Transformers: The Game (Wii)

CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
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Overall score: 6.0 (3.0 stars)
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Gamespot editors' review

• Reviewed by: Alex Navarro
• Reviewed on: 06/26/2007
• Released on: 06/26/2007

Transformers: The Game is very much the archetypal movie-licensed game. It's got all the hallmark problems of the genre, including short length, overly simplistic mechanics, a barely-there story, and a bit of a sloppy feel. It is simply an excuse for fans of the upcoming live action film (and maybe even some fans of the old cartoons who, admittedly, will take pretty much anything they can get at this point) to run around, awkwardly beating up Autobots or Decepticons in various semidestructible environments. If that's all you want out of the game, then Transformers might provide you a few mild hours of entertainment. If you were hoping for something more, Transformers will probably just disappoint you.

The basic premise of the game is the same as the film's. The classic Transformers battle between good robots and evil robots has spilled over to planet Earth as the two warring sides search frantically for an artifact known as the AllSpark. The AllSpark is essentially the life force for all Transformers, which explains why they'd want to get it back. Sam Witwicky (voiced with appropriate "gee whiz!"-ness by Shia LaBeouf) is an average teenager who happens to hold the key to finding the AllSpark. From there, it's a race for both sides to find Sam and get the AllSpark. There might be more to the movie's plot than what is presented here, and you should really hope there is, because otherwise, we're all in for one exceedingly boring film. With the exception of a few bouts of basic dialogue between Sam and the various Transformers (including veteran TV series voice actors Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprising their roles as Optimus Prime and Megatron with about as much enthusiasm as you could hope for), there's almost no story to drive the game forward. In some respects that's not surprising, simply because with this method, almost none of the film is spoiled for you.

Gigantic robots smashing up a city should be more fun than this.

The one potentially interesting thing about Transformers is that it splits the game into two campaigns, with one for each faction. In the Autobots campaign, you'll play as Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Jazz, and others as you hunt for the AllSpark and try to protect Sam, and the rest of humanity, for that matter. On the flipside, the Decepticons campaign has you playing as Megatron, Starscream, Barricade, and company to track down the AllSpark and destroy the Autobots. While the opportunity to play as both the good and evil sides sounds enticing, you'll actually find that there's very little difference between the two campaigns.

Regardless of which side you pick, you'll be forced to slog through a copious number of missions that have you fighting easy-to-kill grunt Transformers using the same three-hit combo again and again, or racing around one of the game's few, somewhat open-ended environments trying to chase down one Autobot or Decepticon to fight a few times while using the same three-hit combo, as well as an occasional throw attack. These missions might have been more tolerable if the combat were a little more involved, but as it stands, you just need to mash on the melee attack button to blow through most enemies, and the few that aren't so easy just require a random object from the environment thrown at them to soften them up. As you are Transformers, you can also transform and roll out as one of several different vehicle types. However, driving is decidedly less fun than running around as a robot, as the cars handle very loosely and tend to get hung up on random environmental objects--which is odd, since when you hit other cars, they just go flying like they're made out of cardboard.

The lone bright spot comes from the Decepticons campaign. In certain missions, you're tasked with simply laying waste to one environment or another. Be it a big city or a sprawling military installation, these environments are fun to destroy. Your weapons fire does a lot of damage to buildings, cars, trees, and any other solid objects nearby. In the Autobots campaign, you can do the same types of damage, but it's all incidental, since you're ultimately trying to protect humanity--not lay waste to it. On the Decepticons side, your goal is to cause as much chaos as you can, and that can be a good bit of fun. What's neat is the way the destruction and battles are presented--explosions are frequent and large, the damage to buildings looks appropriately massive, and the combat moves you can pull off actually do look cool. Seeing Optimus running around, double-fisting pistols, and Blackout using his helicopter blades as a sword is pretty awesome. Part of that comes from some solid animation, but it also helps that the Transformer models are so highly detailed. Say what you want about the new robot designs from the movie--they're represented very well within the game, though the one issue is that sometimes you'll actually forget which Transformer you're playing as, since many of them look the same in robot form. That's really more the fault of the film's designs than anything else, though.

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	$29.99	Yes
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RadioShack.com	$29.99	Yes
Amazon.com Marketplace	$29.99	Yes

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Where to buy Transformers: The Game (Wii)

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• Deep Discount.com $28.99 Yes
• Best Buy $29.99 Yes
• Circuit City $29.99 Yes
• RadioShack.com $29.99 Yes
• Amazon.com Marketplace $29.99 Yes
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