Transformers – Dark of the Moon (Xbox 360)
Last year, RipTen reviewed Transformers: War for Cybertron and we liked it very much. High Moon Studios clearly made the best Transformers game made to date. It had lush visuals and really captured the essence of what Transformers is, both in style and story. Since High Moon did such an amazing job with the franchise, it only made sense that Activision would have the studio work on this year’s Bayformers movie-tie in game, Transformers: Dark of the Moon.Although there are a few things wrong with this game, in my eyes these problems do not necessarily lie on the developer High Moon Studios. Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a very playable game, but may be more of a sleeping aide than it is an action packed robot shooter.
Like its predecessor, Dark of the Moon is a third-person shooter, allowing you to quickly switch between vehicle and robot form at any time. The game’s mechanics and weapons are all very similar to War for Cybertron and it plays exactly like it. The only major change to the mechanics are that your vehicle has a “Stealth Force” mode, giving you guns and rockets to make you less vulnerable. They had something like this in WFC, but the new movie has added this mode, so naturally it would be featured in the game as well.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon plays and feels exactly like War for Cybertron. So far, so good right? … wrong! Dark of the Moon is seriously brought down by its visuals and level design. Instead of awesome robot battles on a lush and colorful battlefield, we are set to fight on Earth. The visuals make it look like every shooter you have ever seen. A massive amount of brown mixed with dull colors, boring broken cities and plain open dirt fields. On top of that, the Transformers’ designs are just plain hideous. Maybe you like the movie designs, but in my opinion they look like a kid chugging Mountain Dew (and snorting cocaine) created them. Granted, these things are not High Moon Studios’ fault, as they were working with the movie’s set-in-stone assets.
In fact, I would like to commend them for doing what they could with what has already been established. They did an amazing job modeling the movie Transformers- the character models themselves are rich in detail. What I will put the blame on High Moon, however, is the level design. The level design is extremely boring and provides a watered-down experience. In every mission The Transformers go from point A to point B to hack satellites and drive real fast to go stop some sort of attack. It’s utterly boring.
Boss battles exist but are taken straight out the books of 10 year old games. Most of them consist of circle-strafing and blasting at your opponent until he eventually dies. I would like to be extra hard on the shitty boss battles in this game because, once again, War for Crybertron did them 100 times better! Check out this video of a boss battle in WFC (You fight Trypticon, a mother-fuckin’ Dinosoaur robot) compared to the this terrible boss battle in DotM :
(skip to 3:50)
You can really tell which corners are cut in order to pump a game out in one year. The quality difference between War for Cybertron and Dark of the Moon is like night and day. I know that if High Moon had more time to finish the game, it could have been a spectacular follow-up.
With the negative aspects out of the way, the single player campaign is indeedvery playable. If you’re a fan of Transformers (and can tolerate the movies and its designs) then it’s worth checking out. However, I cannot recommend this at a $60 price tag though; I finished the campaign in 4 hours, which seems to be a disgusting new trend with games. I jumped into this game blindly, since I loved High Moon’s previous Transformers game, which lasted me at least 8 hours and countless hours with the online multiplayer.
The game features the same multiplayer from War for Cybertron, which is actually a robust online experience. This game takes pretty much that same experience and pastes it into here. All of the maps consist of levels from the single player campaign, which is pretty lazy. Once again, they are all made of nasty colors and boring level design. In terms of gameplay- there are four classes, and the game allows you to customize your look, weapons, and perks. I won’t go much into detail, since if you have played WFC, you know exactly what you are getting into with this multiplayer. It’s a nice add-on value to the game, but don’t expect to see many people online in about a month.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is not necessarily a bad game at all. It’s merely disappointing. In comparison to previous Transformer movie tie-ins (not developed by High Moon), this one blows those out of the water. Unfortunately, we all know what High Moon is capable of and how seriously they take the Transformers universe. It’s sad that they were forced to pump out a game out with such little development time. If you really like the universe, it’s a nice weekend distraction and I recommend it for a rent. Take my advice; go to a Redbox, rent the game for $2 and beat it in one day. That way you can be happy with yourself for only spending $2 on a game that is only worth $20.
Here’s the rundown:
+Fun little weekend distraction
+ Multiplayer is god for what it is
- Movie-style Transformers
- Boring level design
- Four hour campaign
Transformers: Dark of the Moon was developed by High Moon Studios and published by Activision. It was released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on June 14th, 2011 in the US. The copy used for review was bought by the reviewer. Campaign was played until completion, taking around 4 hours to finish. Multiplayer was played for about 3 hours online.
Source: http://www.ripten.com/2011/06/27/ripten-review-transformers-dark-of-the-moon-xbox-360/
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