guy), and Hot Shot (the small guy). And though the levels were vast and open, enemy encounters came down to the same basic stuff (until the last level). You would be going by and there’d be a platoon of small and medium grunts with a leader unit there to improve their AI. Shoot the leader, then kill all the grunts. Sometimes there’d be a slow moving heavy in place of the leader, but they mostly traveled in pairs without a platoon. Every now and then a couple of jets come to harass you, but they were set in a certain area. Kill one jet in that area and another replaced it until you leave. Then there were the cloakers. You learned to fear these guys. You never see them in numbers less than 3, and one shot from their gun drains all the energy from all of your weapons, effectively leaving you helpless. Melee was your only weapon, and it wasn’t even that good. And because these guys are cloaked and run low to the ground, it was hard to notice them until they already hit you. Then there’s the last level. Enemy platoons are separated pretty much by 5 steps with dropships coming out to deliver more every 3 steps. You were lucky to drive through and activate the next warp gate. The game was mindbogglingly difficult on Normal difficulty.
The bosses didn’t make it any better either. Granted most of them followed the same pattern; transform and dive bomb you, transform back to robot mode, shoot a bunch, then dash in at mad speeds to melee you, transform back and repeat. This was 3 of the game’s boss fights. They were the easy ones, and even then you always had to be on your toes because their melee was a lot more effective than yours. End boss is, of course, Megatron, who has a similar style except instead of flying around he becomes a tank and blasts you in the face until you die from it. The most memorable boss fight in the game would have to be the monstrous Tidal Wave, who becomes an Airship Carrier. That’s’ right, a whole Airship Carrier. Not a human sized one either, he’s big enough to carry around dropships. Hell, half the stage takes place crawling inside him, only to press a button which transforms him for the boss fight. The boss fight itself was defined by him launching missiles at you from across the stage with such accuracy you had to move after 5 seconds or kiss a fourth of your health bar goodbye. You could destroy his turrets, but doing so just makes jets spawn, which are worse than the turrets. The basic method of beating him is to go from peak to peak shooting his head while running from his missiles. Pretty simple once you get used to it.
Armada’s biggest and most memorable moment.
Now, for War for Cybertron. The game is meant to be a prequel to the original Generation 1 cartoon show. Sure, if you want to go by this, there were some absolutely glaring continuity problems, but hey, G1 was full of those. All in all the game’s single player takes maybe 8 hours to beat, 6 if you’re good. There are two campaigns, one Autobot and one Decepticon. That’s right; you can play as the Decepticons. Characters are split up on their alt mode type, cars, trucks, tanks, and jets. Each character (3 per level, 17 in total) has two set abilities. One recharges and is usually based on movement or setting up a barrier, with the other one taking energon shards from defeated enemies to power up, and was more attack based. There wasn’t any customization to be had in single-player beyond picking up weapons (14 regular weapons and 2 detachable turrets) and choosing grenades. That said you’re only playing each chapter for about an hour and then you can switch at the chapter select screen, so customizing your character wasn’t really worth it. The weapons are pretty varied: miniguns, shotguns, rocket launchers, etc. You know basic third-person shooter stuff. Also, your alt mode has guns. Yes, a truck that shoots rockets. Cars with machine guns. Tanks with giant canno- wait that’s normal. Not to mention your car’s controls were much more fluid. By default in alt mode, you’re in ‘hover mode,’ which lets you strafe side to side and go slowly back and forth. It really helps with not being a sitting duck. Hold down the boost button and you enter Boost Mode (clearly they spent hours on these mode names), where it controls much like the old one. The alt modes are actually useful in this game. Granted you’re not likely to win a shoot out with them, but at least you can be in a shoot out in a robot mode and have a chance.
The Decepticon campaign is mostly Megatron’s rise to power. What was his actual plot? To infuse his will into the very core of Cybertron. What did it involve? Dark Energon and taking the Omega Key from Zeta Prime. How would Starscream muck it all up for Megatron in the end? He abandons him during one mission where you spend the entire level running for your life. Autobot campaign is mostly undoing what you did in the Decepticon campaign, while explaining some unexplained things in the G1 cartoon (even though they were explained in the cartoon). There’s actual plot and dialogue this time around. It may not be the best plot in the world, but it’s better than stopping Megatron for no real reason.
The levels might look very similar, but play very differently. Most of the time it’s regular shooting guys, other times its platforming across a demolished pathway floating in space. There’s sections where you ride turrets until the end, or have to defend a spot until help arrives. Not to mention 2 levels dedicated entirely to flying characters. Enemies include grunts, big grunts, bigger grunts with turrets, big melee dudes you need to shoot in the back, snipers, over-shielded shotgunners, jets, rooms of less broken cloakers, and the occasional giant tank minibosses. Bosses vary from a suped-up version of the jet enemy to a complex Autobot deathtrap. Point is a lot of these bosses are much more memorable.
War for Cybertron; a Tuesday.
Where War for Cybertron excels at is multiplayer. For one, it has multiplayer, which is a step up above Armada. There’s 3 player co-op in regular and competitive flavors. A 4 player horde mode where everyone starts out with the basic assault rifle and kills enemies for points to spend on ammo, health, weapons, and access to new rooms (and in the case of the new DLC maps, deathtraps and turrets). Then there’s the regular multiplayer. It’s got a level up system where you unlock abilities (up to level 5) and perks (up to the max of 25). You can carry 2 weapons (of 4 available per class) 2 abilities (choice of 4) and 3 perks (3 sets of 6). You have Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Conquest (Domination), Code of Power (attack/defend version of capture the flag), and other standard modes. You can find a ranked game pretty easily in any mode (except Code of Power for whatever reason). The multiplayer is really where the game shines. After all, it was made for the multiplayer.
So, given the choice, which one do you get? If you want a downright difficult game with varied settings and a lot of exploration, go with Armada. If you want some multiplayer, and have your alt mode actually be of any use, then it’s War for Cybertron all the way.
Images courtesy of tfwiki.net
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:WFC_Megatron_Vs_ZetaPrime.jpg
Video credits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU9IPgIizb4
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