Talk:The Transformers (G1 PS2)

Dark Hot Rod

Is "Dark Hot Rod" actually a distinct character from Black Rodimus? And why is it "Hot Rod" when the name of the character in Japan is Hot Rodimus? —Interrobang 18:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Can't recall enough to answer the first question for sure, but as for the second, it's just a matter of using the English-market equivalent. Hot Rod = Hot Rodimus, Rodimus Prime = Rodimus Convoy.--Apcog 19:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I know, but we don't do that with characters that don't have an official English name, regardless of whether they're based on a character that has one. Dark Nitro Convoy, Grand Scourge, etc. —Interrobang 19:53, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Is there a source verifying this cast list? Specifically the Dark Rodimus thing? And Full-Tilt? The only character reference video I can find includes neither. -Derik 23:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

There's a video with more characters, and the user admits to not having everybody (game is too shitty to endure). —Interrobang 00:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thankee. FYI? The characters that do not transforme in the character rollover screen are not playable, they're guys you battle AFAIK.

Also, the youtube link on the External Links section has a link to 4.5 hours worth of video of a complete playthrough of the Decepticon campaign. I watched them all to write the story summary. -Derik 00:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

So, uh... I dont' see Dark Hot Rod there. But seriously-- FULL TILT was a playable character? awesome. Playable characters got brief intro scenes where they roleld up, transformed and said something that gave you a sense of their personality or relation to other characters! I seriously want to see Full Tilt's intro. Isn't there some japanese fanbase we can appeal to that's either recorded or transcribed all of these things? I transcribed all of the BW PS2 character bios and endings by hend!

Also, if no one objects, (since no one has commented on the proposal) I'm gonna complete the move on this article in an hour. It will make our disambiggery so much less complicated. -Derik 01:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really up for the move, since the title on the cover and the start screen is just "Transformers". I'm not going to fight it, though. —Interrobang 01:55, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess my thing is-- any time we link to this article, it'll be to the events of the story, and that's the name of the story. There is no mart of the game that is not part of the story- no mini-games or anything. And our alternative is 'Transformers' with a disambig, which... sucks ass.

I guess while COTF might be appropriate for stroylinks techniclaly screenshots should link to the game's title but... I just find it so unfriendly (and hard to remember) to leave this article as 'Transformers.' We call 'The Transformers' 'Generation 1 (cartoon)', and that was certainly never its name.

(Uh, I'm not arguing against your non-opposition, I'm more making a case to see if anyone else has a more strongly felt objection.) -Derik 02:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding Dark Hot Rod, this FAQ lists him. —Interrobang 02:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Autobot Story

Um, maybe I'm missing something but was the write-up on the Autobot story so bad that it is better to remove it completely than to try to fix it up? I skimmed it and I'm not sure what the problem is. Is it just inaccurate? --Jimsorenson 18:40, 3 August 2009 (EDT)

The problem was that it was an exact duplicate of the general overview section, with no specific details about the Autobot campaign. There's not a lot of point to just having that writeup twice, so I took it out of the section where it didn't seem to belong.--Greenygal 19:24, 3 August 2009 (EDT)

Ah, gotcha. --Jimsorenson 19:57, 3 August 2009 (EDT)

Voice actors

• [1] Peter von Gomm confirmed that he played Hot Rod, Rodimus, Black Rodimus, Weirdwolf, Hound, and Brainstorm
• The remaining credits

Lenne Hardt was Arcee, Jack Merluzzi was Bumblebee, Starscream, Grotusque, and Ratchet, Robert Belgrade played Optimus Prime and Soundwave, and Barry Gjerde was the voice of Magnus.

Where should this go in the article? I thought I would put the information in the character listings at first, but so many of the other VAs are unknown so it'd mean that there'd be blank spaces and a kind of "uneven" look. --NCZ 12:31, 5 July 2010 (EDT)

/Generation 1 cartoon continuity

All of the character pages with a G1 cartoon subpage have this game listed on the main page. As I understand it, it is firmly set in the cartoon continuity, so is there a reason it is not on the subpage (being a game and all rather than "fiction") or was it simply overlooked? Geewunling 00:57, 5 July 2011 (EDT)

VAs

Hey, so me and a couple other people actually took another look at the game's VO cast a little while ago, since we had some doubts about the original source of the info. I don't really want to make it personal or point fingers or reopen old wounds or anything, but basically we had someone at the time inform us about what he claimed was an accurate cast listing (which is what's currently on the wiki) and we trusted them. Since then though we've spotted some inconsistencies with those matchups and our original source started acting vague about what exactly his source/methodology was (case in point: on BTVA, which is where he originally provided a staff member the credits, when he was asked about it years later he was vague about what his source/methodology was, and then on this site around that same time he claimed that his source for the credits was... BTVA. Oi.) We've done another pass through since then and feel pretty good about stating that this is the cast we're looking at:

(Confirmed)

Robert Belgrade: Optimus Prime, Soundwave, Narrator

Jack Merluzzi: Starscream, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Grotusque

Lenne Hardt: Arcee (not TECHNICALLY confirmed, but like, she's the only woman credited, Arcee is the only woman in the game, so. Y'know.)

Russ Veillard: Wheeljack

Peter von Gomm: Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime, Hound, Weirdwolf, Brainstorm, Black Rodimus

(Detective'd)

Russ Veillard: Astrotrain, Raiden, Snapdragon (Like Wheeljack, have a similar "elderly" sound to their voice.)

Alex Easley: Jazz, Blitzwing (These actually still hold up, they're similar to Alex's other VO roles.)

Jeff Manning: Megatron, Galvatron (same voice he used as SOTN Shaft and MMX7 Snipe Anteator, these are still good), Trypticon? (not nailed down quite as hard, but sounds closer to him than, say, Walter or Barry, definitely not Robert, Peter, or Jack)

Jack Merluzzi: Mindwipe (basically an exaggerated Starscream), Full-Tilt?, Laserbeak? (similarly screechy, but not enough to say for sure). Worth noting that Jack Merluzzi's resume is incomplete because it doesn't list all of his roles in games where he IS known to have done multiple.

Walter Roberts: Cyclonus, Sharkticon, Apeface, Skullcruncher, Sixshot (all have the same voicetype, Cyclonus and Sharkticon voices are in his demo reel, latter three are his MMX7 Sigma/Soldier Stonekong)

Barry Gjerde: Ultra Magnus, Scourge, Shockwave, Octane (these all seem accurate, they're all the same voicetype and standard Barry voices)

Strings Kozisek: Kup, Ironhide, Chromedome, Doublecross, Hardhead (All of these characters have a distinct country/Southern accent, and it sounds like the actor's actual twang instead of just something put on for the sake of a character like Peter's Ironhide. Strings apparently has spent time in certain states that would explain this accent to be authentic.)

Jon Umaki: Springer, Blurr (Jon isn't a VA, but one of the localization team members, so we have to go in a little raw here. So this and his name suggests he's Japanese(+ESL?) and Springer's delivery sounds slow and deliberate which would be a little in line with that, but again, we don't really have a lot to go off.)

The remaining VAs are Mark Laity and Phil Gibbon who, like Jon, are loc members and not VAs, so there's no vocal samples to work with for them unfortunately. The only remaining roles after all this that we couldn't figure anything out for were Highbrow, Computron, and Predaking, which would have to be split up among them. Not impossible they could've done Full-Tilt and/or Laserbeak too. We found an old website/contact form for Phil Gibbon, but we're not sure if it's still active, but in any case they're the stragglers.

tl;dr I'm not sure what exactly the original methodology was for the credits, but this is what we were able to come up with and we believe it's more accurate. There are cases where the original source correctly identified that certain characters are done by the same actor, but attributed them to the wrong actor, and some of his attributions were made up whole cloth. Barry Gjerde's roles were correctly ID'd for example, but some of Walter Roberts' roles got lumped in, and Walter's parts in general got split up among random people while he himself was attributed to some of the scraps that he clearly didn't actually voice.

I don't want to be too unilateral or anything, so I'll just lay it all out upfront so you can see and decide for yourselves. Feel free to ask any questions, we're pretty sure most of this is more accurate than the original but second opinions are very welcome. --NCZ (talk) 00:56, 8 June 2019 (EDT)

My memory is that most of the voice-credits for the PS2 game were provided by a user who proved themselves to be a serial bullshitter, who abused multiple accounts and pretend to be related to actors to "prove" what he was saying, so I'm perfectly willing to accept he was wrong about anything and am happy to advocate replacing anything he wrote with something a group of people sat down and researched. - Chris McFeely (talk) 10:05, 8 June 2019 (EDT)

Ha. Yeah, that's the guy. Okay, cool. I don't mind going through the pages and trying to sort things out if that's the case. --NCZ (talk) 13:15, 8 June 2019 (EDT)