4cr Review – Transformers Animated The Game

Recently, I had a chance to play through Transformers Animated on the DS. I’ll admit, at first I was skeptical, I didn’t know what to expect – having never heard of the game before it appeared at my door. After unpacking the game, I started preparing supper and popped the game in while everything started cooking.

My review of the game after the break.

To my surprise, this game played pretty much like one of my all time favorite SNES games, The Lost Vikings. In Transformers Animated, you play as Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Bulkhead, each with their own powers. You’ll need to use the powers of each in different situations throughout the level if you want to succeed.

Here’s an example, you could use Optimus Prime’s axe to hit a switch on the wall that’s out of reach for the two others. This will open a door so that all three can move forward. Then you might need Bulkhead’s brute force to bust open a door or Bumblebee’s lightning attack to power up an elevator.

The game’s story is pretty simple — Megatron is trying to take over Cybertron again, and Optimus Prime and friends are there to stop him. Using the threee characters, you’ll need to find your way through each level to get one of the allspark fragments. These fragments are used to power up the teleportation device to Cybertron so you can get there and stop Megatron.

The only thing I didn’t like were the « car » chase segments, which have you playing as one of the Autobots. In these segments, you’re riding down the highway, and by transforming into robot form and tapping on the enemies, you shoot them down. I found it distracted me more from the game than it being fun. Tips to game developers, if you have a formula for your game, stick to it, don’t try adding different gameplay modes.

Lastly, in Transformers Animated, you get treated to fully voiced cut-scenes in between each stage, which helps progress the story. There’s about 20 stages, not including the car missions. So you can go through the game fairly quickly.

I really enjoyed this game, and fans of Transformers will like it. It’s definitely worth a rental, due to its short length. But some would argue, like me, that short games are probably the best for those of us with less time on our hands.