Customer Reviews

Transformers The Game

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Of all the video games that come out each year for the various consoles and platforms, the subgroup of movie based tie-in games are quite possibly the most feared and most dreaded, due to the constant low quality of many titles. Transformers, regrettably, is another example of a game based on a great franchise, yet for the most part doesn't succeed in creating an enjoyable and fun game.

As a game based off the extremely successful movie, Transformers follows the plot of the film. You play as either the Decepticons or the Autobots and wage a campaign to obtain the Allspark, the mythical object that gives life to the transformer race. Along the way you take on hundreds of Autobot/Decepticon drones and get into enormous fights with the main robots of the opposing side, such as Bumblebee, Starscream, Jazz, Blackout and of course, Megatron and Optimus Prime. You'll fight, shoot, and drive/fly through several stages on your quest to either destroy the world or save it. And while the idea of giant shape shifting robots running around and beating each other up sounds like a surefire concept...the game, incredibly, disappoints on almost all aspects.

It seems almost inconceivable that such a sure-fire franchise can be so simplistic and disappointing when developed for a video game, yet Transformers the game does exactly that. How to begin? Well, perhaps the worst aspect of the game...moving around as a vehicle. An essential part of the Transformers mythos is their now famous ability to become a vehicle such as a car, truck, jet, etc. And sure enough, this ability makes it into the game. With a simple touch of a button you can change from robot to vehicle and vice versa. The first time you do this it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll be giddy with excitement. The speed and agility at which it happens (usually less then three seconds) is exciting enough to watch that one never gets tired of watching it happen. Yet...the moment you start moving around and driving, you realize that something is wrong. Driving around as a car is difficult...very, very, very difficult. When your car is swerving around the road and close to crashing at any given second, you realize something...the driving controls for this game are HORRIBLE. They are, without a doubt, the worst I've ever played in a game. It's not the controls themselves that are bad, but rather the responsiveness. Driving a car, thanks to the over-responsiveness and loose feeling, feels like you're always driving on ice. A simple tap to turn left will have you veer left at such an angle that you quickly tap right to correct, only to swerve so far to the right that you immediately press the left button to try and correct, etc. As a result, you end up swerving back and forth almost endlessly as you try to get to whatever your destination is. A simple over-tap of a button and you'll be swinging around in circles while your enemy is speeding away (and much to your disgust, navigating the roads perfectly). One of Bumblebee's missions inside Hoover Dam is rendered almost impossible by the controls (You have to hunt down security drones before they sound an alarm), leading to many, many restarts and shouted curses as these drones that drive perfectly through the roads.

The controls for flight aircraft (such as Blackout in helicopter mode and Starscream as an F-22 fighter jet) are, shockingly, even worse then the driving controls. When you take to the air, things get even worse as you frantically try to control your jet or helicopter, wobbling up and down so much that an observer would think that the pilot was dead drunk and close to passing out at any moment. These controls are ATROCIOUS, so much so that at times it's virtually impossible to complete what should be a simple mission. For example, at the end of the first Decepticon mission, you have to shoot down twenty jets in six minutes while flying Blackout around as a helicopter. It sounds so simple, yet due to the over-reactive controls it borders on next to impossible to complete. While going in a straight line and turning is simple, aiming your craft up or down is a nightmare. You'll move the mouse down to tilt down, yet nothing happens. You move the mouse harder and then you tilt...but at a much steeper angle then you wanted. Now you're plunging towards the ground and frantically move the mouse up. You tilt up, but your nose is now pointing at the sky and you're heading up like you mean to head up into outer space. The problem with the flight controls is that when you want to go up or down they are under-responsive, seemingly not registering a simple control movement to make a small adjustment, forcing you to over-react to compensate and as a result, you take on the appearance of a drunk pilot. Things only get worse when you're being hounded by dozens of planes that are trying to blow you up.

When in robot mode, things get better in game play terms. Transformers the game uses the now immortal WASD control scheme. You use the W, A, S, and D buttons to move around, using the mouse to control your direction and the camera movement, as well as the mouse buttons to fire your guns. Thankfully this part of the game doesn't have any problems with controls, but it does have another issue...the fighting system. To sum it up, it's too simple and too repetitive. You have a main gun, a secondary gun, and your melee attack. The problem is that the melee attacks consist of a single button (or mouse wheel, depending on how you set the controls) that you tap over and over again to do the same three hit combos. Virtually all battles are fought by running up to the robot and hitting it until they die. Sometimes you'll have to consist with a shield, a spinning crane that you have to disable, or some other barrier or obstacle that you have to deal with before knocking the enemy robot into rubble. So it boils down to running up to your foe and hitting him until he's dead. Rinse and repeat. While it's okay at first, it does get repetitive and disappointing as time goes on. It especially becomes disappointing when most of the boss fights consist of attacking the bad guy until he runs away, then you fight his henchmen for a while, then attack the bad guy again until he runs away again, etc. Even the Prime vs Megatron fights boil down into this disappointing pattern. It would be great if there were multiple combos to use in the game, or perhaps a few choices in fighting styles, but sadly the combat remains simplistic and ultimately disappointing. And on the issue of combat, many people have pointed out how your robot may be equipped with powerful guns, yet over half the robots you encounter have impenetrable shields that make them completely immune to your high powered laser gun/cannon. Even mighty Megatron's enormous gun can't penetrate the shield of a simple drone. It gets exceptionally annoying when you have a powerful gun and can't use it because your foes can instantly raise a shield and keep it up indefinitely, even when they are getting thrown through the air and getting onto their feet.

The campaigns that you go upon, whether it's the Autobot or Decepticon, will take you to various locations seen in the movie, such as the Qatar military base, the suburbs that the Whitwicky family live in, the inside of Hoover Dam, and a big city where the final showdown between Autobot and Decepticon takes place. Every level is basically a big, free-roaming stage where you drive to various points to get your next mission or objective. For the Autobots, most of these objectives and missions consist of,

A. Destroying Decepticon Drones
B. Driving somewhere within a time limit
C. Doing both A and B
D. Fighting a Decepticon Boss.

Decepticon missions are roughly the same, with the exception that they involve much more destruction and chaos then the Autobots. While most of these missions are serviceable and generally okay, you eventually wish there was more variety. For example, I'd like to see some autobot missions where you have to save humans in trouble or do a few stealth missions. Or perhaps some Decepticon missions where you have to smash into a heavily guarded base to get some fuel for the Decepticons and then have to contend with an unexpected Autobot invasion, or even an attack on an Autobot base of operations. There are some creative missions and some very fun moments (one of the best is when you're playing as Megatron and your only objective is to cause as much destruction as you can) such as Jazz's final mission, but these are few are far between, with most of the missions being "search and destroy".

Despite it's flaws (and they are serious ones), Transformers the game does have it's good points. If your system can support them, the game does offer some great graphics, especially on the robots. The environments are huge and detailed, offering a lot of things to look at (and blow up). If you look closely, you can even see the inside of buildings, such as rooms and furniture, especially when the walls have been blasted away. With regards to the robots, it's fun to simply rotate the camera and marvel at the incredible amount of detailing on each robot. And as said earlier, it never gets old watching the robots switch back and forth between vehicle and robot forms, so much so that you wish there was an option to slow the process down so you can get a better look at how it's done. As another bonus, the game is very cheep compared to most movie tie-in games, available for purchase at most stores for only twenty dollars, so it's quite cheap. And as a final bonus, the final movies at the end of both campaigns are great fun as they showcase the true powers of both Optimus Prime and Megatron (and the final cutscene for the Decepticons is great!). If you like destroying things in huge bouts of want and destruction, you should greatly enjoy the Decepticon campaign, which focuses exclusively on destroying things.

A special note has to go to the voiceovers in the game. Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, and Peter Cullen reprise their roles as Sam Witwhicky, Mikaela, and Optimus Prime from the film. Furthermore, possibly the best addition to the game is Frank Welker returning to voice Megatron, reprising his role from the original cartoon series. All the voice acting in the game is excellent, but hearing Cullen and Welker is simply a joy, especially with Megatron. Though you can tell his voice has aged since the cartoon, I now wish that Mr. Welker voiced Megatron in the film as his distinct voice is a delight to listen to ("Where are the Autobots to protect you now Fleshbags?!").

Furthermore, there's plenty of bonus material to unlock, ranging from artwork to comic covers to toy shots, trailers for the film, and even some generation one skins/repaints. So if you work hard enough, you can finally play as Megatron in his generation one form (though he flies around instead of turning into a gun) and you can play as Optimus in his original cab form (though why he shoots bullet and grenades from his wrists instead of guns I have no idea), which should please fans of the original cartoons. Sadly though, those are the only skins that are unlockable. It would have been great to see other characters such as Starscream, Jazz, and Bumblebee get their original forms to fly and fight in, but perhaps that's something that will be put in a future patch. Most of the content is unlocked by completing skills such as doing circles while driving, going very, very fast, not being hit by combat, jumping while in vehicle mode, etc. There are also challenges to complete, such as pushing all enemies out of a cirlce in a time period, hunting down objects, etc. Sadly, due to the terrible vehicle controls, completing some of these challenges are almost impossible, especially when you have to hunt down vehicles and destroy them.

In the end, Transformers does have a lot of very serious flaws. The controls for driving and flying are awful no matter how you put it, the combat is very simplistic and repetitive, and the whole experience is a bit shallow and disappointing. Figuring that many of these problems could be fixed in a massive patch is disapointing as well. Let's hope that Activision does release a patch to fix them, especially with the controls. However, the generally excellent graphics, excellent voice work, unlockable G1 skins, and being able to destroy lots of stuff (the environments are VERY destructible) does give the game an appeal that is best suited in short bursts, rather then very long sessions of play. If I would recommend this game for purchase...I really wouldn't recommend it unless you're a die-hard fan of the transformers franchise and the film itself. You should be able to put up with the game's flaws and enjoy the game, but others won't be so forgiving. So if you're a die-hard fan and have about twenty dollars to spend, you can have a good time. If a patch is released, even more so. But everyone else should generally just leave this game alone.

Final rating: 5/10

I bought this game at ****** for my boys and installed it right away. From the get go, you could tell the graphics and sequences are choppy (despite my rig that runs Company of Heroes without a hitch). The controls are probably some of the worst for any game out there....the flying and driving sequences are nearly impossible. Some of the missions that you have to accomplish can't be done in the time alloted. In one of them, you control Scorponok and have to wipe out five communications rigs in 2 minutes....and they're scattered all over the map. Unless I have a teleportation ability that I don't know about yet, I can't figure out how to do it....all the time fighting the controls to get him to do what I want. The targeting system is the worst I've seen in a 3rd person shooter game. All in all, I would hope that the console versions are better, because I'm glad I only spent twenty bucks on it. My kids are disappointed because they wanted to progress through the game and see the different missions and characters. The only reason why it gets zero stars is because I can't choose it. Unless a patch comes out, this will sit on my shelf.

Where to start.

You only get to play certain transformers on certain levels, you hardly get to play Optimus prime at all.

You're cannons are pointless as must enemies just shield themselves and most characters need to be hit with something, like a tree or a brick
before they stop being invincible.

Some levels are so frustrating you'll scream, e.g.
- Theres a level here where Megatron can be kicked around by "invincible" Autobot characters, which is just weird.
- When you're Blackout fighting Ironhide he's hard to control, easy to kill and trips over everything.
- Many levels are 20 minutes long and if you die you start again.

No replay value, barely any play value.

Stay miles away unless you're a hardcore Transformers fan why isn't bothered by anything.

This game absolutely horrible. It was a poor game on the consoles and they didn't even make a slightest effort while porting it to Windows to make it more PC like or increase texture resolution since PCs are capable of better graphics than consoles. For a 2007 game it has 2001 graphics, the controls are horrible, mouse panning even at highest sensitivity is dog slow, driving and flying is impossibly frustrating. What this game has plenty of is bugs. Do yourself a favor and spend your money on something else.

Buggy stages design.
They made the driving part of the game difficult by simply making the handling of the car modes of the robot extremely twitchy and hard to control instead of the stages itself being difficult.
Lame enemy attacking and counter-attacking mechanism. Beating the bigger enemies only involve throwing vehicles or objects towards them at specific time. There is no other way to beat them, it's the same from Barricade to Megatron. It gets boring after a couple times.

Save your money for other Transformers Toys or for the Transformers 2 movie tickets, just don't spend it on this game.

I'm a 100% transformers fan. That's the only reason I bought the game after reading all the bad reviews of it. (I think there were 98 bad reviews for every 2 good ones.)

All the reviews were right. It's the worst, most unimaginative, hardest to control, most frustrating, most repetitive, stupidest piece of junk out there on the video game market. Unless you want to be banging your head against the wall every time you play it and wishing you'd spent the money on a couple of deluxe line transformer toys instead, don't even think about buying it.

If you really really really have to try it, rent it for $5. Then see how quickly you get frustrated and sick of it.

By the way, every level is EXACTLY the same as the last stupid level. No development or originality or thought put into it whatsover. Just the same impossible to control chases and poor excuses for fights over and over again. And bumblebee is by far the worst of the autobots control-wise, which is really annoying because you have to start with him.

We have been playing this game for a day now and it looks good but some levels are really hard. For instance, we are stuck, as the other reviewer wrote, as Skorpinock. It does get a bit unclear where things are when you are surrounded buy junk like trees...and targeting can be tricky because there are so many control options. We have a Pentium D 3.0 GHz, 512 MB Radeon 1950, 3 GB RAM. The best part so far has been mass destruction for no reason after leveling.

This is a fun game. the graphics are unbelievable. You get to drive the transformers, find Decepiticons, and destroy them, protecting Earth. There are a bunch of different missions. All my friends like this game.