Dark Of The Multiplayer

 

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon is now out and about in the video game world. I picked up the Xbox 360 version as I do with most games. I haven’t gone through  the campaign yet, I still have Duke Nukem to beat and that is challenging to say the least as I am playing on hard. However, I did take a break from the chaos and gave Dark Of The Moon’s multiplayer game mode a spin.

The first thing I noticed was the layout and look of the menu options. There are practical identical to what we have played with the last Transformers game, War For Cybertron. I also got a warning that they recommend I play the campaign before playing multiplayer. This would most likely be their way of saying hey, learn how to control these bots first. We have all your typical options such as private match, creating a character, leaderboards, inviting friends, and matchmaking locale.

As far as characters we get the classes back in session with scout, hunter, commander, and warrior. This work the same as they did in War for Cybertron. As you gain XP and level up you can upgrade that class. The major difference from War For Cybertron is that our primary weapon and abilities are not adjustable with preset characters or even custom characters. With custom characters you can choose the body design of your favorite Autobot or Decepticon and modify two colors. What we can choose is to change our secondary weapons and abilities which the options will depend on which class you are in. Next as you rank up you can select upgrades from your character that enable perks. An example being Backstab which gives you a Melee Bonus if you attack from behind, Backstab can be unlocked at level 10. We can also see in the create character section that our killstreaks are not adjustable.

Gameplay, online gameplay is also hit or miss in games these days. With Dark of The Moon it’s a hit as the take the successful multiplayer from War for Cybertron and give it a few tweaks. First we get Stealth Force so you can do some serious damage in your vehicle mode that is bursting with weapons. When you need to boost they hide within the chassis and are not available for that short duration. The other thing we get is the bots and surrounding levels are all pulled from the moveverse as expected. The gameplay is smooth and responsive. It is also very challenging as you will need to level up before you have a real chance at survival. The best option for ranking up quick seems to be Conquest where we must capture and hold multiple nodes, earning points and 400 points will be the winning team. We also have standard deathmatch and team deathmatch.

The multiplayer seems to be spot on and enjoyable. I suspect I will be returning after I catch up on my other games waiting in the wings. One other note is that this time there is only one achievement for multiplayer. To get this 25 Gamerscore you just need to survive for 60 seconds in a multiplayer match without dying. Easy enough.

As for the graphics and sound, well they look good and sound great and I didn’t notice any flaws. I do like the look of the bots as they retain that movie look and yet some have that edgy-gonna tear you up-look.  Such as Warpath in the Warrior class. That is one mean looking bot and surprisingly the tank controls in vehicle mode as not the same as say Bumblebees. This means you have to turn and operate your turret independently as a tank should. “Zoom, Whaam”