GeekReads

Can you believe that this is my first Transformers movie review on Geekreads? With Transformers: Dark of the Moon, we’ve finally come to the end of Michael Bay’s movie trilogy, and let me say that it’s been a rough ride for this Transformers fan. It’s been quite the ordeal being asked by fellow Transformers fans whether I enjoyed seeing Michael Bay repeatedly rape my childhood, because secretly, I enjoyed the movies.

I realise the litany of offenses against the source material is epic, but if the huge box office success of all three movies is anything to go by, Bay could be forgiven for the fact that he has helped to cement Transformers in the minds and imaginations of a whole new generation, keeping the franchise alive unlike many other cartoons that are still lurking in the shadows waiting for the possibility of a reboot (or have already tried, and failed).

Having said that, it’s not all roses. Dark of the Moon, like its predecessors, is no masterpiece (although apparently it does demonstrate some advanced movie-making techniques, for those interested in the cinematic arts). Whatever merits it might otherwise have, the movie is sorely let down by:

• Bad concept: this isn’t really a Transformers movie, it’s an alien invasion movie featuring Transformers characters.
• Bad writing: the characters are not only inconsistent with the Transformers “lore” (as established in the original cartoons and comics), they’re inconsistent within and between the movies. For example, Optimus Prime goes from being a compassionate, courageous leader, to a ruthless, merciless killer without rhyme or reason.
• Tight budgeting: the scenes designed to minimise the use of CGI were so very, painfully obvious, e.g. how the Wreckers never appeared in anything but their “bristling with weapons” vehicle mode; they’re never seen to transform.
• Pernicious product placement: among the worst I’ve seen in recent times. From the glaring “Lenovo” logos on all the screens to the photocopier with a ream of Double A paper resting on it a la this old TV ad – it made the movie seem like one long ad.

But surely, the monstrous box office takings must mean that they did something right? Personally, I think these things might have been:

• Making the action scenes visually intelligible: a big problem with the previous movies (particularly Revenge of the Fallen) was that the robot fights looked like a giant machine vomiting jagged metal parts onto the screen. Giving each of the robots distinctive colours instead of the various shades of silver and grey, and the liberal use of slow-mo, made it possible to comprehend the fight choreography.
• Having “something for everybody”: yeah, the fans will argue that the humans in the story are superfluous, but unfortunately the rest of the cinema-going public would largely disagree. Covering all bases with the eye candy, toilet humour, conspiracy theories, etc. means that nobody is entirely bored and unentertained for the whole duration of the movie – whether you brought your partner, kids, parents or friends. Heck, even Margaret Pomeranz (of At The Movies) had kind words for the first half hour dealing with the moon landing.

You can’t please everybody, and I believe Michael Bay made the right decision by NOT pandering to the hardcore fans. Yes, the movies could’ve been better with consistent storylines and faithful characterisations, but then I’m afraid that the approval of the geeks would have kept others at Bay *tish boom*.

I don’t know when or why, but I took a wrong turn somewhere on my gaming journey and fell out of line with the First Person Shooter – a genre that I had sacrificed many a sleepness night to, at LAN parties not all that long ago (or so it seems). I just can’t play FPS games any more – my last attempt was Half Life 2, and I dry-retched my way through the entire game as my brain fought back the waves of nausea brought on by motion sickness. As a result, I’ve passed on some of the biggest gaming franchises in recent times such as Call of Duty, Gears of War, and their brethren.

Hence it was with great sadness that I discovered that Transformers: War For Cybertron was an FPS, because Transformers is one of the things that I love (to the point where I fought the bureaucracy to import a Megatron toy that is classified as a restricted firearm). To rub salt into the wound, the Intarwebs reported that WFC was more more than just a competent welding together of the Transformers lore with the war gaming mechanics, it was actually a decent game. So it is with great thanks to the Contagious Network that I’m able to give the game a go in spite of the fact I would never have purchased it for myself for fear of the barf monster.

Since I’ve divulged my shame, I won’t pretend familiarity in talking about the gameplay. All I can say is that using the Sixaxis controller to run-and-gun is more difficult than I thought it’d be. Flying in particular, is a brain-melting exercise in hand-eye co-ordination. This is also the first game I’ve played where you see the character that you’re playing in 3rd person, but they’re off to one side so as not to obscure the action, which leaves me with a “lopsided” feeling after playing, like I’ve been craning my neck to see over somebody’s shoulder the entire time. Surprisingly though, I’m not getting motion sickness from playing, huzzah!

Anyway enough whining – this is the good stuff. War For Cybertron positions itself as a sort-of-prequel to G1 (for the uninitiated, that’s the original Generation 1 cartoon from the 80′s), so in the Decepticon single-player campaign we get to see when Megatron and Starscream first meet, and why there exists the thinly veiled animosity between them. On the Autobot side, we have the story of how Optimus takes on his role as leader of the Autobots after the death of their leader, Zeta Prime.

The voice acting is superb, with the inimitable Peter Cullen again providing his mellifluous tones as Optimus. The dialogue is snappy, obviously written with great care by folks who know and understand the franchise. I LOL’d at this little exchange between the Seekers:

Starscream: These guys are as dumb as Skywarp!
Skywarp: I’ll show you dumb, Starscream!
Starscream: You always do, Skywarp.

While you couldn’t mistake this for G1, being that all of the characters appear in their Cybertronian modes, they still carry a very strong G1 vibe about them. My only criticism is that because both the characters and the environments are metal or metallic, everything tends to blend in and makes things hard to see*, especially when the action gets frenetic.

Speaking of which, the multiplayer action is supposed to be where this game is at. The game is able to create matchups locally or globally, and even in the late evening, there were still around 1600+ people online, so it was pretty easy to find a game to join. The good old Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch modes are there, plus a plethora of options that I don’t claim to understand, which probably involve some other tactical manoeuvring that I’m not yet brave enough to try (I’ve come last in every match I’ve played so far; pity the poor sods who ended up with me on their team).

Sadly, the PS3 version of the game suffers from bugginess. I’ve fallen through the floor for no reason a few times, and the game occasionally crashes the system (requiring a hard reset). Hopefully, commercial success means that patches will be quickly forthcoming – even as I write the first patch has already been released, taking it to version 1.01.

Seriously, I could go on all day. I haven’t even mentioned character classes, weapons, unlockables, G1 homages, etc. – there’s a LOT here for die-hard fans and newcomers alike, and considering that the launch price at JB is $59, you’d be hard pressed to find better value for money.

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* Take a look at the thumbnail pictures of the game here and tell me you wouldn’t use the word “dark”.