It’s been five years now since Transformers entered my life. I am an owner of most of the video games the franchise has released in the last few years, but of all of the ones I have played, War for Cybertron has been my favourite. I was never any of the top players in its online multiplayer mode, but I was good at the story mode depending on what difficulty it was at. The story fascinated me the most and that’s what often strikes my interest in a certain game is a good story. Now I’ll tell you what I think.
Decepticon story
Starting off the story with the Decepticon faction. Megatron wants to take over Cybertron so he’s searching for the ultimate weapon to do so. He turns his focus to Dark Energon which is being made on a station by Starscream. For this first chapter there were no hassles I had to deal with, especially since whenever I play as Megatron I am a killer with him. Playing this level on Hard difficulty makes things interesting especially during the last part when you are up against enemies carrying turrets. Soon Megatron corrupts himself with Dark Energon and makes Starscream an official Decepticon putting trust in him to find the Energon Bridge and activate it in order to find more Dark Energon. For this level I chose to play as Starscream because once I got better at sniping he was the Decepticon Seeker I was meant to be. For the remainder of the Decepticon storyline I played as Megatron, occasionally switching to Soundwave for Death of Hope to try and get the Motormaster! achievement. The boss fight on Fuel of War was not really an issue no matter the difficulty because it is not hard to evade the machine’s attacks as it seems. In my own opinion, the idea of Zeta Prime using a machine to control a whole chamber rather than just fighting Megatron one on one is cowardly in the level Iacon Destroyed, but the rest of the level was not an issue. Death of Hope it is probably my favourite level of the Decepticon story because you’re trying to outrun Omega Supreme until you can find something powerful enough to damage him with. For the last two final fights on higher difficulty requires good maneuvering skills especially in the Final Guardian. The good thing about fighting Omega Supreme is that there is lots of cover at the start of the battle and when he shoots at your comrades you can use that as an opportunity to shoot at him. On Hard difficulty it’s a different story. OS shot at me a lot more and I had to drive in circles around him to avoid his attacks since most of the cover had been destroyed and it was difficult for me to stop and attack him so that took a while but in the end I succeeded. In the end one thing I was never expecting was what the key to Omega Gate was. After defeating Zeta Prime I was beginning to believe the device Megatron took was the key but it wasn’t. Instead it was a tracking device that activated the real Omega Key which was Omega Supreme. Totally unexpected.
Autobot story
Now the Autobot story is obviously different. It had a lot of twists and turns, even more than the Decepticon story. If I was a Cybertronian living on Cybertron I would side with the Autobots when these two factions were formed. Starting with Defend Iacon when Optimus, Bumblebee and Ratchet fight to get things working back in Iacon. Pretty good intro level if I must say so myself. One of the strategies I use for Decepticon war machines on any difficulty is grabbing a titan’s (that’s what I call the enemies carrying turrets) turret and using it on them. I also remember having to scan the place carefully to get the Paging Ratchet achievement. The fun part of this level is being able to drive down the speedways. Now as you were expecting, I play as Optimus whenever he is available for a level since I have loved him since 2009. Now the bosses on the Autobot campaign are even tougher, Starscream on higher difficulty he is a lot faster and I find myself running around just to keep up with him when he’s on the ground. I was quite surprised to learn that Zeta Prime was alive and the Autobots let themselves be captured and taken to Kaon just to save him. Kaon Prison Break is one of the Autobot levels that I enjoy. Lots of unexpected things happen like Megatron ambushes them, they get re-captured, and Zeta Prime appears to be being tortured by Soundwave. One of the significant hurdles with battling Soundwave on a higher difficulty is his Mini-Cons. Frenzy was not a problem but Rumble was a pain in the ass at first the way he dashes around and pounds on the ground, it’s recommended that you shoot at him from a distance and if he gets too close….well you know what to do. Laserbeak’s guns were also a pain at first because of the amount of damage they do, but when it comes to flying opponents I like my good old missile launcher hahahaha!! I was quite happy when after the death of Zeta, Optimus becomes the new Prime. Yay! Then he is given the task to cure the Core from its corruption. Only the first part of this level is hard, the rest is a piece of cake. Defending Ratchet honestly, took me a couple of tries to get through, especially the last wave that’s the longest. I think it’s because the repair sentries stopped working once that wave started. My advice is you have to be quick at this part especially when the titans arrive. But after that part was over and you can finally enter through the gate, the rest of the level is no problem and the corrupted worm isn’t so tough as long as you remember to jump when it brings its claws down! I honestly was quite sad when I learned the Core was too damaged to be completely cured, but then again I’m sure we all saw this coming because if it weren’t for this….the Transformers would have never come to Earth. Aerial Assault had me on the edge of my seat when I played through this level. Sometimes I play as Air Raid because he likes to make the job more fun, or Silverbolt because he’s the leader. I should give Jetfire a try next. I was on the edge of my seat at this level because I was getting to the point when the final boss would show up. Now of course Megatron’s too smart to let the Autobots leave Cybertron so he sets up Trypticon station which is space station with a big gun on the end. Solution? Send the aerial bots to disable it! Now for the first part this was not an issue but there were some tense moments when the Destroyers show up. But I was shocked when I learned that the gun itself on the orbital station was actually a monstrous Decepticon named Trypticon. As soon as I heard it talk I nearly jumped in my seat. The hardest part in this level would have to be the final battle with the two Destroyers, even harder on higher difficulty. I also found myself flying faster when Trypticon was ordered to fire where Optimus was located! Finally when I had to battle Trypticon in his true form I found this a lot harder at first. For the first part there’s no cover and Trypticon always shoots at you no matter what until you disable his shoulder pads. The second part of the battle I was happy that I managed to find two reasonable spots to take cover as once again Trypticon will always shoot at me! Unfortunately it doesn’t help much in evading his attack that he does with his tail, this was a serious issue when I was playing on Hard difficulty. One good strategy is when Trypticon pauses to send out all those spiders that’s a good time to attack him in my opinion. When I finally brought him down I was quite pleased with the ending of the game, not only with Optimus’s last lines but even the song Till All Are One in the credits sang by Stan Bush….you know, the guy who wrote The Touch.
Over all I have to say this is still my fave Transformer game. Great storylines, graphics, and so on. I also like how each character has different personalities, for example Breakdown is really paranoid and Air Raid as I said earlier is cheerful and likes to make the mission more fun. It’s also good that you can choose who to play as in each level. Fun game, I enjoy playing through it.
-Emily
Monsterlady's Diary 