Transformers Armada: Prelude to Energon

Optimus Prime said to jump around, shoot tons of identical enemies, and collect glowing yellow things, and by gum, you?re gonna do it!

Transformers holds the distinction of being the coolest fictional universe without its own mound of licensed games. A Beast Wars game a few years ago was received poorly, to say the least, and so the announcement of a new Transformers game met with some skepticism. Atari, for its part, has met the critics with a game that definitely brings Transformers into the realm of playable PS2 titles, but it?s lacking that special something that puts a title over the top.

What?s really missing is a certain sense of ?Transformerness.? You choose one of three Autobots (Hotshot, Red Alert, and of course, Optimus Prime) and explore eight different environments to find the lost Mini-cons before Megatron and his Decepticons can. This mostly involves a lot of running, shooting, and jumping, though you can also ?transform and roll out,? an ability that mostly helps with covering long distances quickly. Collecting Mini-cons gives you a number of new weapons and abilities, and you choose which Mini-cons you want to use in a particular mission. There is a coolness there that forgives the platform jumping and repetitive enemies, and when you get to a boss, you?re in for a fight that?s unscripted, unshakably cool, and intensely frustrating. The game looks good (though the levels look a bit underwhelming), sounds fine, and controls about as well as you?d expect.

All that is well and good, but it just doesn?t feel like Transformers. There?s no character to the characters, no real reason to transform except to find a better battleground during a boss fight. Optimus is a voice that gives you mission updates, not an overcoming hero who leads unlikely warriors into battle against overwhelming odds. As a game, Transformers is well above average, but Transfans will be left wanting more.

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