I know I posted this on another thread but I was thinking that it's probably not in a good spot, or in an inappropriate spot. Anywho, if you want to skip the main read, I have a section of pro and cons and the overall score at the bottom. Hope it's informative to those who havent gotten the PSP version and are considering their options. ------Review-------- Okay, we have Transformers now avilable for the PSP. Transformers is about two factions of alien robots that're at war with each other. These two factions are called the Autobots, the heros, and the Decpticons, the villans, and they're fighting for a relic called the Allspark which landed on Earth. The Transformers have the unique ability to change their physical appearance and disguise themselves as earth vehicules. Onto the gameplay. It's best to describe this game as a third person shooter, at the start of each stage, you have the choice of configuring weapons loadout. You have 4 weapons to configure, an energy weapon, a ballastics (bullets) weapon, a missile weapon and finally grenades or trap style weapons. Sadly, the PSP version does not let you choose what Autobot or Decpticon at the start of each level, but each character does perform in their own unique ways, such as Optimus Prime, leader of the autobots, being slow, but powerful. Then you'll have Barracade, a Decpticon scout who is fast, but his weapons arnt deadly, but get a higher rate of fire for his weapons. The combat is pretty straght forward, your find your enemies and begin to shoot at them. Sometimes it's the combat is bland due to your charactering being slow and can hardly avoid enemy projectiles, the combat can end up being a giant walking "turret" match. Your selection in weapons do provide a nice variatey. The environments do get affected too, buildings will blow up, cars are being thrown, and bridges collasping. You replenish your heath by killing enemies and picking up their energon cubes. The melee combat is not a strong feature of this game. Most of the time your character will do the same punch animation to an enemy but they're suppose to follow the punches into a combo, it's argrovating because the final move is suppose to be a powerful attack dealing more damage. Players can block opponents melee attacks, by pushing back and attack, but the blocking as a bug in it. Once the enemy starts to attack you in melee, your character may randomly block even though the you're not pushing back on the analogue stick. I've had to run away from a melee fight multiple times because of this and go in with guns. The AI doesnt do anything fancy, like working as a team, or trying to out flank the player, but they are agressive and the AI will get straght into the fight. This makes the action actually rather fast paced and there are plenty of enemies to shoot and you get a good variatey of enemies to shoot at as well. You'll be shooting at transformer drones, who will even turn into cars or jets to chase you. Decpticons will be attack the american military who fight back with tanks, helicopters, and exparmental vehicules. There is much to shoot at. Now, all Transformers have the ability to change into a certain vehicule. Some vehicule's may not seem as impressive as others, such as Trailbreaker turning himself into a van while Starscream turns into a fighter jet, but each vehicule mode actually works itself out well in the end. Optiums Prime who is slow in his robot mode turns into a semi truck and can get inscreased speed. Fortunately, in vehicule mode you still have access to some weapons to shoot, but your firepower is severly limited. The driving controls are pretty basic, you have your analogue stick to steer, one button to accelerate and another to brake/reverse. The driving physics are more arcade style but it works well for the game. The controls for flying in jet mode are pretty fun as well, but the game does not provide you with advanced maneuvers, just the basics of turning left or right, going up and down, and speed. Controling a helicopter has to be the most confusing and difficult. You use the analogue stick to move forward and back, and side to side. You use the square and circle buttons to turn, and triangle and X buttons to adjust your pitch. Then you have to hold the left shoulder button and hit triangle or X to move up or down. More about the controls. In robot mode you move the analogue stick to move your character forward or back, and then to turn side to side. The Triangle and X buttons make you aim up or down and both shoulder buttons pressed together transform your character from robot to vehicule and back. Square is your attack and square allows your to pick up objects such as buses, light poles, benches and the like. Up on the D-Pad that allows you to do a special move but the special move at times do no damage to the enemies despite them standing next to your transformer. The game provides you also with an auto lock on but this feature is as difficult as it is helpful. You can lock onto your enemies to help your aim, but the auto lock constantly breaks dispite the fact that the player has not hit any buttons. Sometimes the autolock wont even lock onto an enemy dispite the fact that they are standing a few yards away from and in front. Still though, it is better that the game had this feature than none at all, it really does help assist handling the shooting for the PSP, but at times it does become agrovating to even get a lock. The graphics are pretty good on this handheld system. The characters animation are good and the transforming animations do a good job for a handheld system, it's sort of glitchy but it's still cool to watch. The environments are big and mostly destructive. Builds break apart and dust kicks up. Snow will fly up as you accelerate though an artic wasteland. The voice work is good and found it enjoyable listening to the Transformers speak to each other. A very nice treat is that the orignal Megatron from the 80's cartoon does the voice of the same villan, and the orignal Optimus Prime does the same for his character. Some sound bites are bland, such as laser blasts but most of them are good. Most levels also provide good use of both robot mode and vehicule mode. Now the PSP version advertises the chance to play as over 20 Transformers. There is a large selection of characters but the problem is that your choice for characters is only for multiplayer mode, players do not have a choice of who they can be in single player. This wouldnt be so bad if the game had infastructure (online play) mode for it's multiplayer, but sadly, you'll have to find a friend who owns a PSP and the Transformers game to connect via wireless. This can be very discouraging because the single player game does not provide a chance to play as the leader of the Decpticons, Megatron or other characters that players may have an internest in. The PSP version of Transformers is a bumpy road of postives and negatives. It's not a bad action title but far from the best that's already avilable, but the game does provide content that give a nod to the Transformers universe, such as playing as Decpticon Shockwave. The level design is good and the chase sequenses are fun. Multiplayer can be great experience but the chance of getting to play with a friend can be rare. This game is worth getting but not for the full $40 dollar price. Pros: Good level design. Good Graphics. Transforming is cool. Weapon varatey. Enemy varatey. Destruction. Voice acting. The action doesnt stop. Cons: Bad melee combat. Lack of opportunity to play as various characters. Annoying auto lock on. Helicopter controls are tough. The action is repetitive. No online multiplayer. Extremely short single player. Score 6/10
I very much agree with you, as another owner of the game. A huge part in making the gameplay more of a chore is the implementation of the controls. Perhaps this will change with other control scheme options (I admit I have not yet tried them), but there are mistakes even to the point of your "Fire Weapon" button NEVER BEING THE SAME between any given modes. The copious glitches overall make it feel like, well, a rushed movie tie-in game from a gameplay standpoint. The voicing and story are really what make me want to truck on through the single-player, to be perfectly honest.
Like I said in another thread, use the 'Retro' control scheme. It's a huge redeeming factor to an otherwise disappointing game. -Analog stick controls camera -X, circle, triangle and square become forwards, backwards and strafe buttons -Right shoulder button becomes firing button IN ALL MODES. Huge plus. -Cross buttons remain the same. Left to pick up, right to cycle through weapons, up for special move and down for target lock. Give it a try!
And DS. Don't forget about the DS versions. Thanks for the review. It's a shame that it doesn't sound so good, but I don't have a PSP, so it doesn't bother me none
Let me chip in and say yeah, pretty much. The mission scheme makes absolutely no sense to me. The layout of character changes for each sub-plot makes no sense. And the control layout is a real downer. At least, the default layout. The gameplay itself is sort of repetative. And I still can't get used to the idea of being scrapped by the "sky wall" when I'm a helicopter as Blackout trying to move up. In a lot of ways, it feels incomplete. But I guess that's the nature of the movie-game beast. Sadly, it sounds like the DS got a much better deal out of this. MUCH better.
There's some videos up on IGN of the PSP version. Although I don't own a PSP, I downloaded a couple of them to see what it looked like in motion. I can't really comment on the overall presentation of the graphics, because I haven't seen many PSP games, but as for the animation... dear God in Heaven... I couldn't even tell that Bumblebee was punching the guy. He sort of twitched and there was the punch sound. The same exact sound that plays every time one character punches another. And the transformations... what transformations? All I saw was the robot disappear and a car appear in his place, and vice versa. Color me thankful that the console versions are being made by a different (and more reputable) developer.
The game really picks up after you go to Cape Canaveral with Shockwave. It's not the greatest game, but it's enjoyable.
It is really cool playing as Shockwave and Hound, I think that those're the best levels of the game. I liked the stages that where wide open and you played as Starscream, those stages sort of remind me of Desert Strike. I really wish there was a crosshair in jet mode, I can't line up my strafing runs so good.
Its odd. The first couple of levels range from bearable to aweful. Then you hit levels with Hound and Starscream and dammit, it's fun! What a mixed bag of surprises. Definitely a rushed game. It could have been a decent game. What is surprising is that the DS version looks so much better. Even graphically!
Heads up, SPOILERS, kinda... I just realized at how serious the Autobots have to be in those stages where you play as Prowl. Prowl and Trailbreaker had to open fire on humans. I'd really like to play it's multiplayer, I think that the multiplayer might be a very strong feature to the PSP version.
Once I beat it I'll write a followup. If it really does get better after the first while, might be worth posting a savegame that lets you skip the painful bits.
To answer that questions... SPOILERS (now how the hell do I make silver text) They have to use Sector 7 satallite dishes to upload a computer virus into a Decpticon transmitter to halt their drone army, their really big drone army.
