The Energon Pub

With a trilogy of Transformers movie, we have also received a trilogy of games to accompany it. When most people hear about a game based on a movie the initial thought is to run away. Is this the case for Dark of the Moon? I'm going to go over what I've encountered during my time playing the game and hopefully help the readers of this review make a decision.

Without going into the story and in hopes of avoiding spoilers, I wish to focus mostly on the mechanics of the games.

The big feature of this game is Stealth Mode. Stealth Mode is actually not what the name itself implies, but it is actually a vehicle mode that has weaponry sticking out of it. More like an "assault mode". Throughout playing the game, the player will find that there really is no need to leave this mode unless the game prevents you from transforming. Stealth Mode gives you the best armor and combat abilities in the game without having to worry about reloading ammo.

The robot mode would be expected to be the favorite mode for this game, but I found it to be almost suicide to be in robot mode during missions as the robot mode lacks any real defense capabilities and there is a pause during combat for your character to reload ammo. The melee abilities are also sorely lacking. You basically get one specific combat move and it does little to no damage to enemies. All of the Transformers themselves play the same and the only thing that really makes them different is that each one does get a unique special move.

The levels are cool to look at, but they are long and very linear which can cause some of the cool details to become bland after a while. Each mission follows this recipe:

1. Walk or drive for a bit
2. Do something and then fight a bunch of enemies
3. repeat step 1
4. repeat step 2
5. See where I'm going with this?

After doing some very repitious gameplay, cutscenes and a boss usually follow.

The graphics are a bit of a letdown compared to more recent titles like Final Fantasy XII, L.A. Noire, and other highly visual games. I actually took a moment to pull out the first Transformers game from 2007 and while there is an improvement, it feels like once they had something that worked for Revenge of the Fallen, the programmers decided to stick to it.

The story however is pretty good. A lot of backstory for the movie is explained and helps fill in gaps that were ignored for the film. Peter Cullen's voice helped make this great as well. There's something about hearing the voice of Optimus as many have grown up knowing him that adds a certain amount of awesome to the game. There is even some actual actors for the game that play the roles of NEST agents talking to Prime about various missions and things that need to be done.

After all is said and done, I personally feel that this game is great for kids who want to enjoy a transformers game, blow stuff up, and enjoy playing as their heroes or villains. For adults, this game may not be the game of choice, but can be fun if you are in the mood to blow stuff up for a bit and add a bit more backstory to the movie.

Now onto a technical thing in the game that I'm not sure the other platforms experience. The PS3 copy that I have has issues with taking forever to load and freezing at some points. I have tested this on 3 different PS3's in order to check and see if it was just because of my old 60gb version, but the freezing issues and long loading times seems to be rampant across all the various PS3 types.

Final thoughts: as a casual gamer and fan of the Transformers franchise, you may enjoy the game. If you really like gaming, then this may not be the game of choice. I would invite everyone to give it a shot and see what they think, but whether you rush out to buy this at retail or hold off until it enters the bargain bin of a game store is up to the consumer.

Seibertron.com moderator robofreak has posted his review of the PS3 version of the Transformers Dark of the Moon video game. Read his thoughts on the prelude to the movie below. We have also posted reviews of the xBox 360 and Nintendo 3DS versions.

With a trilogy of Transformers movie, we have also received a trilogy of games to accompany it. When most people hear about a game based on a movie the initial thought is to run away. Is this the case for Dark of the Moon? I'm going to go over what I've encountered during my time playing the game and hopefully help the readers of this review make a decision.

Without going into the story and in hopes of avoiding spoilers, I wish to focus mostly on the mechanics of the games.

The big feature of this game is Stealth Mode. Stealth Mode is actually not what the name itself implies, but it is actually a vehicle mode that has weaponry sticking out of it. More like an "assault mode". Throughout playing the game, the player will find that there really is no need to leave this mode unless the game prevents you from transforming. Stealth Mode gives you the best armor and combat abilities in the game without having to worry about reloading ammo.

The robot mode would be expected to be the favorite mode for this game, but I found it to be almost suicide to be in robot mode during missions as the robot mode lacks any real defense capabilities and there is a pause during combat for your character to reload ammo. The melee abilities are also sorely lacking. You basically get one specific combat move and it does little to no damage to enemies. All of the Transformers themselves play the same and the only thing that really makes them different is that each one does get a unique special move.

The levels are cool to look at, but they are long and very linear which can cause some of the cool details to become bland after a while. Each mission follows this recipe:

1. Walk or drive for a bit
2. Do something and then fight a bunch of enemies
3. repeat step 1
4. repeat step 2
5. See where I'm going with this?

After doing some very repitious gameplay, cutscenes and a boss usually follow.

The graphics are a bit of a letdown compared to more recent titles like Final Fantasy XII, L.A. Noire, and other highly visual games. I actually took a moment to pull out the first Transformers game from 2007 and while there is an improvement, it feels like once they had something that worked for Revenge of the Fallen, the programmers decided to stick to it.

The story however is pretty good. A lot of backstory for the movie is explained and helps fill in gaps that were ignored for the film. Peter Cullen's voice helped make this great as well. There's something about hearing the voice of Optimus as many have grown up knowing him that adds a certain amount of awesome to the game. There is even some actual actors for the game that play the roles of NEST agents talking to Prime about various missions and things that need to be done.

After all is said and done, I personally feel that this game is great for kids who want to enjoy a transformers game, blow stuff up, and enjoy playing as their heroes or villains. For adults, this game may not be the game of choice, but can be fun if you are in the mood to blow stuff up for a bit and add a bit more backstory to the movie.

Now onto a technical thing in the game that I'm not sure the other platforms experience. The PS3 copy that I have has issues with taking forever to load and freezing at some points. I have tested this on 3 different PS3's in order to check and see if it was just because of my old 60gb version, but the freezing issues and long loading times seems to be rampant across all the various PS3 types.

Final thoughts: as a casual gamer and fan of the Transformers franchise, you may enjoy the game. If you really like gaming, then this may not be the game of choice. I would invite everyone to give it a shot and see what they think, but whether you rush out to buy this at retail or hold off until it enters the bargain bin of a game store is up to the consumer.

Will pick this up when it goes on clearance.

Redbox for $2

http://www.redbox.com/games/transformers-dark-of-the-moon-ps3
http://www.redbox.com/games/transformers-dark-of-the-moon-x360

Jus' sayin'.

The RotF game and this one have nothing to do with each other, (except some borrowed models) RotF was done by Luxoflux, but DotM was done by High Moon, and used the same engine as their previous game, War for Cybertron. I think the gameplay is totally dissimilar between the last two movie games (and movie 1 game was done by Traveler's Tales, by far the weakest of the three).

I prefer the gameplay of RotF - but because High Moon runs the Unreal Engine, you have tons of repetition with closed maps, but with that you get better overall graphics, than an open map game like RotF. For me, the game got a little boring, without the story and feel 'charm' that went with the War for Cyberton version.

But hey, more Transformers games is better than no Transfomers games!

My thoughts are, you can make a game into a movie, but not movie to film. even though this is prequel, i still counts.

It has to be better than the War for Cybertron multiplayer. Campaign mode on that was epic but the multiplayer only has three maps and two of those maps have limited space. If the Multiplayer portion of this game is good, then it may have been worth it if they did a PC version, but I don't own or have plans to get a PS3. I'm a PC Gamer.

Cyber_Tek wrote:It has to be better than the War for Cybertron multiplayer. Campaign mode on that was epic but the multiplayer only has three maps and two of those maps have limited space. If the Multiplayer portion of this game is good, then it may have been worth it if they did a PC version, but I don't own or have plans to get a PS3. I'm a PC Gamer.

3 maps? Where we playing different versions of WFC, lol? DOTM's MP is fun but only for a very short time. With just three modes, (DM, TDM and Conquest), and 5 maps, it gets old extremely quickly. It is a lot more balanced than WFC though.

Bleak5170 wrote:

Cyber_Tek wrote:It has to be better than the War for Cybertron multiplayer. Campaign mode on that was epic but the multiplayer only has three maps and two of those maps have limited space. If the Multiplayer portion of this game is good, then it may have been worth it if they did a PC version, but I don't own or have plans to get a PS3. I'm a PC Gamer.

3 maps? Where we playing different versions of WFC, lol? DOTM's MP is fun but only for a very short time. With just three modes, (DM, TDM and Conquest), and 5 maps, it gets old extremely quickly. It is a lot more balanced than WFC though.

I don't know what version of WFC you were playing, but I bought the PC version off steam and in all of the Multiplayer servers I've played on thus far, they used only 3 maps. If there are more than three maps available, that's great, because then that means whoever ran that server is pretty stuck on just three. I wish they made a version of DOTM for PC. That's my platform of choice.