Publisher: Activision
Developer: Traveler's Tales
ESRB Rating: Teen
Release Date: June 26, 2007

    Every blockbuster movie needs a video game, and the Transformers live action movie is certainly no exception-- let's face it, a giant-robots-tear-up-stuff movie is just begging to be made into a game, right? Published and developed by different people than those responsible for the great Transformers: Armada video game released a few years ago, many Transfans were iffy on this video game release even before much news about it was revealed, due to the fact that nearly every movie game is rushed, and Activision doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to games. The game was released for pretty much every console, but this review specifically refers to the Playstation 2 version-- although the game is pretty much identical in terms of gameplay, environments, and the like across the Wii, PS2, PS3, and XBox360, a few comments made in regards the game in this review may not apply to the game released on those other systems. (The PSP and Nintendo DS versions of the game, however, are both completely different-- this review doesn't apply to those games at all.)
    First, the positives. The graphics, though not mind-blowing (it is, after all, a PS2 game) are what's you'd expect from a game for this system, especially a sandbox game. Since sandbox games have to save more about the environment in their memory, the environments tend to be less detailed than in other PS2 games, and that's the case here as well. Some places, like parking lots and behind buildings, look particularly plain, but I can't really blame the developers for this-- it's the limiations of an aging console system. The Transformers models themselves are quite detailed for a game like this, however, and look quite impressive in both modes. The environments are nearly fully destructible, with your avatar being able to pick up nearly everything and swing or throw it around at enemies and vehicles. The only things that aren't fully destructible are the buildings-- you can reduce them to just a burning frame of a building, but they never actually collapse. It's here where the game really shines-- just the sheer amount of chaos and destruction you can cause-- even inadvertently as an Autobot-- is amazing, and just plain fun, especially when you're a Decepticon and your mission is to destroy a bunch of buildings. Strafing stuff is just plain FUN. The robot controls for the most part are well thought-out and work well with the controller setup, with one notable exception that I'll mention later when I get to the negatives.
    The missions for the most part are fairly diverse in their goals, ranging from randomly blowing stuff up to chasing other Transformers to taking out bosses. They also expand the movie plotline at points as well, which is pretty cool-- I mean, one of the bosses in the Autobot campaign is Shockwave, and his design is surprisingly complex and movie-verse-ish for not being made into a toy or being in the movie. A few minor things about the movie plot were changed for the purposes of the game, though-- for example, in the game Brawl kills You-Know-Who-If-You've-Seen-The-Movie, not Megatron. The actual story campaigns are, sadly, pathetically short, taking 2-3 hours to complete for each side, but the play time quadruples if you tackle all the optional missions/feats and find all the collectible items hidden throughout each level, which can unlock tons of Transformers pictures, movies, and even a few new skins for your characters, like G1 Optimus and G1 Megatron. Keeping all the optional quests and items in mind, the play time for the game is much more acceptable as you traverse the seven unique environments throughout the game. Four of those seven are somewhat large, but not impressively large for a sandbox game-- one IS pretty large, but is also used to death in the Autobot campaign-- and two are battling arenas on Cybertron that you unlock after you complete each side's campaign. The music is also quite good and epic-sounding, which is certainly appropriate for a game like this.
    You can also play as eight different Transformers characters (four on each side). As the Autobots, you can play as Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Bumblebee, and Ratchet, and as the Decepticons you can play as Barricade, Blackout, Starscream, and Megatron. Characters of a different size class, beyond looking different, tend to play the same, however-- Bumblebee, Barricade, and Jazz play the same as light, maneuverable cars; Megatron, Starscream, and Blackout all play as large airborne fliers; and Ironhide and Optimus Prime play the same as less maneuverable big truckers that can plow through almost anything in their path.

    Alright, that's most of the good stuff you'll find this game has to offer-- now we get to the negatives. First off, by far the most annoying parts of this game are the final missions as the Decepticons. They're just so slagging impossibly IMPOSSIBLE, I had to resort to cheat codes near the end. They'll make you want to crack your PS2 in half, they're so frustrating. The Autobots campaign has a difficulty that is much more reasonable. The part that makes the difficult parts difficult is rather annoying, as well, and is mainly blamed on two things-- the fact that it's too difficult to pick up the object you want to pick up and the fact that some drones are too annoying and difficult to defeat. The tougher drones all have something in common-- they're invulnerable and knock you away unless you throw a heavy object like a car at them, stunning them, and then move in for the kill. The thing is, for these drones you have to repeat this process THREE TIMES EACH, which takes entirely too long considering how many things are firing at you by this point in the game. It also takes too long to pick up something, and the mechanism for picking it up is clumsy-- there's just so much debris everywhere in the middle of a big fight that you usually end up picking up a light useless thing next to the big heavy thing you WANTED to pick up, which means you have to waste more time throwing it away and picking up the thing you really wanted in the first place. Also, every drone and enemy Transformer in the game is completely invulnerable to firepower, regardless of whether they've been knocked down or not-- whenever you fire at them, they automatically put up a force field and deflect it, no matter what. Obviously, it's rather annoying that your weapons can only be used effectively on human cannon fodder helicopters and cars, which at times can get so numerous they can get frustrating as well, since no matter how many helicopters and tanks you blow away, they'll just respawn a short while later and pepper you again. The boss fights are also rather cheap-- the bosses themselves are cake, since all you have to do is run up to them and beat up on them, but after their health gets down to a certain point they'll always take off and run to another location, leaving some drones-- the really annoying kind-- behind for you to fight. And this will always happen at LEAST twice for every boss fight. This definitely seems off, as the drones are so much harder to kill than the actual bosses. The boss fights against Ironhide and Optimus Prime are especially guilty of this annoying "cheap trick".
    There are also these stupid things called "action zones" in the game, which is basically a small circle around the current mission area that you can't leave for more than a few seconds or the you fail the mission. But the drones and bosses can leave those areas, and can continue to pummel you. This doesn't happen often, but you CAN just get pummelled relentlessly out of the "action zones" and lose even if the mission itself is going rather well and you haven't failed any of its actual goals.
    The cutscenes are also way too short-- most are less than five seconds and aren't particularly needed, they could have been rendered in-engine just as effectively-- and honestly only look so-so for cutscenes. When I heard that the same people who did the Marvel Ultimate Alliance cutscenes were doing these, I got my expectations up quite high, but the cutscenes in the game only look "average". The movements look particularly unrealistic in said cutscenes. The stories are also really simpified-- the Autobot story isn't too bad, seeing as how it follows the movie, but I was really expecting more from the "alternate outcome" Decepticon campaign. I expected it to start the same and branch off wildly from there, but it really just follows an ultra-simplstic version of the movie story except that you kill\ the Autobots and de-facto take control of the world, somehow, at the end-- though I must confess, the final scene in the final cutscene in the Decepticon campaign IS cool, for a reason I won't divulge here to avoid spoilers. Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime is also the only movie voice actor of note to reprise his role in the video game-- Megatron is done by his original G1 voice actor, Frank Welker, which is a nice G1 nod, but it doesn't sound anything like Hugo Weaving's Megatron in the movie, so it's a bit disconcerting.
    There are also a few things apparent in the game that are typical symptoms of a rushed game. The manual is pathetic, and doesn't tell you much more than the controls for each character-- there is no explanation, in-game or in the manual, for what the various collectible items/skills/sidequests in each level are for, for example. There are also missing explanations in one or two missions for what to do next-- for example, in one mission near the end of the Decepticon campaign, you're supposed to climb the tallest building in the vicinity to try to get Optimus Prime out of hiding, but there is NO HINT in-game whatsoever goading you to do that, which means you'll likely fail that particularly long and difficult mission because of something stupid. The only reason I found out about it was by looking at an online walkthrough. The driving physics are also completely whacked and hard-to-control-- you can turn way too fast no matter what speed you're going, and this can really screw you up a lot during chases. If you're playing as an aerial Transformer, it's not much better-- the physics aren't too bad here, but they're just a bit hard to control as they're going so fast. Additionally, a few bugs are apparent in the game-- once, I had a pillar crumble after I smashed into it, but the top of the pillar stayed suspended in mid-air for some reason. And, although it's never happened to me, some people have said you can get stuck climbing buildings. There's also no character select screen before you enter an environment-- this is fine for the actual story missions, since obviously certain Transformers need to/are capable of pulling off certain missions, but it makes no sense that you can't choose which TF to play as when you're just searching for collectibles. Especially since the default character for 3 of the 4 main environments in the Autobot campaign is Bumblebee. A few of the unlockable pictures in the extras gallery were also duplicates of each other, which was kind of annoying.

    Overall, the Transformrers Movie game (at least for the main consoles) is not a particularly impressive game, and has more than its fair share of hair-pulling moments, but I don't think it deserves quite as bad of a rap as many professional gaming review sites give it. Beating up robots, shooting stuff, and destroying buildings is still tons of fun, even if it is repetitive, and I also like item-hunting which adds a lot of playtime to the game as well. The Armada video game from a few years ago is better than this one, no question, but if you're a fan of the movie-verse I'd still mildly recommend this game. Just be aware that you'll probably have to resort to cheat codes during a few particularly aggravating missions near the end of the Decepticon campaign.

Graphics: 9/10
Music: 10/10
Gameplay: 9/20
Storyline: 6/10
Level Design: 7/10
Cutscenes: 5/10
Controls: 11/20
Replayability: 6/10

Overall Rating:63/100 Above Average

(Screencaps taken from Gamespot.com)

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