Less than Meets the Eye
Transformers is a painful, painful experience that unlike the movie has no pleasant surprises, only frustration.
Published: July 15, 2007
I used to pride myself on being fairly open-minded when it came to licensed games. The developers often were under the gun to make have the game hit day and date with the movie, and most knew their games weren't as good as they could be. Publishers knew the games sucked, and would rush them anyway because, hey, they're gonna sell no matter what, right? There have been enough crappy licensed games that everyone's expectations are low anyway, but there are rare times when a licensed game will surprise you.
This isn't one of them.
In every way, from polish to general treatment of the source material, Transformers: The Game glosses over anything resembling a deep and engaging experience. Yes, you can play as either the Autobots or the Decepticons (at least in the PS3 game), and yes, you have relatively free reign to run all over smallish sandbox-lite levels to smash or protect stuff, but with wonky physics, absolutely infuriating controls, camera and level design and only the barest minimum of effort on the part of Traveller's Tales or Savage Entertainment to replicate the key parts of the movie the game was based on, there's just very little here to enjoy.
Though the PSP and PS3 versions of the game are anything but mirror copies of each other, they certainly share the duties of sucking pretty damn well. While the PSP version was clearly done with a little fan service in mind (there are a ton Generation 1 80's original Transformers here), the actual gameplay is painful at best thanks to clunky controls and garish visuals. The PS3 version has some of the looks and a bit more in the way of gameplay, but it short-changes fans of the original series in lieu of delivering something more in line with the movie. Neither version manages to fall into a particular groove with their gameplay, and bonus content or not, the games just don't feel like a solid product.
Maybe it's the way some of the transformations in the PSP version are instantaneous pops from vehicle to combat mode, maybe it's how the home-built physics in the PS3 version lets the Transformers punt a light pole or car more easily than just picking it up, and when they do, often object a few feet away will magically zoom into their hands. No part of the PS3 game feels especially next-gen beyond the resolution it runs at, so why are we still seeing clunky interaction with the world? In both versions the steering is clunky, but in the PSP one, it's not responsive enough, and in the PS3 one, there's very little sense of momentum or fun while driving in cars.
Perhaps the biggest source of frustration in the game is the PS3 version's insistence that things in this fairly sizeable levels has to take place in a small radius, and then regularly encourages the player to race to keep up with a target while still staying in that now-moving radius. Fine and dandy if you're on a flat plain, but everything from freeway guard rails to little tiny bits of debris from a building half the size of a tire can completely kill any forward momentum. Throw in enemies that can end up stuck in ravines shrouded in trees, impervious to weapons fire or enemies that can hit you with a blast wave powerful enough to knock you out of the "action zone" and you have a game that delights in punishing the player rather than letting them have fun.
Want more bitching? Sure, let's go with the combat, which feels limp and lacks any feeling of actually connecting in either version. None of the objects in the world seem to have much weight or heft to them, so throwing a bus is just as floaty as throwing one of those wonderful little drones the game loves to manufacture in unlimited quantities to mess with you while you try to pick stuff up to damage an enemy that can only be hurt by throwing stuff at it first. When the combat isn't terribly fun and the driving isn't really fun, and in one case the transforming between the two gameplay modes isn't even fun to look at, then there's clearly a problem here.
Part of the frustration comes from the fact that at times you can actually see a decent game peeking through here and there. The PSP game is almost all combat (which is fine, the driving portions are yawn-inducingly slow) but it's bogged down by a horrid framerate and clunky controls. Still, you can play wirelessly with friends and with the almost three dozen characters and variants to choose from, it's at least a nice slice of fan service. When roaming around in the PS3 edition, the game isn't half bad; little gems for unlocking the (usually pointless and frustrating) mini-games give you a little exploration bonus, and if you drive fast enough, slide around, blow stuff up and generally just act good or bad enough, you'll unlock bonus stuff from the movie.
But for every moment where the games start to look like they may be onto something, there's a million more where the game just makes you hate yourself for playing it. I could go into the bits on graphics and sound -- with the exception of having the original Optimus and Megatron voices involved, it's really little to speak of either way -- but there's just no need. Like this game, I'm going to put forward a modest effort to write a review, but in the end, all that really matters is message: Transformers doesn't have one beyond feeling like a phone-in effort, and your money can be better spent on something far more entertaining... Trust me.
This isn't one of them.
In every way, from polish to general treatment of the source material, Transformers: The Game glosses over anything resembling a deep and engaging experience. Yes, you can play as either the Autobots or the Decepticons (at least in the PS3 game), and yes, you have relatively free reign to run all over smallish sandbox-lite levels to smash or protect stuff, but with wonky physics, absolutely infuriating controls, camera and level design and only the barest minimum of effort on the part of Traveller's Tales or Savage Entertainment to replicate the key parts of the movie the game was based on, there's just very little here to enjoy.
Though the PSP and PS3 versions of the game are anything but mirror copies of each other, they certainly share the duties of sucking pretty damn well. While the PSP version was clearly done with a little fan service in mind (there are a ton Generation 1 80's original Transformers here), the actual gameplay is painful at best thanks to clunky controls and garish visuals. The PS3 version has some of the looks and a bit more in the way of gameplay, but it short-changes fans of the original series in lieu of delivering something more in line with the movie. Neither version manages to fall into a particular groove with their gameplay, and bonus content or not, the games just don't feel like a solid product.
Maybe it's the way some of the transformations in the PSP version are instantaneous pops from vehicle to combat mode, maybe it's how the home-built physics in the PS3 version lets the Transformers punt a light pole or car more easily than just picking it up, and when they do, often object a few feet away will magically zoom into their hands. No part of the PS3 game feels especially next-gen beyond the resolution it runs at, so why are we still seeing clunky interaction with the world? In both versions the steering is clunky, but in the PSP one, it's not responsive enough, and in the PS3 one, there's very little sense of momentum or fun while driving in cars.
Perhaps the biggest source of frustration in the game is the PS3 version's insistence that things in this fairly sizeable levels has to take place in a small radius, and then regularly encourages the player to race to keep up with a target while still staying in that now-moving radius. Fine and dandy if you're on a flat plain, but everything from freeway guard rails to little tiny bits of debris from a building half the size of a tire can completely kill any forward momentum. Throw in enemies that can end up stuck in ravines shrouded in trees, impervious to weapons fire or enemies that can hit you with a blast wave powerful enough to knock you out of the "action zone" and you have a game that delights in punishing the player rather than letting them have fun.
Want more bitching? Sure, let's go with the combat, which feels limp and lacks any feeling of actually connecting in either version. None of the objects in the world seem to have much weight or heft to them, so throwing a bus is just as floaty as throwing one of those wonderful little drones the game loves to manufacture in unlimited quantities to mess with you while you try to pick stuff up to damage an enemy that can only be hurt by throwing stuff at it first. When the combat isn't terribly fun and the driving isn't really fun, and in one case the transforming between the two gameplay modes isn't even fun to look at, then there's clearly a problem here.
Part of the frustration comes from the fact that at times you can actually see a decent game peeking through here and there. The PSP game is almost all combat (which is fine, the driving portions are yawn-inducingly slow) but it's bogged down by a horrid framerate and clunky controls. Still, you can play wirelessly with friends and with the almost three dozen characters and variants to choose from, it's at least a nice slice of fan service. When roaming around in the PS3 edition, the game isn't half bad; little gems for unlocking the (usually pointless and frustrating) mini-games give you a little exploration bonus, and if you drive fast enough, slide around, blow stuff up and generally just act good or bad enough, you'll unlock bonus stuff from the movie.
But for every moment where the games start to look like they may be onto something, there's a million more where the game just makes you hate yourself for playing it. I could go into the bits on graphics and sound -- with the exception of having the original Optimus and Megatron voices involved, it's really little to speak of either way -- but there's just no need. Like this game, I'm going to put forward a modest effort to write a review, but in the end, all that really matters is message: Transformers doesn't have one beyond feeling like a phone-in effort, and your money can be better spent on something far more entertaining... Trust me.
