Transformers: Decepticons (DS)

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The audio mainly consists of a decent assortment of weapon and explosive noises, along with some hilarious radio chatter comments from nearby police and military vehicles. Robots that attack you will occasionally voice a taunt as well, and their laser blasts sometimes make the "ch-ch-choo" sound that the lasers made in the 1980s cartoon series. Story scenes put together with in-game graphics and recorded voice dialogue frequently appear, but what's really impressive is just how much recorded dialogue the developers managed to cram into a DS cartridge. Every story scene has at least a few lines of conversational dialogue, and each version of the game probably has around 30 unique story scenes. Activision wisely enlisted Peter Cullen and Frank Welker to lend their voices to "Optimus Prime" and "Megatron," respectively, just as they did in the cartoons. Steve Blum and Keith David do a great job voicing the generic bot and "Barricade" respectively. Transformers: Autobots and Transformers: Decepticons set a new standard for both the amount of and the quality of voice acting in a DS game.

For the most part, both versions of the game provide the same experience. Each version has five robot skins that the other doesn't, but the underlying transformations are identical in both games. You'll attempt a couple more stealth and escort related missions in the Autobots version, while the Decepticons version has a few more rampage missions. However, the bulk of missions in both games are structured similarly. The only upside that one version has over the other is that it's easier to gain experience and build strength in the Decepticons' game, because they gain experience from destroying property and police vehicles. The goodie-goodie Autobots are supposed to protect humanity, so they only earn experience by trashing Decepticons and completing missions.

Whichever side you play, you will have to develop a certain tolerance for the targeting cursor and camera position. The targeting cursor will sometimes lose hold during the heat of battle, and the camera will often do a 180 if you take damage, which leads to numerous missed shots and plenty of time spent holding the shoulder button to move the camera back where you want it. Most of your deaths and mission failures won't be caused by your own lack of skill, but because the cursor and camera make it tough to keep track of your enemies. Thankfully, your character's health grows with every level upgrade, so deaths caused by the camera, and just deaths in general, happen less frequently the longer you play.

In addition to the main story mode, the game also offers a multiplayer battle mode and a unique, online score-attack mode. The multiplayer battle mode is nothing special. Four people pick their bots and duke it out in deathmatch or keep-away matches. The score-attack mode, on the other hand, is actually rather interesting. Each day, you log into a server and download a new challenge mission. These missions are timed and typically involve destroying property or catching air off of jump ramps. For the rest of the day, you play the mission as often as you like and build up a score. Then, at the end of the day, you log back in and your score will be uploaded. The interesting aspect is that people playing the Autobots version of the game are all on one side, while everyone that bought the Decepticons version is on the other. The scores on both sides are added together and the side with the highest score is declared the winner for that day. At the end of the week, the team with the most daily wins gains possession of the "Allspark." Based on how significant your contribution is, you'll receive in-game tokens each day that eventually unlock the vehicle skins that aren't present in the main story mode.

As you can see, the differences between the two versions of the game are mostly cosmetic. Some people will enjoy the Decepticons version more because you gain experience faster and don't have to complete as many stealth missions, although that's really a matter of personal taste. In either case, the games look nice, the voice acting is marvelous, and transforming into vehicles and beating up on other robots is fun. It's just too bad Activision chose to publish two individual versions instead of a single game. The dodgy camera and targeting may be annoying, but all the filler missions and the overall short length of the story suck a lot of the joy out of being a Transformer.

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