Anyone who was a child during the summer of 1986 can probably tell you about the shock and awe of seeing Optimus Prime felled in "Transformers: The Movie." Many of these same people seem to have emotions ranging from ennui to heated anger regarding Michael Bay’s upcoming film that reimagines everyone’s favorite robots in disguise. Regardless of the fanboy reaction to the film, it’s pretty undeniable that as a franchise, Transformers has never quite translated well to video games for Western audiences. There have been attempts through the years, including adaptations of Beast Wars for PlayStation and Nintendo 64, and a decent Australian-developed PS2 game that was forgotten as quickly as it showed up on US shores. The latest developer to step up is British code house Traveller’s Tales, fresh off the success of LEGO Star Wars II. Their aim is to create a new Transformers gaming experience, this time based on the film.

We didn’t get to play Transformers: The Game, but we got our first look at it when Activision visited our offices earlier this week. The development team has been working closely with both Paramount Pictures and Industrial Light and Magic to re-create the film as closely as possible, while adding enough meat to make a satisfying game experience out of a two-hour movie. As a result, there are authentic recreations of different Autobots and Decepticons thanks to shared visual assets between ILM and Traveller’s Tales, but there are added enemies that aren’t in the film, such as the Decepticon Drones, which Hasbro liked enough to make action figures. Put away the merch stick.


The central idea driving Transformers: The Game is that you’ll be able to take on the role of either four Autobots or five Decepticons in an experience that will allow you to relive the movie or revise it, respectively. As the Autobots, you can fight for justice and defend Earth against the Decepticon invasion, or you can play as the villains and mess stuff up. There are pros and cons to each. The title will boast destructible environments. It’s not to the degree that buildings will collapse in a pile of rubble, but a few well-timed missile shots will hollow out any office building and destroy chunks of it.

For a Decepticon, this is a good thing. For an Autobot, it’s like getting a number of wanted stars in GTA. The idea is that while Autobots get rewards for good behavior, like skill upgrades, we imagine (since no one was able to illustrate how) that Decepticons are going to have it tougher, especially based on the demo level we saw. But more on that later. Besides destructible environments, many ambient objects on the street can be used as weapons, from cars to stop signs, in order to beat down the oversized opposition. Everything has its own weight and physics in proportion to damage, so thankfully, tossing a car will do more harm than a trash can.

The first level that we saw put you in the role of Bumblebee, as he attempts to rescue the film’s human hero, Sam Witwicky (played by Shia LaBeouf) from an impending Decepticon attack/abduction/something vague that will put him in peril. One of the big features of the game focuses on the ability to transform from robot to vehicle on the fly. Indeed, during the mission, Bumblebee alternated between Decepticon brawls and high-speed chases in his Camaro form. He drove into a designated area (marked by an Autobot waypoint icon on the in-game compass) and began a big brawl with a pack of Decepticon clones. Combat consists of melee attacks -- either with robotic fists, or any of the aforementioned environmental objects -- or long-range attacks, such as lasers and missiles. It appears that LB (L1 for PS3) locks onto enemies, and gunfire is mapped to the right shoulder buttons. Right Trigger (R2 for PS3) is the primary fire, and RB (R1 for PS3) is secondary fire. There’s also an evade function reminiscent of the dodge in the Devil May Cry games, good for avoiding projectile attacks.

From what we could tell from the Autobots mission, gameplay seems to be "faux sandbox;" that is, each level takes place over a wide-open map, but is very linear in nature. We sense that branching storylines won’t be plentiful in quantity, although there will be side challenges. In the Challenge Tracker, each robot has a mission that plays to his abilities. In the case of Bumblebee, it was race-based, but in the case of a Decepticon, it would involve timed destruction. We imagine that Challenge Trackers could play a role in the distribution of Xbox 360 achievements or PlayStation Network trophies, but no one at Activision was at liberty to confirm as of demo time.

Visually, Transformers looks great, although it’s certainly still a work in progress. The build that we saw is pre-beta, which means that most of the groundwork has been lain, but there are still a few things that had to be manually tweaked within the debug menu of the software, such as lighting effects. The physics are also still being worked on, as we saw when Bumblebee’s speeding Camaro sent a tour bus flying, E.T.-style. Also, it seemed that during Bumblebee’s mission, the boss battle didn’t feel as impactful as it should -- Barricade, the Decepticon level boss, didn’t quite slam into buildings with that "umph" that he should in a final product. However, the robot models look exceptional, and the transformation animations are very fluid. We’re looking forward to seeing the game again before the final product ships to see what has improved.


We also saw a Decepticon level with Blackout, a Black Hawk chopper bent on destruction. As a bonus for PS3 owners, the Sixaxis will allow for either traditional analog flight control or motion-based helicopter movement. Blackout’s mission didn’t quite have the "fight, rescue, protect, boss battle" feel of Bumblebee’s chapter, but the level had a simple, and seemingly fun, objective. Blackout is ordered by Megatron (voiced by original actor Frank Welker, instead of movie voice Hugo Weaving) to completely flatten a US military base. In a hailstorm of gunfire, missiles, and even chopper rotors, Blackout managed to level most of the base in two minutes. We’re not sure if every Decepticon mission will consist of blowing stuff up while the clock ticks, but with playable Decepticons outnumbering Autobots, we hope that there will be more diversity in their game objectives.

Since we couldn’t play Transformers: The Game, we’re still not really sure how its controls will pan out. It’s inarguably a great-looking game, although there’s still work to be done in regard to lighting and physics before it ships to stores. Combat sounds fairly promising, although we’re reserving our judgments for the first hands-on preview. In the meantime, we’ll be waiting to see if Transformers: The Game can give us a gaming experience that’s more than meets the eye.