Transformers Impressions

With the blockbuster-movie season almost upon us, Activision has its fair share of game tie-ins lined up to coincide with the movies' releases. Games such as Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, and Transformers will undoubtedly be some of the biggest of the summer, but it's the latter that is sure to hold a particularly special place in many gamers' hearts. There'll be a huge amount of gamers whose childhoods coincided with the 1980s TV series, and it's all set to be given a 21st-century update when the Michael Bay-directed film is released in July. Our brief glimpse of the Traveller's Tales game gave us a look at some of the film, but we're happy to report that the game looks like it will be another reason for Transformers fans to get excited this summer.

The game will loosely follow the plot of the film, which means big robots are going to cause general destruction in contemporary environments. Judging from an excerpt from the film (which will serve as the game's intro sequence), the game will follow two duelling alien races who bring their fight to Earth. The Autobots and the Decepticons are the good and bad guys, respectively, and you'll have the choice of controlling either in the game. There are nine transformers in total--Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, Jazz, and Ironhide for the Autobots, and Megatron, Starscream, Blackout, Scorponok, and Barricade for the Decepticons.

While the movie will focus on human characters in addition to the bots, Traveller's Tales chose to omit the earthlings from the game to provide as pure an experience as possible for fans. When you look at the company's ambitions for the game, it's easy to see why--the developers are already trying to combine third-person action, driving, and flying elements into seven different environments. Starting off in the city, other famous locations are promised but can't currently be revealed because of spoilers. The team did hint that the desert location that has been seen in the online trailers would be present and the other locations would be "'treats" for Transformer fans in general.

While our first look was short, it let us see the opening city location, some of the tutorials, and the Bumblebee transformer. Talking us through their ambitions for the project while showing it off in a private cinema, the designers promised that the main aim for the game will be to have fun, with the focus being on making the environments a playground for these 30-foot machines. This means that everything is destructible, from buildings to cars, and a comparison to The Incredible Hulk game "times 10" was made in the presentation. While nowhere near final, the demo holds up to that promise, with the sandbox aspect of the game being one of its main attractions.

Our demo showed the game in an admirably advanced form, letting us see the opening tutorial mission and how well the aims of a sandbox game have been realised. The combat system features an automatic lock-on system, meaning you can focus on individual enemies for attack, although this can be disabled to make the game more difficult if necessary. However, combat is only half of the story in this Transformers game, with driving and flying around a wide-open area making up much of the gameplay. While we didn't get to see any of the airborne vehicles in action, the team says that it has kept the same arcade-style sensibilities for this aspect of the game, with the focus being on air-to-air combat as opposed to what you might find in a flight sim. This means that you won't be able to fly too high, but with each of the seven different environments running up to two and a half miles in size, there should still be plenty to explore.

The way you use the environment in Transformers is quite reminiscent of the recent Crackdown gameplay. Most objects are there to be thrown, right down to the mechanical limbs that can be removed from your robotic enemies. There are also some really random objects that seem to be there for comic effect--swordfish and hot-dog signs hanging outside restaurants and, in a postmodern touch, human statues with cell phones. The game also encroaches on a bit of Spider-Man's turf by letting the robots climb up walls.

The story will follow that of the movie, but you will be given the choice to play as the Autobots or the Decepticons from the start. There's a morality issue in the game that depends on which side you choose to play as, with Autobots rewarded for good deeds and Decepticons for general mayhem and destruction. For example, Autobots are encouraged to destroy drones and complete mission objectives, as well as perform extreme stunts in the driving mode, which all add up to points at the end of each level. The current onscreen meter is being redesigned for final release, but one thing that should be familiar to players is the star-based "wanted" level, which indicates how much government heat you're currently generating. The system is currently set with police at the basic level and goes right through to the military, but the designers say that the ultimate threat is the sector-seven police. These secret transformers can be seen in the trailers, and they will have a formidable in-game presence.

The way that the transformers morph between robot and car mode is looking impressive--one button makes the transformer jump into the air and change into a car in under a second. Many of the missions will involve destruction and melee combat, but others will be point-to-point races that demand driving skill while firing rockets at opponents. The enemies and weapons in the movie have been modelled directly from their movie equivalents for authenticity. Fans will be pleased to hear that Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime, has contributed to the game, and the developers also promise that fans of the original Transformers robots will be well catered for. While we didn't get to see any huge battles in our demonstration, the first boss battle involves Bumblebee chasing down a Decepticon through the city in a mixture of driving and melee combat. In addition, the smaller enemies that we saw in the city have been developed by Activision but are already being lined up for sale as a line of toys by Hasbro.

Many of the main elements of the game are still being ironed out, particularly in terms of the artificial intelligence, physics, and fighting systems. The physics that we saw on the Xbox 360 demo were based on the PlayStation 2 engine, but they are being ported up to take better advantage of Microsoft's triple-processor-based console. This means that the collision between objects should be much more realistic, and the driving engine should benefit, as well. The AI also promises to be much more sophisticated, with enemies taking cover and climbing up objects to reach you if you run away.

As a third-person action game with fighting, driving, and flying set in an open environment, Transformers is a fairly ambitious project. Although we didn't see much of the game, what we did see shows plenty of promise for fans of the series and gamers looking for a different kind of action game. Transformers is lined up for release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, and PC later this year.