When I was a kid, I was big into Transformers. I played with the toys and watched the old cartoon from the 80’s.  It took nearly 30 years for us to get a GOOD Transformers video game, and even then, they weren’t based on the toys and cartoon I loved.  But now, finally, there is a game based on the cartoon I watched as a kid, and it even has many of the same voice actors, too!  Transformers: Devastation is a 3-D action game from famed game makers Platinum, and it’s reviewed on 360 here.  It could almost be called, “Cary’s Childhood: The Game.”

So the game looks and sounds just like the cartoon. There are bright, colorful cel-shaded graphics and many of the voices are straight from the old cartoon show.  Only problem is that because many of the voice actors have passed away, there isn’t much variety in Autobots you can choose to play as.  You can be Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Sideswipe, Wheeljack, and Grimlock.  I’m disappointed you couldn’t be my favorite Autobot: Ironhide.  They could’ve gotten his voice, too, since he was done by the same guy who did Optimus.  At least you get to battle a wide variety of Decepticons, including Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Thundercracker, Constructicons, Insecticons, Blitzwing, and many more!

Gameplay is similar to other Platinum titles. You walk around for a bit, fight a few guys, get rated on your performance, and then repeat the process.  Sometimes they add a little variety with a shooting or racing segment, but most of the time it’s typical Platinum fare.  You have to know when to attack and when to dodge, and it can be tricky sometimes.  Luckily you can adjust the difficulty level so even players like me can pass the missions.  Gather weapons to equip your heroes with melee hammers and axes and swords, as well as long range guns.  During certain areas of each mission, you can return to the Ark and combine weapons to make new ones, and play a mini-game with Wheeljack to make chips you can equip to your Autobots to increase their stats.  You can also find lots of hidden items that will unlock artwork and other goodies in the gallery.  One neat attention to detail is that one of the hidden items are bouncing creatures called “Krimzeek.”  I just thought that was kind of neat since Krimzeek was only featured in one episode of the cartoon.

While the game has a lot going for it, it also has a lot of shortcomings as well. Like many other 3-D games, camera angles can be problematic.  Similar to other Platinum titles, you’ll use every button on the controller, and it can be hard to remember them all!  Aiming and locking on to flying enemies also doesn’t work well either, as you’ll oftentimes not lock onto the one you want to shoot!  The menus where you synthesize weapons and such are also a bit confusing at first.  But the big problem is a bug in the 360 version that I read about and it happened to me, too.  Sometimes the game wouldn’t read my save file correctly, and it’s really ticky on how it reads your profile and if it’s not just right, the game will freeze up.  I’ve read that others have had this problem, too, and some have even had their whole save file erased.  That hasn’t happened to me yet, and I hope it doesn’t before I do everything I want to do in the game.  So you may want to hold off on getting the 360 version until they patch it.  The new Transformers game is still fun but I think I like Transformers: Fall of Cybertron a lot more.

Kid Factor:

Transformers: Devastation is rated T for Teen with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence. You can smack evil Decepticons with fists, hammers, axes, swords, and guns, but they just explode or run away when defeated.  I’d be OK with any kid playing this, to be honest.  It’s barely more violent than the TV show I grew up with, and I think I turned out OK.  If you have kids who enjoy modern Transformers, this might also be a good game to share with them to show what Transformers were like when we were kids!

Tags: Game Reviews, Movies with Children, Television