There was a rumor out that there was a new Transformers game out. No surprise there I suppose. But then the word on the street was that this game wasn't just good, it was great. Now, my affiliation with the street and its words has always been shady at best, but I decided to take the plunge and call all my friends to see if any of them had a copy I could borrow. Turns out THEY didn't know a Transformers game had been released either.

With a heavy heart, I decided to do something I hadn't done in a long time: walk over to Blockbuster at the corner and drop close to eight bucks on a game that may or may not be worth it.

5 hours later, I'm proud to announce that it was mostly worth it.

Unlike Spiderman and Batman, it's incredibly hard to translate what's fun about Transformers into an interactive medium. With Spiderman it's swinging around, webbing people and beating them up and with Batman it's gliding around,  growling at people and then beating people up. With Transformers it's being a big robot, transforming from a vehicle and then beating people up.

The latter is actually pretty hard when you think about it, but this game delivers for the most part. Instead of having only one vehicle that your robot transforms from, there are multiple forms that have a broad range in terms of power, speed, and terrain.

The beauty of the game is that instead of having one vehicle to transform into with one character, you can control different characters each with different transformations. This might sound simple at first but it's actually a lot of fun and there's nothing cooler than hearing metal screech as you suddenly turn into a car and plow through enemies.

Though few may get this reference, the gameplay and environment reminds me a lot of Metal Arms: Glitch in the System. It was a game with wacky sci-fi elements, a robot planet with everyone having a distinct personality while having surprisingly solid shooter mechanics.

The story isn't great, but for what Transformers movies and previous games have given us, it's surprisingly coherent. It also does us the favor of filling in the story gaps left by the first Transformers movie (I refuse to consider Revenge of the Fallen a movie) which is nice since most people older than age 13 know Transformers only through the Michael Bay movie.

The multiplayer mode follows the theme of Transformers: War for Cybertron by being, against all odds, really fun. Trying to fine tune your transformations during hectic online combat can be spotty but once you get the hang of it, it's quite amusing and it's a nice reprieve from the gritty feel of Gears of War or Modern Warfare 2.

Overall, I hope this game is not avoided because it is a Transformers game. The Transformer brand name covers up what in reality is a very creative and fun shooter which actually makes me look forward to the next Transformers game.

Verdict: In this economy, paying full price for a game on a 7th generation console can really be a drag. But if you're a fan of third person shooters and already own the Gears series, I would definitely recommend picking up War for Cybertron.