Transformers: Dark of the Moon

The next game on the hit list was one I started back in November last year. I didn’t expect or even clock that this game had an online requirement and it was a four player one to boot. Luckily, despite the fact that hardly anyone had played this game, I managed to find someone looking for people to do this with, so I jumped at the opportunity to get it started and complete the online achievements before diving in to the main game.

The game itself is very middle of the road. The nicest thing to say about it is that it’s competent at what it does. It consists of seven chapters where you play as both Autobots and Decepticons which I thought was an interesting twist. Each transformer has its own set of special abilities with which you use to kill other robots and blast your way through the levels. There are a couple of boss fights to navigate too but not at the end of every level, so it mixes up the action too.

The only exception to the gameplay being competent is the driving sections and thankfully there aren’t many of these. The driving controls are unique to the game which makes no sense in a world where standardised driving controls exist. Why they couldn’t just stick to RT = accelerate, LT = brake and the left stick controls the direction, I have no idea.

Story-wise, it seems to set out a series of fictional (in terms of the movie franchise) events but still features the standard framing of, Megatron beats up Optimus Prime and Optimus comes back and saves the day, as standard. No major characters die, good or evil, so it’s almost like a prequal to the movie in this regard.

The game was released in 2011, right at the height of the gun-metal grey fad so despite this being a transformers game, there is very little bright colour and most scenery and landscape is a depressing mix of brown and grey and something in between. Musically it’s in keeping with the franchise so no real complaints here.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 36 Achievements

The achievement list for the single player element of the game is very straightforward. You can play 96% of the game on easy to get through all the levels and the score achievements are made fantastically easy as soon as you realise that using a melee attack to kill everything multiplies your score up to 30 times - most of the time I finished a level exceeding the score threshold by a million-plus points.

In addition to completing the game and getting the scores, there are a collection of specific achievements that relate to doing things in levels or getting kills with weapons a certain amount of times. None of these are secret and I obtained most of these without the need to replay anything.

The few bits I needed to replay included a section in Chapter V where you race through a canyon as Starscream. There is a 2 minute time limit to complete this section and the only reason I missed it was because there is a gate that I didn’t know how to open on my first run.

Another bit was at the start of Chapter VI which needs to be played on hard for the achievement. You need to clear the first bit of the level without dying and this wasn’t too difficult. I died the first time I tried but the second time I was more careful and breezed through it. This was the last achievement I unlocked.

All the above is made slightly more complicated by the fact that there are 27 collectibles spread throughout the 7 chapters, but these don’t prevent you from getting the score achievements and are all easily obtained with reference to a video guide.

Multiplayer

That just leaves where I started – the multiplayer. It’s essentially a shit game of capture the flag and another unnecessary, unwanted multiplayer addition to a perfectly mediocre single player game but I won’t go on about it as I’ve done that before.

There are four achievements and getting to level 20 is the real work. This is done by exchanging flag captures with another player and believe me, this is only way anyone will earn these achievements in a dead multiplayer environment. The other three are for dying first, using an ability five times and not dying for 60 seconds. So yeah, get to level 20 and all the achievements are yours.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is an average third-person shooter experience that doesn’t do much wrong but doesn’t excel either. It provides a few hours of entertainment and doesn’t outstay its welcome, but you may wonder why you invited it over in the first place. With the multiplayer, it takes about 8 hours to complete.