Transformers the Game
Posted September 30, 2007
Like any male my age, I have memories of watching and playing with Transformers back in the 1980s. And while the series evolved with the times and has been on TV and DVD for years, hearing someone making a new Transformers movie seemed to good to be true. And what’s even better is that Transformers should make for an amazing video game experience right? Sadly – not.
Transformers: The Game is a direct tie-in to the movie released the summer of ’07. While it shares some similarities to the movie, it's not a direct plot rip-off in order to prevent spoilers for some people I assume. The Allspark has landed somewhere on Earth and a battle of good vs. evil takes place in the form of Autobots vs. Decepticons (cue the music). As mentioned, the game uses some of the plot line from the movie to propel the story forward in poorly rendered cut scenes. Once the game moves from CGI to gameplay, the story takes a backseat.
The game is divided into two separate stories for both the (gasp)Autobots and Decepticons, and each offers a slightly different style of gameplay – but nothing drastic. As ambassadors of good, the Autobots levels frown upon unnecessary destruction of surroundings, so some level of watching what you’re doing during the Autobot branch of the game is required. The developers decided not to just have the player use one single character through each campaign, but forces a certain character for a given level. While this isn’t that bad of a choice, it did make me a little upset that some of the more action packed levels did not include Optimus Prime. He deserves the chance to kick some serious ass.
Decepticons conversely relish the fact they are evil as their levels reward you, and in some cases require to do cause massive destruction of buildings. The two sides otherwise share very similar and shallow level goals that require you to retrieve an item from a location on the other side of the map, or defend / attack an installation. Oh, and did I mention that you have to do all of this within some ludicrous time constraints? Want a way to take a game that had potential to be merely borderline into the territory of not a good game? Add some timed missions that require a perfect run through to beat – or at least a method to avoid any battle whatsoever.
Admittedly I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I’m not familiar with the weapons the giant robots were packing. In this game, each character packs a long and short range weapon, which sadly seem to do nothing to other robots, but tear through the buildings and army vehicles like butter. The only real way to take down another robot is to pummel them without mercy, but the gotcha here is that you’ll need to stun them somehow. We know that regular weapons are useless against a robot, so what should a combatant use? Why, how about a lightpost or tree that just happens to be kicking around? After fumbling with the terrible aiming system to finally be able to pick up the uber-weapon tree, you might be wise to lock onto your target immediately to prevent wasting your hard earned projectile. Once you manage to hit the transformer in question, you can run up to him and deliver a beat down. As you might be able to imagine, this type of fight is cool once in a game – but each interaction with an opposing transformer resulted in a similar game of fight the controls.
The presentation of the title was a real mixed bag. While the look of the transformers and their animations in the game were top notch, thanks to being able to use the models from the movie I’d imagine, the rest of the action and graphics onscreen were slightly dull. When compared to the glistening metallic bodies and smooth as silk transformation animations, seeing the buildings and military vehicles explode with the subpar animations and sound didn’t quite bring forth the sense of destruction that I hoped the game would have, based on the premise. Mix in the PS2 grade compressed CGI and poorly acted cut scenes and we have the makings of a game that is beyond mediocre.
Blasting through the marginally enjoyable Decepticon campaign and pussyfooting my way through the Autobot sure didn’t instill any confidence in the movie – let alone try to convince me to play through this title again. However, I must go on record having talked to a few children who were 20 years my junior and asked them what they thought of the Transformers game. Both on them unison jumped onto and off the couch, telling me it’s the best game they’ve played; and this just after they laid waste to me in COD2. My personal recommendation for this game is to skip it.
Transformers: The Game is a direct tie-in to the movie released the summer of ’07. While it shares some similarities to the movie, it's not a direct plot rip-off in order to prevent spoilers for some people I assume. The Allspark has landed somewhere on Earth and a battle of good vs. evil takes place in the form of Autobots vs. Decepticons (cue the music). As mentioned, the game uses some of the plot line from the movie to propel the story forward in poorly rendered cut scenes. Once the game moves from CGI to gameplay, the story takes a backseat.
The game is divided into two separate stories for both the (gasp)Autobots and Decepticons, and each offers a slightly different style of gameplay – but nothing drastic. As ambassadors of good, the Autobots levels frown upon unnecessary destruction of surroundings, so some level of watching what you’re doing during the Autobot branch of the game is required. The developers decided not to just have the player use one single character through each campaign, but forces a certain character for a given level. While this isn’t that bad of a choice, it did make me a little upset that some of the more action packed levels did not include Optimus Prime. He deserves the chance to kick some serious ass.
Decepticons conversely relish the fact they are evil as their levels reward you, and in some cases require to do cause massive destruction of buildings. The two sides otherwise share very similar and shallow level goals that require you to retrieve an item from a location on the other side of the map, or defend / attack an installation. Oh, and did I mention that you have to do all of this within some ludicrous time constraints? Want a way to take a game that had potential to be merely borderline into the territory of not a good game? Add some timed missions that require a perfect run through to beat – or at least a method to avoid any battle whatsoever.
Admittedly I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I’m not familiar with the weapons the giant robots were packing. In this game, each character packs a long and short range weapon, which sadly seem to do nothing to other robots, but tear through the buildings and army vehicles like butter. The only real way to take down another robot is to pummel them without mercy, but the gotcha here is that you’ll need to stun them somehow. We know that regular weapons are useless against a robot, so what should a combatant use? Why, how about a lightpost or tree that just happens to be kicking around? After fumbling with the terrible aiming system to finally be able to pick up the uber-weapon tree, you might be wise to lock onto your target immediately to prevent wasting your hard earned projectile. Once you manage to hit the transformer in question, you can run up to him and deliver a beat down. As you might be able to imagine, this type of fight is cool once in a game – but each interaction with an opposing transformer resulted in a similar game of fight the controls.
The presentation of the title was a real mixed bag. While the look of the transformers and their animations in the game were top notch, thanks to being able to use the models from the movie I’d imagine, the rest of the action and graphics onscreen were slightly dull. When compared to the glistening metallic bodies and smooth as silk transformation animations, seeing the buildings and military vehicles explode with the subpar animations and sound didn’t quite bring forth the sense of destruction that I hoped the game would have, based on the premise. Mix in the PS2 grade compressed CGI and poorly acted cut scenes and we have the makings of a game that is beyond mediocre.
Blasting through the marginally enjoyable Decepticon campaign and pussyfooting my way through the Autobot sure didn’t instill any confidence in the movie – let alone try to convince me to play through this title again. However, I must go on record having talked to a few children who were 20 years my junior and asked them what they thought of the Transformers game. Both on them unison jumped onto and off the couch, telling me it’s the best game they’ve played; and this just after they laid waste to me in COD2. My personal recommendation for this game is to skip it.