I really wish I could peg this following story on censorship, but really, this was all voluntary so I can only blame it on stupidity, which is a nice second place prize. Before I let my geeky ire get the best of me, let’s lay it all out on the table for you. You know the new Transformers game that was coming out, War for Cybertron? Well, regardless of how good or bad this game might be (bad … definitely bad), it is coming out for all consoles, which is a good move. If it’s able to be ported, it should be, so that no gamers are left out. Unfortunately, we don’t actually see a War for Cybertron coming out for the Wii. Instead, we see something called Transformers: Cybertron Adventures. I don’t know about you but I haven’t heard of that game before, and for good reason … it’s the same damn game!

Yes, the guys over at Activision are censoring themselves so hard to cater to the Wii’s casual, kid-friendly audience that they changed the title. This bodes poorly for game play. I want to make this clear, there is no confirmation that anything in-game has been censored. However, since the game would have to be tweaked anyway to work with the Wii’s lower graphical capacities, who is to say that Activision wouldn’t just start plucking out the rampant destruction and violence that modern day Transformers are known for. I mean, the recent Transformers movies are Michael Bay movies. A Michael Bay movie without explosions and violence is nothing more than Shia LaBeouf acting goofy around girls and a credit roll.

You know what is even more hilarious? The DS, which is arguably more kid friendly than the Wii, will not be adopting the more family friendly name change. Even though the cartridge will come in two distinct flavors, Autobot and Decepticon (which is more than reminiscent of Pokemon), but will still be a “war”.

This all seems pointless to me. Heck, Activision didn’t even see fit to make the name change standard across all of Nintendo’s consoles. It feels almost like an afterthought, a ploy to try and get kids to buy a game filled with violence and explosions. There are really only two scenarios here and both of them suck. In scenario one, kids really shouldn’t be playing this new Transformers game because of how violent it is. If that is the case, Activision’s name change is an attempt to get kids to buy the game under unethical and sketchy pretenses. In scenario two (the more likely scenario) the game probably isn’t that violent and is decent enough for kids to play. In that case, the name change is downright insulting. Who the hell neglects buying a game because “war” is in the title. You’d think that any parent that has seen one of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies would know what to expect when buying a video game of the same name.

This certainly doesn’t go very far to end the stereotype of Wii owners as casual gamers that don’t deserve hardcore releases.

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