At this point just about everyone knows who the Transformers are. The robots that made children across the world wonder about cars, jets, trains, insects, and dinosaurs got reinserted into pop culture thanks to Michael Bay and his two explosive films that reimagined the mighty bots for the modern day. Unfortunately, more than a few purists were torn by the films because of some unsettling departures from canon, such as a mute Bumblebee, an Optimus Prime with lips, a genital-sporting Devastator, Ebonics-speaking bots, and Shia LaBeouf (although Megan Fox gets a pass) to name just a few. Thankfully the movie's popularity has led Activision and developer High Moon Studios to try their hand at a Transformers game that aims to give fans of the robots in disguise a fun and less unsettling experience rooted in the past. Transformers: War for Cybertron drops you into the Transformers universe as the conflict between the Autobots and Decepticon escalates into the events that led the dueling bots to leave their homeworld of Cybertron to come to Earth. We recently met with Activision and High Moon, who gave us a demo of the game on the Xbox 360, which showed off the Autobots and Decepticon campaigns and showed more promise than we would have expected.

While some of this may sound too good to be true, the game is looking like it just might be the real deal. High Moon's approach is benefiting from no movie to tie in with and a respectable dose of geek love. The results we've seen so far seem to be paying off in the most promising Transformers game we've played in years. We're anxious to get our hands on it, especially the online multiplayer, to see if it plays as good as it looks. Look for more on Transformers: War for Cybertron in the weeks to come. The game is scheduled to ship on the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 later this year, with Wii and DS versions of the game, from Next Level and Vicarious Visions, respectively, hitting at the same time.