Ah, I've got fond memories of the Transformers animated movie, complete with the awesome opera rock soundtrack that rounded out what was a great cheese-fest of a movie. [Ah yes, it was the first VHS video I ever owned, a true classic that I love to this day and enjoyed when I watched it recently on DVD! They were my favorite toys as a kid too, I had dozens of 'em. Anyway, enough nostalgia, I'd better shut up and let Chris get on with his review! Transform-Ed.] Though the rock opera is gone from the new Michael Bay film, there's plenty of cheese left behind. The same can be said for the videogame based upon the film, however in this case it's not quite such a good thing - and definitely doesn't make for an entertaining experience.

Transformers: The Game drops you right into the action as either the Autobots or the Decepticons (good and evil in the Transformers world, basically). Assuming that you start off as the Autobots, you begin as Bumblebee in his classic muscle car disguise, driving around an open city, ramming cars at will and transforming into a fully-fledged robot to jump from rooftop to rooftop. While the game is set up in a free roaming structure, it differs from most other open-ended affairs. Each chapter, which consists of five to six missions, takes place in a new zone that you can roam around in, but they aren't all that big. Essentially, the open areas just act as a hub between missions, which are scattered around the area and can be replayed whenever you like.

There isn't actually a lot to do around the cities themselves. Plenty of cubes are scattered around to be collected, but I can't say it's actually fun to run around and try to find them all. Once you get enough of these, you can compete in small side missions if you desire, but these don't offer much additional fun either. The main problem with Transformers is that none of the mission types are actually very enjoyable due to the numerous restrictions placed upon them. Many of the levels simply consist of you beating up multiple enemies within one specific zone, which you can't leave or you fail the mission, then driving quickly to another zone and repeating. In some instances you have to chase enemies or destroy something and everything is on a time limit. The problem is, there are a lot of factors that really reduces the amount of fun you can actually have - sometimes you can get stuck in enemy combos, or enemies can get knocked out of the combat zone and simply wander around the huge map ignoring you, but you can't follow them or you fail for leaving the zone. Other issues, such as getting stuck on objects and losing time, shoddy item pick up detection and not being able to change the direction you're attacking after beginning a combo really plague the overall experience, to the point where there are few good aspects remaining.

However, one of them that stands tall throughout is the great amount of destruction you can cause throughout the game, with very little slowdown. Buildings don't completely collapse, but they all have alternate models that they break down into when hit, and virtually everything around you reacts to attacks in some way. Trees and poles fall over and can be used as giant bats or spears, cars can be rammed and flip through the air like a true Michael Bay film portrays (although other, smaller objects refuse to budge when hit) and the Transformers get knocked into the air and go soaring into other objects with great satisfaction. Obviously the most requested feature of the game is going to be the ability to switch between full robot mode and vehicle mode at will and this has been implemented into the game, though you'll spend a good amount of time in battle mode, only switching to your vehicle mode to drive to the next marker in time, or missions with special objectives that your vehicle mode.

The core gameplay is quite simplistic overall. There are two fire buttons - a light and strong projectile attack - and one close range melee combo. As a robot you can jump and as a vehicle you can powerslide and use nitro, all the usual expected things but not much else. Unfortunately, nearly all the vehicles handle very similarly, featuring very slippery physics that aren't a lot of fun to use, while the three-button combos severely limit the scope of the combat. Ultimately you end up simply throwing an object to soften up the larger foes then hitting them over and over until they retreat to perform some sort of attack, then you throw something at them again to stop it. These objects can be swung at anything around you, but the baseball style attacks seriously lack any kind of impact and mostly feel as if you're swinging right through the enemies. Outside of small enemy drones and objects, your firepower is useless as enemies have shields that completely deflect your attacks.

The major difference between each Transformer, apart from what they transform into obviously, are their various projectile attacks and different three-hit combos; though, each combo does the same damage, just looks a bit different. Certain Decepticons, as any fan knows, transform into aerial vehicles that opens up the gameplay a bit more for their campaign. In fact, most of the fun to be had throughout the entire game is found here, specifically in the destruction levels. Whereas the Autobots fight to protect the city, despite the fact that you will still cause massive amounts of damage to it, the Decepticons have missions specifically for blowing up a good amount of buildings and cars. These missions are the only time that the game lifts its strict and suffocating barrier system and allows you to just go wild as a giant robot; and it feels great!

Despite being a bit lackluster in the texture department at times, the Transformers themselves are very highly detailed and extremely well animated; there's even a shaky cam effect when you're on foot. The buildings explode with enough 'oomph' to satisfy fans, but the cut scenes could have used a lot of work, while the overall cityscapes leave a lot to be desired. Still, seeing Blackout using his helicopter blades as a sword is truly awesome and each Transformer has wonderful animations for switching between forms. The amount of destruction, as well as the lighting, really do show off the power of the 360 and help the atmosphere of the game quite a bit.

With great destruction comes great sound effects - or so you'd hope. Transformers does offer solid effects for the objects in the environment, while the amount of extras, such as police sirens and other car horns, is a nice touch. The music is epic and sounds like it's straight from the movie, although it isn't particularly noticeable, while the voice acting is basically what you'd expect from a Transformers product. Some of it is great, though still very campy, and the rest is a bit flat, but for die-hard fans it really isn't going to matter!

Transformers: The Game offers a chance to play as your favorite masters of disguise, as well as your favorite masters of the skies with the Decepticons, but the uninspiring structure of the game, as well as the various bugs, severely dampen the experience. Having barriers around the area limiting where you can go is completely pointless, especially considering that you will fail missions simply because enemies refuse to come near you, while time limits causing you to restart a mission because you were a second away from driving to the next magical circle are annoying in the extreme. The only reason I can see for these things to be included is that the game is too easy and the developers needed a way of increasing the challenge. The lack of attack options makes the game a chore to play after a while too, but luckily it's so short that you'll be able to at least finish one campaign before you decide you've had enough. The developers needed more time to figure out how to transform this into a truly fun game, because as it stands it's nothing more than a typical movie-game disguised by good graphics.

Reviewed by Christopher Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).