Transformers

Fans of Transformers will love this.

The vast environments coupled with simplistic objectives offer a refreshing approach to the genre, allowing you to progress as you please, destroying anything in your path and using either your robotic or vehicle form to traverse land.

From the lush environments down to the rust on Optimus Prime’s fender, the graphics in Transformers are outstanding.

A confident, playable, arcade shooter that almost does justice to a fantastic licence. Too short and fiddly to be a classic. [GamesMaster]

A special mention must also go to the Minicons, which provide for a lot more variation than expected, offering all manner of power ups and, when you’ve amassed a few to select from, allow you to gear yourself up more for a specific mission with the resultant tactical depth a welcome bonus to what is essentially another third person shoot ‘em up.

The large levels, number of enemies, and variety of weapons thanks to the minicons make the game stand out from most other third person action games.

Melbourne House have still done a fantastic job and the problems the game does have are very much overshadowed by the authenticity and fantastic gameplay contained within the game.

Ridiculous fun.

Gorgeous, fun, challenging, and offers a unique blend of gameplay that tailors itself to the type of gamer, even while they are playing. As an action game, you won’t find anything even close to this on the PS2.

Turns out many of the programmers and artists were fans of the series, and they not only did a remarkable job of bringing the characters to life, they also kick-started a potentially huge game franchise, as future titles will no doubt be even better.

After two decades, there's no rust on these Transformers. [18 June 2004, p.L2T 20]

The best Transformers game ever.

Transformers does a very solid job of capturing the visual style of the cartoon series while running on the PS2 hardware.

There’s certainly room for improvement, but Transformers has a lot to offer any fan of interactive destruction.

It’s fast, attractive and fun, and only a few shortcomings mar its presentation. The poor integration of the vehicular aspect of the license is the biggest disappointment, but sluggish controls and a weak story are also valid, if minor, gripes.

A near masterpiece, managing to not only stay utterly faithful to the subject matter, but in many respects creating a benchmark mech shoot 'em up that practically bends the PS2 out of shape for technical merit.

From the introductory scene featuring a Darth Vader-esque Megatron to the grand-scale boss fights later in the game, this is a thoroughly entertaining and well-constructed title.

What will stop you in your tracks is the scale, detail and beuty of the environments. Even after repeated play it's impossible not to pause and breathe in the magnificant view from the top of the Deep Amazon Temple. [May 2004, p.94]

A thoughtfully designed action shooter with massive, well-rendered and free roaming environments, a great range of enemies and an unparalleled range of gadgets and weapons with which to defeat them.

At the very least, it allows you to drive a truck through your enemies, jump into the air as a robot and come down fighting again. It must be said that this will be enough for a lot of people.

There are a few rough edges such as the enemy AI being a little too dumb and the plot being basically useless to the player, but when it comes to running through a level dispatching bullets right, left and centre, Transformers gets the job done with relative style.

While the game is substantive enough for everyone, it is the fans who will really appreciate it. Fans, rejoice - this is the best Transformers game yet. [July 2004, p.22]

Transformers has just enough of a bright, toy-like look to tickle the nostalgia of those who grew up with the cartoons and the hype, but the game stands up well on -- sorry again! -- its own two feet.

Once you dig into Transformers' gameplay, you'll find a surprisingly intense combat model that's pretty tough but also rewarding once you get a handle on it.

The atmosphere is somewhat ruined by lackluster music, sometimes shoddy level design, and repetitive battles, but if you don’t overdose on the game, you’ll have a lot of fun.

The controls could use a little work, we’d like to encounter more things to shoot, and it’d be nice to be able to play as more than three Autobots, but Melbourne House has laid the groundwork for what can become an exciting shooter series.

Kinda like last year's "Metal Arms," this over-the-shoulder robo-shooter totally ambushed me with how unexpectedly awesome it is. [June 2004, p.103]

However dumb, simple, and to the point it may be, Transformers offers serious, valid reasons to warrant play: The game is fun. The game is pretty. The game is polished. The game offers plenty of extras as enticements.

A memorable fight. [Aug 2004, p.7]

While better level design and improved pacing could have made Transformers even better, what's here is nothing if not enjoyable, and the unlockable bonus features are especially nice. [June 2004, p.55]

While this is infinitely superior to "Robotech: Battlecry," it's lacks the subtle mix of arcade with strategy that made "Gungriffon Blaze" such excellent yet shabbier bargain basket bargain.

A decent title that proves to be fun for a while. Unfortunately, it does get repetitive and there probably won’t be much replayability.

While it was fun to relive my youth, the game did get repetitive rather quickly.

Follows a very traditional gameplay formula, and even though it features it as a gimmick, transforming doesn’t give you much in the way of strategy, but it does deliver on action blastey goodness.

This title has plenty of flaws, but the main issue is that it's simply too typical and too clunky. [June 2004, p.128]

To actually control your Transformer, you’ll be feeling a very sluggish and irritating way of moving your character around. Some seem to think this is intentional in order to portray the image that your in control of a huge machine. I on the other hand see it more as a purely poorly implemented part of the game.

For anyone out there who are in dire need of a pure action Mech title for your PS2 you really can't go wrong with Transformers.

While encounters with the underling Decepticlones are somewhat dull, Decepticon boss fights are actually quite intense and difficult - at least until a weakness is revealed. [June 2004, p.92]

Playing multiplayer against other players that could transform into vehicles would have been something that could be expanded on quite considerably but unfortunately there is nothing at all.

It just doesn't feel like the Transformers. There's no character to the characters, no real reason to transform except to find a better battleground during a boss fight. [June 2004, p.69]

While Transformers is a great game, the replay value is surprisingly low. This is mostly because it consists of just a single player campaign mode. While increasing the difficulty level will bring different and more challenging combinations of enemies, the strategies remain the same.

Honestly, if this weren’t attached to such a fanatically nostalgic license and fan base, it would be just another vanilla robot action game.

A bit of affection for the characters certainly helps, and being at least a little entertained by the idea of robots turning into cars is almost a requirement. It's too bad the option isn't there to go online and duke it out with other players and their Minibot-enhanced Autobots or Decepticons.

If you're not fussed either way or Transformers don't especially tickle your fancy, then you'll still find a competent action adventure that whilst incredibly linear and lacking variation, is still essentially sound.

Very impressive power-ups...There's a lot of joy to be had by simply transforming and riding about.

Fun, but too annoying and limited to be anything more. It's technically impressive, but that's not all you pay for and, sadly, the gameplay can't cash the cheques that the visuals write. [May 2004, p.100]

The controls are where the game falls apart: Movement is imprecise, with every jump a disaster waiting to happen; targeting an enemy with any degree of accuracy is simply impossible. [June 2004, p.81]

Unfortunately, it’s near impossible to look past getting stuck in canyons with seemingly no way out, missing a jump and having to backtrack for five minutes, and endless load times to simply refill your health.

For fans of the Transformers license, this game has lots of cool extras to help disguise the fact that it’s really just an average action game.