Transformers

"This game has the Touch, almost"

Transformers fans have clamored for a good way to step into the roles of their dual-mode heroes for years. Despite the set up seemingly being made for video game adaptation, however, the wait has been a long one, and the material hasn't always been favorable. Transformers Armada in particular is in contention to be the worst version of Transformers ever. It suffered from having annoying human sidekicks for the Autobots, poorly-written renditions of the Autobots and Decepticons, generally lousy episodes and an overall story concocted to make the show appeal to the Pokemon generation.

Perhaps seeking to distance the game based on it as much as possible from the show, the "Armada" was dropped from the title, leaving the fans with a hopefully more favorable "Transformers" package to play on their Playstation 2's. The designers also lost the human tagalongs and changed things so the story revolves around the conflict rather than whoever owned that light saber like in the show. The set-up for the game, and Armada, is more or less the same as it has always been: the Transformers are robots from the planet Cybertron that turn from cars and planes into robotic battle forms. The war between the Autobots (good robots) and Decepticons (bad robots) eventually stretched to Earth millions of years ago and they awake to resume their conflict in the present. In this version, however, the war centers around finding small robots called Minicons that unlock new powers, like missile launchers or glider wings, on the full-sized Transformers they attach to.

Which works much better as the premise for an interactive video game than a non-interactive TV show, thankfully. It creates strategy, since a player can only carry so many Minicons at a time, and they must carefully select from the Minicons they've found and determine which powers will work best in each area of the game. Solving the game involves exploring various locations, like the Amazon basin or south pole, and finding dormant Minicons (marked by bright yellow glows). Some cannot be obtained until the Autobots progress further into the game, gain new capabilities and come back, however. Each level caps off with a battle against a very tough, and often frustrating, Decepticon boss. After the first level is completed, each Autobot also gains a partner Minicon who follows them around, helps by shooting Decepticons and can "power-link" with the active Autobot, activating "bullet time"; (a gimmick common in action video games whereby enemies are reduced to a snail's pace while the player remains at normal speed for a brief time). The privilege is not without price, however, as being power-linked; rapidly eats away at the Autobot's life meter until the player deactivates it.

Despite the amazing array of Autobots and Decepticons from the toy line, character selection is limited to just three Autobots; Hot Shot, Red Alert, and of course Optimus Prime himself. Each has different statistics in which they excell or lag, just like on those cards the toys came with. This low selection of characters hurts the game a little, though, as Optimus is the obvious choice what with the most durability, firepower and highest maximum Minicon power. As other reviewers have said the others are okay for scouting, but Optimus is pretty much the only way to go when you're playing to win.

The graphics are nice, and the game is peppered with impressive CGI sequences. Sound is okay too, although Transformers has seen better voice acting and music than those on display in this game. The environments are also somewhat repetitive, with visits to multiple jungle, snowy and other areas.

While the game in general is fairly decent, it lacks much Transformers flavor. The controlled Autobot can of course change from car to robot and back again, but the level designs are such that it's rarely preferable to pass up being a relatively slow robot that can jump and shoot a laser gun to be a car that can't, except in places where it's necessary to use ramps to jump ravines or cover flat terrain. Plus the characters don't feel quite right, despite being improved from the Armada version of the show. The Decepticons are much more threatening than their televised counterparts, but the Autobots are barely even characters. One doesn't really feel like they're controlling icons of their childhood during this game as much as a robot that changes into a car. The game in general fails to feel very epic, which a game about a battle between good and evil that has lasted millions of years and raged from one side of the galaxy to the other really ought to.

As it stands Transformers has a lot going for it, but in my view was brought down some by an overall lack of "transformerness." Some licensed games got genuine faith and connection with their source material. But while it's a good game on numerous other levels, Transformers doesn't have quite enough of a feel for its source as I would prefer Still, if you've ever wanted to be a Robot in Disguise for a while, you couldn't find a better game about it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/15/04, Updated 09/06/04