Why was the 2007 game so mediocre?

Discussion in 'Transformers Video Game Discussion' started by TheWarPathGuy, Apr 3, 2021.

  1. TheWarPathGuy

    TheWarPathGuy As cool as the earth is blue!

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    The 2007 Transformers game was the first brand new TF game in 3 years, the 2004 game coming out before. Transformers always had a difficult transition to video games, and this one fits the bill.

    Let's talk about the developer, Traveller's Tales, who you may know for developing Sonic R, some Crash games and nowadays they put most of their resources on developing the Lego games, were given the task of developing a game based on the toyline and summer blockbuster. From the 80's to the early 2010's movie games were pretty common, but frequently rushed to release around the same time of the film. There are some hidden gems though, like Spider-Man 2, the ROTF game, Goldeneye (although this released a little after the film), and many more.

    Jon Burton, the founder of TT games and director said he developed this game for pre-teens who enjoyed the movie. He was aware of the TF franchise, but he wasn't fully invested in it. Despite this he and his team inserted alot of references to the generation one cartoon in the form of palette swaps, Shockwave as a boss, and some of the buildings being named after characters like Seaspray and Metroplex. Jon Burton also said while he knew people didn't enjoy the final game, he was proud of the final product and will defend it.

    I respect developers who are aware when their game isn't good, but enjoyed making it. But, I still gotta roast it.

    For positives, this is impressive for a PS2 game. I played this game on am emulator and damn, this game holds up nicely. Though, some of these character models are so fucking ugly. I know it was it late PS2 game, but come on guys. Seeing the Xbox 360 and PS3 version, it's a huge improvement over the presentation. The game has 5 maps, and their pretty big, so there is a lot to do. The destruction is satisfying, and destroying the city for fun is a treat.

    The voice actors are talented. This game is the first time in over 20 years Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprised the roles of Optimus Prime and Megatron retrospectively. AND HOLY SHIT, KEITH DAVID NEEDS TO DO MORE VOICE WORK IN TRANSFORMERS, HIS BARRICADE IS BADASS. Positives over, now for the negatives.

    Firstly the gameplay. The Transformers feel... slow. I know their giant robots, but the Transformers in the film were much more acrobatic and fast, this game makes them clunky to control. The physics are also pretty bad, in alt mode Transformers seem to be stopped by goddamn lamp posts and fences. Which can bring high speed chases to a screeching halt, and on worse cases fail missions because the player is flung 20 feet into the air by tapping a building.

    The combat is bad. You can do a three hit combo (that sometimes changes animations), shoot enemies (each character has a unique projectile), and throw things. 90% of the enemies of the game are immune to gunfire... which kinda makes it pointless, so you either have to throw objects or get close. The enemy types are whatever. The most annoying ones are the dipshits with the chains, who you can only hit if you can throw something. These enemies will most likely piss you off. The boss fight with Ironhide when you are Blackout is obnoxious because he throws fucking explosions at the player and it will catch you off guard.

    I could list more negatives, but I'll let it slide. It's not a good game, but it's enjoyable to an extent. If you like Transformers check it out, but don't have very high expectations.
     
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  2. CaioSilvatheScreamerFan

    CaioSilvatheScreamerFan Destron New Leader

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    It was the first Transformers game i ever played and owned, i remember having lots of fun but never finished it, i mean, i think i did finish the Autobots campaign but that´s it, wish there was an option to change characters insteasd of being stuck with whoever was your bot in the last mission, Optimus isn´t even available for use in the overworld, i remember Bee´s mission in Sector 7 to fight Megatron who was using the All Spark being insanely frustrating, the game had a bit of a GTA feel in that i often would cause chaos and run around the map being chased by authorities, hell you can even do some kind of wallcrawling in the last map
     
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  3. TheUltimateBum

    TheUltimateBum Nautica Lover

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    I like this game a lot, but I wish that you could use weapons much more. The fact that you can only use them on Swindles, Scrappers, human vehicles and other minor things really bothered me.

    It also bothered me that you can't select characters to roam free after finishing the game. It isn't a big problem in the Decepticon side of things, but in the Autobot side, you only can use Optimus and Bumblebee after finishing the game. Seriously, I want to be able to use Jazz after finishing the game.

    But other than that, I still have fun with the game, but I still feel that the following games did a lot of things better, though I still have to give this one credit for all the destruction you can cause around you, none of the other games allow you to destroy anything unless it's part of a mission, so that's a major advantage.
     
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  4. CaioSilvatheScreamerFan

    CaioSilvatheScreamerFan Destron New Leader

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    his grenades were so fun to use
     
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  5. TheUltimateBum

    TheUltimateBum Nautica Lover

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    Yeah, they really were.
     
  6. Magnus Leader

    Magnus Leader Young Optimus Prime is the Best Optimus Prime.

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    Two Words = F*cking Shields.

    The melee combat was mediocre compared to other brawler games. Picking up and throwing objects to start off a lot of "combos" soon got old real fast.

    Why were the playable characters given guns if the player couldn't use them on enemies that really gave you a hard time?

    Warning for profanity in the video review down below, but the section from 3:53 — 7:33 really encapsulates my beef with the game's useless guns, amongst other issues.

     
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  7. GeoSociety

    GeoSociety Quit

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    I always thought it was stupid how throughout the whole game as an Autobot, the Sector 7 / Military vehicles constantly attack you despite them actually fighting with the Autobots in the actual movie. It's hilariously distracting especially in boss battles when there's suddenly a brigade of tanks shooting at you. Makes me wonder if they saw a different movie instead. The ROTF game easily smokes this game out of the water gameplay wise with the gameplay being more variant. Although I did like how the 2007 game did the massive amounts of destruction.
     
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  8. Ryan McD

    Ryan McD Automaster

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    The game feels like it's going for the "hefty, strong robot" feel, when the Transformers have often been quite fast, even in the bayverse films. The melee could've been smooth and satisfying (thank god for Devastation), but they want more for a feel closer to a sedated Hulk. Plus the constant decepticlones all blend into each other for the most part, and it's kinda repetitive.
     
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  9. Megs

    Megs Well-Known Member

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    I got this game back in the day for two reasons: Frank Welker as Megatron and G1 skin for Megs. That said, while it isn't anything amazing, I did actually end up enjoying it. Especially just the free roaming and unleashing hell on the city. Some parts of the game were beyond frustrating, like some of you are saying, but it was a fun one and done game. I've played through the Cybertron games several times each but this one I could only get through once.
     
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  10. Noideaforaname

    Noideaforaname Pico, let's go up to Zuma

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    Ironhide, a BFG in each hand, capable of leveling an entire city block in seconds, utterly incapable of killing a single Decepticon 'cause shields. Instead he has to stumble around for a car to pick up (after having exploding the entire area), hoping he doesn't kick it down the road, hoping it doesn't randomly blow up in his hands, hoping he actually properly throws it at the enemy; then Ironhide can rush in and pummel the Decepticreep, until his foe throws up a shield and throws off Ironhide, who's stuck in a useless attack animation. And if this is the Wii version where both the attack and camera are motion-controlled, the whole process is a dizzying blur.

    Then you gotta repeat this every goddamn enemy in the game...
     
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  11. CaioSilvatheScreamerFan

    CaioSilvatheScreamerFan Destron New Leader

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    that's cuz you gotta rip'n'tear these Cons:rock :buttrock 
     
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  12. GeoSociety

    GeoSociety Quit

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    Yeah the shields on everyone was just so stupid. It'd make sense for that one mixmaster shield enemy but that's it. There was really no point in having the guns. It kinda makes me wonder if it was a last minute choice because over the past years a bunch of un-used content was found for that game that would've made it better.
     
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  13. TheWarPathGuy

    TheWarPathGuy As cool as the earth is blue!

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    Jon Burton, the guy who directed the game along with many others is doing a Q/A. So if you want to ask him anything about the game, go ahead.
     
  14. Soundlips

    Soundlips Defending Reactivate since 2020 loves Tinfoil Hats

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    It was a movie tie in game, 'nuff said.

    But all in all, it was probably my favorite besides the Armada game till WFC/FoC came out. It was always just an ok game, if it wasn't for the transforming it honestly would probably be a shit tier level game as I had more reason to explore and go around the Armada game more looking for Minicons. This game always felt... empty. Besides the story missions, there really was nothing to do and no point to it, at best it was a very shitty gta esque game. Thank god I was a kid when this came out otherwise it wouldn't have been nearly as fun.
     
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  15. MetalRyde

    MetalRyde is an a-hole with a heart. RIP Spike and Mojo.

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    That says it all. Movie tie in games have the unfortunate reputation of not ending up good. With a few exceptions.

    I did enjoy the game. I invested a lot of time in it. Mainly hunting down the yellow orbs in each map. I was never able to find the last one in the town as Prime. I spent hours looking for it with no luck. I might play it again for old time sake.
     
  16. EmceeDel

    EmceeDel Well-Known Member

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    The one thing this game and its DS counterparts had that make them special is the free roam aspect. I remember thinking how cool that was for a concept and was hoping future TF games would expand on it the same way future Spider-Man games expanded on the Spider-Man 2 game.

    Its quite unfortunate that whole aspect was dropped for the most part in future installments.
     
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  17. Magnus Leader

    Magnus Leader Young Optimus Prime is the Best Optimus Prime.

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    It's frankly astonishing how the Spider-Man 2 video game still blows a lot of other PS2 and PS3 games out of the water.

    I honestly even prefer it over the WFC and FOC games.
     
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  18. Cliffjumper

    Cliffjumper Least insane TF fan

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    I've played it and Jesus does it suck.
     
  19. GrimlockPrime19

    GrimlockPrime19 I always have the high ground

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    You are talking about a ps3/x360 game bro
    I hope you are bcs the ps2 rotf game was way worse than tf1, maybe not gameplay wise, but being open world and being able to transform, having all that freedom really bought it to me

    I think TF1 game is far from mediocre. It's something pretty stupid to say. Btw, we are talking about ps2 era, not ps3. For a ps2 standard this game is pretty good. But the gameplay for sure wasn't that crazy, we couldn't do much besides smashing square- and it's the fun part, bcs when we had to throw things at enemies it totally sucked. My favorite part in that game for sure wasn't fighting another robots lol and it was even worse with someone like Starscream, who had so cool and badass missiles, but they did nothing against those flame thrower robots bcs they had shield. Sure, a car I throw has way more impact than a missile, why not
     
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  20. HeroicC300

    HeroicC300 Chats with Artists

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    The guy who brought up the shields (which unless you were Blackout you couldn't pen) hits the nail on the head. They made the ranged combat utterly useless when it mattered most
     
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