Update! I have a new post with my final thoughts for this game here.  Below is my initial impressions of this great game.

Finally a Transformers based game arrives that impresses me enough to write my thoughts on. Transformers: War for Cybertron is not based on the movie or cartoon but instead tells the story that have never been told before. The war on Cybertron that started it all. This part of the Transformers mythology has never been fleshed out much, perhaps maybe in short parts here & there in the cartoon & movie, but that’s all I can remember. The game centers on the end part of the war, but covers stuff like Megatron’s reasoning for the war, Starscream’s defection to the Decepticons, how Optimus meet Bumblebee & Optimus becoming a Prime. But do keep in mind, the Transformers universe itself have a lot of different storyline depending on which series you follow, this one sticks more to the original Generation 1 cartoon.

Transformers War For Cybertron PC

When starting off the game, you can choose to start the Decepticons or the Autobots campaign but the storyline is set that the Decepticons campaign should be played first. Starting the Autobots campain first might leave you a bit confused as to what have happened. On initial play, the game didn’t really strike me as impressive, but from chapter 3 onwards the game picks up the pace & draws me in. From then on, I couldn’t stop playing & just had to see what happens next. This is helped by the added humour in the conversations happening at the same time.

Bumblebee & Optimus

When playing the campaign, you’re always in a 3 robot team, you choose which one of the 3 when starting a chapter & will use that same one till you finish the chapter. You can also choose to play the campaign with CPU controlled team mates or online with other people. I haven’t tried playing the campaign online yet with other people but if your teammates are CPU controlled they don’t sustain damage or die so no need to worry about them. I’ll try it online after I finish the campaign.

Megatron & Soundwave

The game runs pretty well on my gaming rig which is almost 3 years old now. I’m running it at 1600×900 resolution with details set on high on a AMD X2 5000+ processor, 4GB DDR2 800Mhz RAM & Nvidia 8800GT video card. Sounds pretty dated right? Haha. Sure there are slowdowns in some crazy sections but 95% of the time it’s smooth & that’s what matters most. Graphics wise, it’s quite intense in the sense that there’s so much happening in the background. There’s a war going on after all. But no it’s not Crysis so don’t expect any groundbreaking graphics here. The environments are a mix of corridors, hallways, huge rooms & some open space. In end part for the Decepticons campaign you have to face off Omega Supreme & you’re running for your lives until you can find something to damage Omega Supreme with. Now that was quite intense!

I Am Omega Supreme. Mission - Terminate Megatron.

I’ve finished the Decepticons campaign & have to say, I was left breathless at the end of the battle with Omega Supreme. I’m now a quarter through the Autobots campaign & all I can say is, I wanna rip me some Decepticons!!! To Transformers fans out there, you owe it to yourself to play this game. Purge your memory of all the old crap Transformers games you’ve played. The ultimate one is here, NOW. Available on the PC, Xbox 360 & PS3. The Wii & Nintendo DS editions are different games so I can’t comment on those. Credits for the screenshots used in this post goes to IGN. You can check out the IGN PC review of the game here.

I have a new post with my final thoughts for this game here.

Recon Ironhide

Here’s a figure I’ve got for a while but didn’t mention it all this while as he didn’t fit in with any of the new stuff I have. He’s from the movie line & I haven’t bought anything else for the movie line since. I’ve been thinking of getting a movie Ironhide figure ever since the 1st movie, but just didn’t like the crazy sized guns. Now the 2nd movie figure is based exactly on the 1st movie but they fixed the ridiculous guns. Unfortunately they had to give him a dull repaint. So I passed again. Then finally, they gave Ironhide a facelift & slight remould, resulting in this figure. The most bad ass looking Ironhide to date. 

You feeling lucky punk??

You want a piece of me???

Display Cabinet

Below I’ll break down each level in the display cabinet. I’ll just be listing the names of the figures & not be doing any explaination. Feel free to ask in the comments though.

Level 1

The back: Powermaster Optimus Prime Apex Armor, Gen 1 Jazz, ROTF Skids, ROTF Sideswipe.

The front: Disney Mickey, Disney Donald, Beast Wars Dinobot, Beast Wars Rattrap, Beast Wars Cheetor, ROTF Legends Jetfire, ROTF Legends The Fallen, ROTF Legends Skids, ROTF Legends Ironhide, ROTF Legends Optimus (Takara Battle Damage ver).

Level 2

The back: Masterpiece Starscream, ROTF Starscream, ROTF Bludgeon, ROTF Bumblebee.

The front: ROTF Recon Ironhide, ROTF Leader Optimus, Henkei Convoy.

Level 3

The back: BT Bluestreak, Classics/Universe Smokescreen, Alternity Bumblebee, BT Argent Meister.

The front: Alternators Wheeljack, Sideswipe, Tracks, Mirage & Hound.

Level 4

The back: Beast Wars Megatron, Tarantulas, Terrorsaur, Optimus Primal & Silverbolt.

The front: Beast Wars Air Hammer, Lazorbeak & Quickstrike

Full Cabinet

All the stuff you see from the Beast Wars line except Megatron belongs to my bro. He’s starting his own collection now, collecting more Beast Wars & his new found craze, Cybertron/Galaxy Force line. The display you see in the pics above was how it looked in May 2010. It has since changed a lot as my bro has taken back all the Beast Wars stuff so that I have more space for my new stuff.

So that’s it for this round of Transformers update. I’ll do another round in a month or 2 after I’ve more stuff & my cabinet is full again.

Here are some pics of my collection that I did along the way. Enjoy!

UPDATE 21/06/2010: OK here’s a short update on Ironhide. This is just to show the difference between the older Ironhide compared to the new kick ass version that I have. Credits for the images goes to Seibertron.com

1st movie Ironhide & Recon Ironhide

Here you have the 1st movie Ironhide showing the big ugly guns beneath the truck. Paint scheme wise it’s more accurate of course to the movie but those guns were a turn off for me.

Recon Ironhide & 2nd movie Ironhide

OK I guess I was wrong about the oversized guns being fixed in the 2nd movie Ironhide. So instead of an ugly bottom, you get an ugly top now. Together with the less than interesting paint scheme, it’s easy to see why I skipped this Ironhide as well.

All 3 together in robot mode

So here they are, all 3 in robot mode & battle gears equipped. So which one looks most bad ass?

Wow a month has passed since my last post. I actually planned to do weekly posts about my collection but was too busy at work & didn’t have the energy at home. Ok enough ranting, on with rest of the collection. This will be a mixture of different lines so you might get a surprise or 2.

Alternity A03 – Bumblebee

The Alternity line is the follow up to Alternators/Binaltech line which I’m crazy about. There are differences though to the Alternators/Binaltech line.  It’s smaller to begin with, using a 1:32 scale instead of the bigger 1:24 scale. It’s also exclusively modeled on Japanese made cars, for now. Lastly, it’s a Takara exclusive, which means higher prices. Hasbro doesn’t seem to have any plans to bring this line out for the rest of the world but I suspect it’s more to do with the cars licenses acquired by Takara to make these figures. They are still super detailed, but smaller.

Bumblebee requires no introduction. The car model chosen for him actually suits him well & he retains his old animated series transformation style where the car front section becomes the legs & the car cab section becomes his body. Neat eh?

* This figure belongs to my bro.

Masterpiece

MP-2 Ultra Magnus

The Masterpiece line is meant for collectors so it means 2 things, the figure is huge & detailed, but it’s also freaking expensive. But price wise it’s only expensive depending on the model & how scarce it is to find. Price can range from RM250 to RM800.

Ultra Magnus is the commander of the Autobot City on earth, well, at least in the G1 series if you watched the animated movie. Some other storylines have him as the brother of Optimus Prime. I guess this is where the idea for this masterpiece came from, that he’s exactly the same like Optimus, but in different colours. Besides, Takara had to reuse the mould for Masterpiece Optimus Prime to sell more figures & the most simple way was to repaint it.

This figure is definitely one of the most complicated to transform, even though it doesn’t look like it. But I still think the Leader Class Revenge of the Fallen Optimus Prime is still harder.

* This figure belongs to my bro. Because of the size of this figure (stands 12″ tall), I’ve decided to give it back to my bro to display at his place.

MP-3 Starscream

You must be thinking, hey I have another Starscream, I must be a Starscream fan. Truth is, he IS my favourite Decepticon character. Besides, he’s a jet & i LOVE jets. This masterpiece looks absolutely amazing, both in jet form & in robot form. 

My biggest gallery by far!

Henkei Convoy

The Henkei line or more known as Henkei! Henkei! Transformers in Japan, is the Japanese version of the Classics/Universe line from Hasbro. So what is that? Well, long story short, it’s a series that takes mostly Generation 1 characters & updates it with more modern forms. So instead of the ugly Gen 1 figures from 1980s, you get sleek updated versions that you can still recognise. Oh ya, Convoy is just the Japanese name for Optimus Prime.

Since I’m a Gen 1 nut, this is the new line I’m collecting.

Disney Label

Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck

The Disney Label line is something interesting where they took Disney characters & matched them to a character, loosely. They are darn cute & my kids love them.

With so many new figures, you must be wondering where do I keep all these? Here’s a hint.

Transformers Display

More details in the next post!