Transformers Animated: The Game review (DS)

The game falters when it tries to mix things up. Combat is an empty, button-mashing affair, and there's almost no technique required to survive. Even when Prime and Bulkhead are subjected to seemingly unavoidable hits--neither of them can jump, remember, and their blocking animations are a little too slow to be effective at all times--they can take so many hits that it's difficult to lose. The car chase levels aren't much fun since they employ a rigid slot-car mechanic. You can transform into robot form to take down enemies by tapping them with the stylus, but this too is hardly challenging thanks to how slow your targets are. At the risk of committing Transformers blasphemy, it would have been better for the game to play to its strengths and do away with these scenarios altogether, even though they're the only levels in which you can transform.

Thankfully, combat occurs in short, tolerable bursts, and the car chase levels barely comprise a fifth of the game's 25 stages. The bad news is that aside from those stages, the game is relatively bare-bones. Even for those in the younger audience, the game can be beaten in a handful of hours. The promise of "unlockables" in the main menu results in nothing more than the opportunity to watch the full-motion video cutscenes that you've already seen in between levels.

Nevertheless, Transformers Animated: The Game gets enough right to be a competent, decently made game that doesn't rely on its license to succeed but remains faithful to it. Well, except for the lack of actual transforming.