XBox 360 Rally

The concept behind the Transformers couldn’t get any easier: Autobots vs. Decepticons. Good vs. Evil. There were no drawn out love stories. There was no political intrigue. There was no subtle attempt to slide social commentary in. All you had were two sides of robots that transformed from everything ranging from fire trucks (Optimus Prime), VW Beetles (Bumblebee) and F-15 Fighters (Starscream), to more “unique” items such as cassette tapes (Soundwave) and a Walther P38 (Megatron, baby!), into giant robots that would pound the living crap out of eachother day in and day out as they fought over the life-giving Allspark. You’d think there could be no way a developer could screw that up, right?

…well, somehow Activision found a way.

When you pop the game in, one of the first things you’ll do is pick your side. As you’d expect, there are two separate campaigns to play through; one for the Autobots, and one for the Decepticons. Without spoiling any possible plot-points from the film, all I will say is that the game’s storyline is loosely based on the film, with the mandatory side-missions thrown in to artifically inflate the replay value. I think I can safely reveal to you all that through both campaigns you are fighting the other side for control of the Allspark. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, the Allspark is to the Cybertronians (?) what the Holy Grail is to King Arthur, or what a Sega CDX is to me.

One major gripe I have is in the actual forwarding of the plot: The CGI cut-scenes between missions are so horribly compressed that they’re practically unwatchable. It’s not particularly acted well, either. Peter Cullen and Frank Welker (who ISN’T in the movie, for whatever reason) both do excellent jobs as Optimus Prime and Megatron, respectively. However, Shia LaBeouf sounds like he never stepped into a recording booth in his life. Those of you who have been reading my reviews over the years know that the voice acting is one of my pet peeves, and if it’s not delivered with some semblance of talent, I’m taken right out. This is the case here.

The gameplay is fairly basic: Go around the open-ended city from one mission to another to do the same old stuff every time. There is almost NO variety in the gameplay. Every mission boils down to either “Kill these enemies, move on, kill these enemies” or “Kill these enemies, move on, kill the enemies that are protecting item X, destroy item X”. You’ll wind up using the same three-hit combo over, and over, and over again to dispatch the bevy of disposable transformers, before having to chase down one of the actual Transformers for a boss battle that boils down to you using the same three-hit combo over, and over, and over again. Only this time you have to throw stuff at them, too. Yippee.

In addition to the combat being repetitive and boring, there are also times where it can be frustrating as all hell. The camera seems to be working against you at times, and the “Action Zone” feature works against you rather than making the game exciting. The Action Zone is essentially a circular space on the map that you have to stay in. When you get knocked out of these Action Zones (and you WILL get knocked out of them), there is a timer that counts down, and if you do not get back within the Action Zone before the timer is up, you fail the mission and have to replay it. This will grind away at your nerves as you play over the same mission, fighting the same disposable bad guys to get through the same damn room for the fourth or fifth time.

Graphically, the game is passable, but not impressive. The GoBot looking Transformers look like they do in the film, and there are some nice explosion effects when you beat an enemy’s face in, or blow up an entire neighborhood. However, the environments are not that spectacular, and the animations are passable at best. I found it cool watching your character transform from car to robot, but let’s be honest — these are NOT what our Transformers should look like.

Ok, THIS…

…is not Optimus Prime. THIS…

is Optimus Prime. This is fact. Accept it. (Forgive the incorrect color scheme)

Overall, the game is very underwhelming. The idea of robots beating the crap out of each other is a very, very good one. But outside the occasional smashing up the city as the Decepticons, there really is nothing too exciting. In the Autobots campaign you don’t get to play as Optimus nearly enough to make you happy, and both campaigns suffer from the same repetative gameplay mechanics that bring the fun WAY down. Travellers Tales has done some great work in the past with their LEGOS series, but even the best development houses can lay a giant turd from time to time. If you want a fun Transformers game, get the PS2 game from ‘04.

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