Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Keith Schleicher

The Transformers!  More than meets the eye.  Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons.

If you can sing that theme song, you were most likely a child of the ‘80s.  Hasbro had a hit with the Transformers when they came out.  The cartoon ran for four seasons (if you can call three episodes a “season”).  While Transformers fell out of popularity for a while, it seems as if everything old has become new again.  The Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Robots in Disguise, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron series all brought the Transformers back to the small screen.

2007 was a huge year for Transformers with a big budget blockbuster movie directed by Michael Bay.  With state-of-the-art special effects, Transformers were brought to life in a way that seemed impossible.  It seemed to be a perfect match for a video game, but did the Transformers translate well to a video game?

The graphics in Transformers: The Game are bland at best.  The models have low polygon counts which make everything look blocky.  Textures can help hide low polygon counts if they are done well and can help make the game shine.  Unfortunately, the textures are blurry and don’t give any clarity to the characters.  They look like something someone did in their spare time on the side.  The environments are bland as you might expect.  There isn’t any sharp definition in any of the objects.

The animations of the characters are terrible.  When you watch the Transformers transform from robot to vehicle mode, you see them move into their vehicle mode, and then the animation jumps to the vehicle.  This is especially transparent in some of the cutscenes.  While playing the game portions, going to robot mode feels like you have your character jump suddenly into robot mode without much of any actual animation.

Transformers does have some good explosions and other particle effects from the weapons.  Still, those elements aren’t good enough to bring the graphics up very high.

While Gary Chalk has helmed the voice of Optimus since the Beast Wars days, those who fondly remember the original will never forget the voice of Peter Cullen as the original Optimus Prime.  The game’s opening cinematic gives chills down your spine as you hear his voice giving a brief overview of the plot.  They were also able to get Frank Welker, the original voice of Megatron, to do voice acting as well.  It’s great that they got them both as well as the other cast members of the movie to voice their roles.

While the voice acting is good, the rest of the sounds are forgettable.  The weapons, explosions and sound effects don’t have any real punch to them.  The music is a bit ominous, but there isn’t anything that will make you remember it again.  Average is the best way to sum up the music.

Controlling Transformers takes a little practice because of the robot mode and the vehicle mode.  In robot mode the analog nub controls movement, X and Triangle move your view up and down respectively, Square fires your weapon, and Circle picks up items.  The L button jumps while holding R strafes in conjunction with the analog nub.  Hitting both L and R together transforms your character.  Down on the D-pad locks onto a target, Up performs a super move, Left throws an item you have, and Right cycles your four weapons.

Driving handles a little differently.  The analog nub controls left and right while X accelerates and Square reverses.  L converts you back to robot mode, while R fires your vehicle weapon.  Right on the D-pad again cycles your weapons, while Down locks on to targets if you have that ability with the weapon you are using.

If the controls sound a bit confusing from their description, you are right.  It takes a while to get used to which button does what function.  There are times when you aren’t sure which button to press.  There are a couple of different control schemes you can try, but those are not as intuitive.  Even when you do press the correct button, the controls feel like they have a bit of a delay in them.  It’s not that bad, but it is noticeable.

Transformers: The Game chronicles the struggle between the Autobots and the Decepticons as they wage battle on earth for the Allspark.   The Autobots are searching for it to prevent the Decepticons from using it for evil.  While the story isn’t deep, it does follow the general plot of the movie.

The game actually has you play as both sides, the Autobots and Decepticons.  You’ll also get to play as multiple characters on each side.  This helps to vary the missions that you get, as their objectives and damage are quite different.

At certain points you can interact with the environment.  For example, a fist might appear that shows a wall that you can actually break down.  You can also pick up other vehicles along the way that you can throw at enemies.

You are given four different weapons to use.  Each one has different power and reload time.  Your default weapon can fire fast, but it doesn’t do much damage.  Rockets pack a lot of punch, but they take a while to reload.  You don’t have to worry about keeping track of the ammo because it automatically replenishes.  If you are too close to use your ranged weapons, you will go into melee mode and you’ll be able to knock the stuffing out of your opponent with fisticuffs.

As you go into vehicle mode, you charge up your Super Move Meter.  This move can take a lot of health from an enemy.  However, you have to be very close to the enemy to use it, and it feels a bit awkward when you do try to use it.

The problem with trying to explain Transformers: The Game is that while there isn’t anything that is totally broken with the game, there isn’t anything that makes it very fun either.  The missions have varied objectives, but they don’t feel that different from each other.  Even the two sides don’t give you that much variety.  The game feels more like going through the motions than anything very interactive.

Transformers: The Game is a nice diversion, but it won’t take you all that long to finish.  When you die, you start out not far away from where you left off.  While this isn’t too frustrating, you aren’t that afraid of dying.

There are a few multiplayer modes that you can enjoy with friends.  Unfortunately they need to be close by as only Ad-Hoc mode is supported.  The typical Death-Match, Team Death-Match, Ascension Rites (hold a zone for a specific time period), and Secure the Allspark (Capture the Flag).  They aren’t anything new, but it is nice to have them available.  If only you could play it online.

Transformers: The Game could have been a very cool game with big robots battling other robots.  Instead it feels like a product rushed out the door to accommodate a movie release.  The game plays fine, even though it has some faults because of the hardware it is running on.  It just doesn’t feel like there is any energy or spirit coming from the game.  Fans of Transformers will feel disappointed that the use of this license produced a game without any soul.

Gaming Trend Score

59

1. Graphics: 58
2. Audio: 64
3. Controls: 56
4. Gameplay: 58
5. Value/Replay: 60
6. OVERALL:59