By Ray Carsillo
Transformers: War for Cybertron from Activision breathed new life into a floundering franchise and in order to keep the Call of Duty inspired multiplayer fresh, has already seen two map packs released for it. Then again though, if you’ve seen one multiplayer map from War for Cybertron, it seems you’ve seen them all.
All of the shipped maps and these news ones are done in the same digital style, with red tint for Autobots and purple for Decepticons. The only differences are where the ammo and health regeneration units are and optimal sniping platforms are located.
Whether the Havoc, Fortress, District, or Forsaken maps from the first pack or the Horizon, Sector, Static, Metropolis, or Pulse maps from the second pack, there really isn’t anything special to these maps that make them something to write home about; even the names of the maps sound bland. Add in the lack of a varying color scheme and the maps are uninspired at best.
The only thing that saves these packs and might make them noteworthy for diehard Transformers fans are the characters that are included; Jazz, Shockwave, Demolisher, Scattershot, and Onslaught are included in the first pack and Zeta Prime and Dead End are in the second pack and these character designs are inspired. From Onslaught’s mini-nuclear blast attack to Jazz’s thermo-mine, the new weapons and attacks that these characters bring add a whole new level of strategy to Escalation (the Transformers version of Horde mode) and how you go about bringing down your foes.
Now the big problem is for what you’re getting in terms of variety, it seems a little expensive.-Although standard for most map-packs at a price of 800 Microsoft points, or $10 each, I really have a hard time being sold on whether or not these packs are worth the price that they charge.
Uninspired level design makes this more of a glorified character pack that is not worth $10 price tag, that’s for sure. I’d have to say that unless you are desperate for some new faces to play with or an unrelenting diehard Transformers fan, I’d avoid picking up these map packs.
- Ray Carsillo
