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Activision's next summer blockbuster arrives with a bang. Transformers fans weren't eager to embrace the movie when it was first announced but subsequent trailers have warmed them up to the idea. It's gone from "Why bother?" to one of the summer's most anticipated movies. But it wouldn't be a summer blockbuster without a big game attached. Thankfully, Activision and Vicarious Visions have filled the void.
Transformers' story is very loosely based on the movie. There’s a battle brewing between the Autobots (good) and Decepticons (bad) over something called AllSpark, which both groups want. While the console and PSP versions let you play as key Transformers in either side, the DS version has you playing as a user-customizable character brought in to help the Autobots (in “Autobots”) or the Decepticons (in “Decepticons”) for part of the game. Both versions do have Story missions that correlate with the movie and in these missions you do play as characters from the movie. The non-Story missions, though, are where you level up your created Transformer.
As you can imagine, Transformers is an entirely different beast on the DS. Both games are open-ended and manage to create sizeable locations on the DS. The missions themselves are a mixture of racing, chasing, fighting, and rescuing missions. Both games are obviously told from the perspective of whatever side you’re fighting on, although it isn’t rare to complete the same mission in the other game with the only difference being the character you’re controlling. There are other examples where it looks like Vicarious Visions simply switched the models around, and while this isn’t necessarily bad, it does make little sense to purchase both games. The game punishes you for killing civilians by sending members of the opposition to try to stop you. While this makes sense in Decepticons (the Autobots wouldn’t tolerate that kind of thing), it makes little sense when Decepticons come in to stop the Autobots from killing civilians.
The game includes Deathmatch and AllSpark Olympics (Capture the Flag) multiplayer modes. The game automatically assigns you to a team depending on the version of the game you’re using. Additionally, the game lets you upload some stats to Activision’s servers. It’s more of a novelty than anything else, but seeing who is winning the war (the version with the highest stats) is kind of cool.
Vicarious Visions is known for pushing the DS hardware to the limits and Transformers is no exception. The actual Transformers character models won’t blow you away, but the animation impresses. The transformation animation from the other versions appears here relatively unscathed and looks mightily impressive for a DS game. The environments, while not detailed, are large and show remarkable scope for a DS game.
The sound package is very impressive, thanks to the actual actors lending their voices for the game. The soundtrack is mostly comprised of modern rock songs, which is in sync with what we expect from the movie. The game's various sound effects, especially the explosions, are all good.
Transformers on DS is a good if unremarkable robot game. The gameplay is enjoyable though a touch too repetitive, but the game does have likeable characters and solid production values. There isn’t much different between both versions of the game, so like Pokemon, you’re getting 99.9% of the gameplay with either version. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Jun 27, 2007
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