Transformers: War for Cybertron

exceptional graphics and animations

Goodie, baddie gun drops

Gameplay is pretty standard run and gun third-person stuff, which although doesn't offer anything new, has enjoyable combat, excellent controls and, at times, exceptional graphics and animations. Transformers control as you'd expect them to, with precise movement and aiming when in robot form, and speed and agility when transformed. Transformations themselves are fluid, organic, and far swifter than my fudgy fingers could ever manage with the die-cast and plastic of the original toys.

Although you'll never tire of seeing and hearing transformations, better use could have been made of vehicle abilities. Chapters featuring aircraft Transformers are constructed around flight, with sections devoted to aerial acrobatics through tunnels and around space stations. But those featuring vehicles do little to compel transformation. With no clock ticking, sections featuring expressways can be traversed in robot form with no penalty other than slower progress.

Tunnels and space stations also provide the game's graphical highlights. The graphics of the Autobots' capital city of Iacon, while doing a good job of realising a massive, mechanised city on the brink of destruction, show little variation. It remains a beautiful game overall, but one that disappoints by the lack of variety in this main setting.

Variation is limited in gameplay too. Though individual chapters mix things up, the bulk of the game is never elevated beyond run and gun mechanics. It serves up a decent, if unoriginal, cast of enemy types, all of which are copied lock stock from Halo, even down to a tank which is vulnerable at its rear. But whereas it copies Halo's enemies with reasonable success, it is far less successful in copying Halo's AI and pacing.

Balls of steel