Transformers: Decepticons
Activision, NDS 2007

In a nutshell: After a series of dismal-to-passable attempts, finally a Transformers game that’s fun past its own nostalgia/novelty. Also, it’s good to be evil. Definitely worth playing if you don’t mind iffy DS 3D rendering. (Wait for the console edition is you do mind.)

My world is somewhat shattered right now, in a good way. One of the cardinal rules of the game world has been that “If it’s based on a movie, it’s going to suck.” The reverse has been historically mostly true too. Unfortunately, every now and then a liscense will align just so, in a way that tempts me to bite. Transformers, a game based on a movie based on a cartoon based on some toys that were liscensed more or less at random from entirely different toylines, realized by a director who doesn’t even really care about the franchise and its numerous, already-tenuous plot lines.

Somehow, we’re getting a decent game out of this combination. I’m befuddled.

Though I had pre-orders in for both the PS2 and DS versions, the DS game came out a week earlier, so that’s what I’m going with for now. At first blush, one might assume the faction split release (two games; one from the Autobot/good guy point of view, and the other from the Decepticon/bad guy side of things) was meant as a Pokemon/MMBN style cash in to encourage people to buy both versions to nab all the exclusive content. However, it turns out they’re actually two completely different campaigns, and presumably are ‘watered down’ versions of the story paths in the as-yet-unreleased console edition.

Naturally, I picked the Decepticon edition, since it’s SCIENTIFIC FACT that being bad is more fun than being good. That and I loathe ‘defend the base/escort the truck’ style missions, so picking the faction less likely to do those kind of things played a good part in my choice. You play the part of a decidedly nondescript Decepticon, who’s also Starscream’s errand monkey. This does give you the limited ability to customize yourself, by scanning new vehicles to turn into and changing paint jobs (well, you can change the main color and highlight color. Sadly there’s no painting obscene emblems on your breastplate a la Mario Kart)

The overall flow of the game is a lot close to the second Hulk game or any number of Grand Theft Auto style games. You drive around a ‘free play’ area looking for glowing mission points- red missions are ‘challenge’ missions that don’t “count” per se; the goal is simply to get the most air time ramping off dunes or see how long you can survive against an onslaught of police and Sector 7 choppers while your health steadily drops. The green missions are the ones that advance the story, which in this case is (allegedly) an alternate version of the movie’s plot where the bad guys basically kick the Autobots’ ass at every turn thanks to the contributions of a technically-unnamed new Decepticon.

I guess when I sit back and dissect it like that it kind of sounds like bad fanfiction.

In some missions, you do get control of ‘real’ Decepticons, which is usually a treat in spite of the characters all being virtually identical. Blackout takes out radar dishes, Brawl takes on heavy combat, and Barricade chases Bumblebee through the suburbs bent on an asskicking. Once the game has been cleared as well, you gain the option to use them in free play as well.

There’s really only a handful of things that strike me as glaringly bad about this game. I’ll make a fair amount of leeway on the voice quality and graphics since it is just a DS game, but the clips of the panicking police officers and soldiers go from amusing to annoying pretty fast, not to mention that your own voice gives out an amazingly wussy “UHHH!” whenever you’re hit by heavy weapons. The missions in Qatar are especially bad for that one as battallions of tanks like to gang-rape you against the side of the hangar as you putter from point to point. Probably the sloppiest the engine gets is that things tend to pop in and out of existence pretty suddenly due to the limited rendering distance, meaning an Autobot will sometimes materialize or vanish around a nearby corner. The aforementioned army base raid is especially bad in that regard as huge swarms of choppers just kind of POOF into being while you line up a shot or try to scan things.

The biggest missed point by far is the wireless battle. Either by intentional vagueness or fan-made hype, I was expecting the “Battle for the AllSpark” to be a wi-fi free for all allowing owners of both versions to mix it up. Instead, head to head matches are limited to local wi-fi, and the online portion of the game has you download missions to complete in order to earn points and tokens for your faction. At the end of each day, they tally up which side is winning the war. Even just one on one wi-fi battling would have been a nice addition. (Why does no fighting game maker seem to do this, save Custom Robo?)

But enough of the negativity! You’d think I was talking about a game I didn’t like. For all the missed opportunities with the wireless play and a bad case of the Kryptonite Fog, it’s fun in itself to just tool about the city causing havok and searching for vehicle forms to scan and add to your reptoire. Frustratingly though, the police cars and SWAT vans that attack you don’t seem to be attainable forms. The “GTA-like” play even extends as far as a series of threat levels that rise as you generally make a menace of yourself. Even if it’s a pretty blatantly borrowed device, it works pretty well in keeping with the theme of giant robots trying (with varying degrees of success) to not cause a panic amongst the general populace. Autobots make for rather unpredictable foes as well. Police usually need some random destruction to attack, Autobots will attack you on sight if they’re nearby when you transform to robot mode. You start off rather limited in abilities, but as you level up, you’ll be able to scale buildings like King Kong and gain access to your weapons in vehicle mode. From the start though, you’ll be able to grab random objects, vehicles, or even Autobots and use them as projectiles/blunt instruments which is pretty god damn fun. Nothing gets me grinning like being surrounded by annoying Autobots, then seizing one and smashing his comrades with his flailing form before chucking him into a wall.

So, what have we learned today?

• There’s at least one movie based game out there that doesn’t cause internal hemorraghing.
• Barricade is Barricawesome(tm)
• News helicopters can outperform a Huey in most situations
• Don’t laugh at the Funky Bus. Seriously. It’ll fuck you up.

Oh yeah, I hate to spoil things for you, but that Starscream character you work for? it turns out he’s kind of untrustworthy!