Transformers: The Game Reader Review

Transformers: The Game is the PS3 game of the 2007 Transformers film.

The games focus's on the battle between the Transformers Auto bots and the Decepticons. The game is split into two 'campaigns', the Autobot (good) campaign and the Decepticon (Bad) campaign. Each campaign has different objectives and have you controlling different types of Transformer. However each campaign is only a few hours long and both combined are only around the 6-8 hours mark, which for a full priced title is short and doesn't offer a lot of longevity or value for money.

The game play revolves around two modes, the vehicle mode and the transformer mode (robot) with the player being able to switch at will. A highlight of the game is the switching animation which comes straight from the film and is very impressive and overall the animation is very solid. The vehicle modes see you driving or flying and these are executed very poorly with the driving being too floaty and detached with the cars behaving very unrealistically and not for the better of the game. The flying is slightly better but can not hide the flaws in these sections.

The combat sections of the game are very frustrating, the Transformers are armed to the teeth but their projectile weapons become almost useless as the game progress with the enemy being able to shield themselves with only the weakest of enemies being able to take damage from them. The melee fighting is slightly better but not by that much. All the melee fighting is executed through one button and by hammering this button you can usually kill the enemy in front of you, this makes the combat very repetitive and boring and does become something of a grind later on.

As with most movie license games, the games story has to not spoil the movie for the players as the studio still want them to see the movie after playing the game and usually this means that the story in movie license games are very poor and Transformers is no exception. The game allows you to play through the game through two viewpoints but the story is so vague and held back that none of them is very interesting.

At first glance the graphics seem very impressive for a movie license game but once you stop and really look the graphics are not that great. The actual robots look impressive and the environments average looking but what really disappoints is the lighting, the PS3 version of this game has really bad lighting. In some places the game gets really dark and spoils the visuals of this game. What is impressive is the destructible environments; most of the environment are destructible. There is a problem with this though; the buildings explode as soon as you brush against them. However during the Autobot section of the game you are penalized for destroying the environment and this sensitivity destroys the fun of it.

One of the good points about this game is that the audio is of a good quality. The movie cast lend their vocal talents to the game and the voice actors from the original TV series reprise their roles as the Transformers. The music is good and the sound effects do add something to the game.

Transformers: The Game is a very disappointing game; the potential of the license has been squandered with bad design choices and a lack of plot. The developer has tried to do something new with the two campaigns but the game play is so tired and boring that the game is not fun at all.