MUNCH BATTLE

SMASH! POSE! DINOSAUR! It might be a sequel to a lame duck, but at least Transformers: Fall of Cybertron understands that the leap from intergalactic transforming automobiles to intergalactic transforming tyrant lizards is minor, bordering on irrelevant.

Pity the film bods never got wise. Yes, Mr Bay. We understand you must cram every inch of the screen with jiggling lingerie models, screaming dickheads, and mechanical atrocity, but you have elected not to include the Dinobots, because they are silly? Quite right. I mean, why would a twenty-foot tall berserker robot want to mutate into a Tyrannosaurus Rex? Who cares if it's maximum awesome, right? It just wouldn't make sense. It's almost like Michael Bay believes he's making features with operating logic and reason.

Transformers: War for Cybertron

High Moon Studios certainly start off on the right foot; playable cast is a pick 'n' mix of Bay movie bruisers and curios from the recent angular animation series, topped off with a glut of Generation 1 mainstays. Cybertron is rendered as a clashing, weaving mass of technology upon technology, guiding players from fascistic scramble cities to derelict snake-pipe underworlds. The transformers themselves are spikey recalibrations of typical drafts that compliment the brutally utilitarian landscapes. If not original, Transformers: War for Cybertron's overall look does have an agreeable sense of identity, meshing nostalgia nudges and brand concerns, while honouring the aesthetic demands of this created world.

Unfortunately, as a game, War for Cybertron is sorely lacking. Enemies are interchangeable drones; face toys are withheld for light story sequences and infrequent boss encounters. Combat consists of basic health sapping, any sense of fun further hampered by pick-up drudgery and simplistic set-pieces. There's rarely a need to transform, and alternative modes are sluggish dodgem cars balanced for corridor sightseeing. The weed thick twists of Cybertronian geography, that no doubt shine as concept doodles, also become almost unreadable in practice. Gunmetal grey is total, and inconsistent door properties inspire apathy. War for Cybertron isn't quite awful, just savagely unremarkable.

"Such heroic nonsense."

Disaster Year would like this to be good please. Transformers: War for Cybertron can easily trump the turgid movie cash-in interacts by remembering that the robot's state-to-state metamorphosis should be a sugar-high constant rather than a 'special' move. Mid-leap, mid-shoot, mid-anything, you should be able to stab at a button and change, rather than having to wait until the figure is grounded in some sort of boring stability. Constant transformation should be the order of the day. Write it on your whiteboards! War for Cybertron promises two campaigns - one for each faction. Unfortunately the Decepticon campaign seems to revolve around aeronautics snide Starscream, rather than mighty Megatron. Disaster Year's dream Transformers game would be a playable version of the life of this misunderstood folk hero, from his days as a ruthlessly efficient gladiatorial plaything, to his servile contract with a cosmic Satan, and attendant identity crisis. Transformers: Emperor of Destruction has a nice ring to it.