When I heard that High Moon Studios, the people behind the hit Transformers: War for Cybertron were going to be making the tie in game for Michael Bay’s third film installment Dark of the Moon I got more than a little excited and with good reason. Dark of the Moon is easily one of the best video games tied to a movie ever… that’s not saying much. What you have here is a set of working game mechanics established in War for Cybertron with that “Bayformer” skin over it. It’s filled with a lot of great moments, but a lack luster campaign length, and an oddly tweaked multiplayer system keep it from reaching greatness.
Dark of the Moon can be completed in an afternoon. Seriously… an afternoon. I got the game around noon today… it’s 7:31 as I start to write about my single player experiences. That’s not very good. I took long breaks, long enough that I watched a movie, played some Ocarina of Time, took a shower, made tacos and putzed around on the internet and with all that goofing off I still managed to beat it in under 7 hours. There are 6 chapters here, three for the Autobots, three for the Decepticons with a poorly constructed boss battle at the end where you play as Optimus Prime. Nothing hear reaches the scale or scope of War for Cybertron and its story is just a bland set of missions that help fill in the gap between the second and third films in the franchise. What does that mean? It means don’t expect any twists or turns in the story. Main characters won’t die because they’ll be around for the next film. When Optimus Prime faces off against Shockwave in the final act it’s obvious he’s going to get rescued at the last second.
At its core Transformers is a run and gun 3rd person shooter with a few interesting things going for it… and plenty of things working against it. Each mission in the game has you taking the role of a different transformer in a different location. There’s Bumblebee in a South American villa, Mirage in a lush rain Mayan rain forrest, Iron Hide in downtown detroit, Soundwave a secret military base (along with Lazerbeak, Starscream in an aerial battle (my favorite moment of the game) and Megatron trying to escape and rescue Shockwave. The levels do have quite a bit of variety with each Transformer having their own set of skills. Bumblebee is kind of an all purpose bot, able to fight at a distance, but not take too much damage, while Mirage is a stealth fighter and much of his mission has him unable to use his long range weapons, rather relying on up close attacks and a hologram field that gives him invisibility. Starscream has the most interesting mission by far, taking to the skies in an aerial dog fight against Stratosphere, a giant troop carrier. You dodge his missiles, take on a lot of different aerial bots and then land on the large robot to destroy parts of him up close and personal. It feels very arcade like and has a lot of action and smooth controls. The level also opens up with a canyon chase and a horde mode like wave of baddies coming one after another… well I guess I should say goodies since you’re killing Autobots.
What’s a transformers game without transforming of course and here we have controls similar to the last game, but with a rebrand of “Stealth Force” for when the cars are able to use weaponry and slide around in every direction. This was simply the original movement mode for vehicles in the last game, but since Transformers have never done that in the movie universe they rebrand it and act like it’s a new feature… it’s not. in this mode every character has stronger weapons, is faster, more durable and has a lower profile. It’s so strong in fact that the only reason I would be in robot mode would be to use the character special abilities. Each robot has two special abilities… whether it’s a special weapon, or offensive bonus is dependent on the character and the mission at hand. Gameplay is smooth in either mode with the vehicle mode allowing players to fully transform into cars to get from point A to B faster… you almost never have to do this.
Visually Dark of the Moon is a mixed bag. Some textures look great, and it’s a lot more diverse than War for Cybertron, but at times there’s pop in, frame rate issues and mid battle loading as you move from one part of the level to the next. In the final battle the graphics seemed to break down and stutter uncontrollably as I took on a giant drilling snake machine and fight Shockwave. Luckily none of the fights are very challenging and therefore it was easy to recover despite not being able to see what was going on in the end.
There’s also a full multiplayer component that I would normally say is worth diving into, but here it’s really not. What could have been a step up for this series is a step backward. Gone are custom character load outs and weapon upgrades and instead each character is locked into two weapons and their special abilities. There’s actually less options. The game plays like Gears of War meets Call of Duty with a perks system and XP but it isn’t fully fleshed out or nearly as enjoyable as War for Cybertron, which let players totally customize their characters including weapons. Levels are symmetrical and there are fewer classes than there were before.
Honestly I can’t see why anyone would want to spend more than a weekend with Dark of the Moon. Its story offers nothing that I’m sure the movie won’t delve into (the comic book adaptation has after all). The single player campaign is only about four hours worth of play time with almost zero challenge. The multiplayer isn’t as fun as War for Cybertron and lets be honest… it’s Bayformers. Do you really want to play as the Bayformers or G1? G1!! Wait for the upcoming War for Cybertron 2. It’s not tied to some ridiculous film series and has more room to tell a truly interesting story and stretch its legs in the gameplay department. That having been said I do actually recommend it for a rental… or a borrow… or a discount buy… Why? In the 4 hours it took me to beat it… I had fun. I really did. There’s nothing inherently bad about it. It’s just not the polished experience that its predecessor was. It’s not its fault really. High Moon did the best with the time they had and the story they were allowed to tell. Also in those four hours I wracked up over 400 gamerscore barely trying. That’s 100 an hour. Pretty good!
Version reviewed: Xbox 360
