I just beat Transformers Devastation a few days ago and it was a pretty good game. It was epic to unleash kung-fu skills on Devastator and Menasor while they throw drills and lightning at me.
In recent years, we got a flood of movie tie-in games as well the High Moon Studios games, War For Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron. However, there was one good Transformers game that gets overlooked. The game is simply called Transformers. That simple title will cause some confusion. When 1st live-action movie was having video game tie-ins, it was simply called, Transformers: The Game. With that game being on multiple platforms like the PS2, people will accidentally ask questions on the wrong game board. They should called the other game, Transformers Armada: The Game.
The game is loosely based on the 2002 incarnation of Transformers, called Armada.
Armada is not a show I would highly recommend. The 1st 12 or so episodes were simply Mini-con of the week as the very annoying human kids have more screentime than the actual Transformers. The movies at lease have the excuse that the CGI on the Transformers is expensive and have to cut down due to budget cuts. Also Sam is at lease more smarter and more helpful than most of the brats from Armada. (Can't believe I'm praising Sam) Also the English version of this show was rushed before the Japanese version even finished, meaning the dialogue won't make sense and the animation was incomplete. Good news is after 12 long years, the show finally got subtitled by fans.
The show wasn't all that bad because the later half did move away from the kids and the Mini-con of the week episodes and actually focus on the Transformers. The later half had interesting characters, plot twists, and other cool stuff. Too bad the sequel, Transformers: Energon was a slap in the face to Armada and consider the worst Transformers show ever made.
The plot of the game is loosely based on the show. It's basically the bare-bones version. Go to Earth to collect Mini-cons, fight Decepticons, return to Cybertron to stop Unicron. That's it. No storylines of Starscream, Thrust, or Sideways changing sides or learning that the Mini-cons are Unicron's spawn.
The game has some of the best PS2 graphics there are. You have a vast variety of levels to explore the lush forests of the Amazon, the frozen wilderness of Antarctica, the tropical islands in the Pacific, or exploring the inside of the Decepticon warship.
The game is a third-person shooter. Your goal to search the open levels to find Mini-cons.
The Mini-cons will grant you abilities like certain weapons and defenses for you to customized. With the best Mini-con team you made, you can hunt down the bosses of each level.
The boss fights are epic. Even the music tracks for the bosses are epic.
- You get Cyclonus fighting you at an Amazon pyramid.
- Fighting Megatron in a volcano as he does a 100-foot suplex on you.
- Avoiding Starscream's sword slashes in the Antarctic near a research facility.
I was having flashbacks of this boss fight when I saw that one episode of Transformers Prime where Starscream stole the Apex Armor at a Antarctic research facility.
- Fighting a gigantic aircraft carrier known as Tidal Wave. Before the days of unloading ammo into Trypticon's weak spots, or dodging and counterattacking Devestator's punches, there was this colossus.
- Armed with mythical weapons to confront the planet destroying entity, Unicron.
It would be cool to play as Scavenger as he smashing his fist into Decepticons or Blurr aiming his guns at them. However, I can see some problems, Jetfire transforms into a space shuttle and at one point in the game, you get a glider to help you explore areas in different levels meaning that Jetfire's flying skills will defeat the purpose of having a glider.
You can also search for Data-cons which is storage devices hidden throughout the levels. Finding them would unlock content in the extras section in the main menu of the game. They contain the game's soundtrack, artwork, pictures of toys.
The extras also have development art which features some content that was cut from the game. One of them had a boss fight with Demolishor and another was fighting Tidal Wave's personal Mini-con.
The extras also have PSAs from the G1 cartoon. Cheesy way to teach kids right and wrong. Seems weird that the kids in the videos know the exact name of each Autobot. Would the kids in your town know the exact name of each officer of the law in your city/town/etc.
Since we're in the age of youtube, here's a link to the playlist if you want to see them.
Garry Chalk and David Kaye from the Armada cartoon reprises their roles as Optimus and Megatron. Everyone else is played by a different actor. The voice of Red Alert is played by Daran Norris who will one day play Knockout from Transformers Prime. Most of the voices pretty much fit the characters they are playing but one character that doesn't fit is Cyclonus. Thankfully, he only has one line in the entire game.
If I have another small problem with this game, it's the references. They come from only the 1986 animated movie and nothing else. Like Optimus and Megatron will steal lines from that movie to do their banter or when Unicron is getting destroyed, he says the same exact thing as he did in the movie before he blows up. There's three and half seasons of G1 material as well as comics to make references from beside the movie. Heck, the game is based on Armada, not G1. There are no references made from the show.
You could say this is one of the best anime games of all time. I remember long ago there was a site asking about best anime game. I posted my answer which is this video game. My answer blew everyone's mind because it is true, it's technically based on an anime(The show is from Japan after all). The game doesn't look anything anime-ish and the show's fanbase is mostly composed of G1 and Beast Wars fans, not your average anime geeks. This game wouldn't be the 1st thing that would come to anime geek's head.
Also, you could say it's better than the show since it doesn't have the annoying kids, incomplete animation, bad dubbing, etc.
Bottom line, this is a very fun 3rd person shooter with cool environments with Mini-cons you customize and have epic bosses. Sadly, the game gets overshadowed and looked down because it's not G1. I seen people who make dumb excuses that the bland-looking, repetitive gameplay, bad voice acting game known as Transformers: Tataki, is a better game. Just simply because it's G1. *rolleyes*
