Transformers The Game (console)

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If you're a mid- to late-00s kid and remember this game, then your childhood was honestly pretty average and unremarkable.

The console version of Transformers The Game follows several of the movie's robotic characters through an approximation of the movie's plot. The game has two campaigns, one for each faction.

The Activision-published game was developed by Traveller's Tales, with cinematic cutscenes animated by Blur Studio.

Synopsis

It can be surmised that the writers for the game had not seen the script for the movie. Or been allowed on the same continent as it.

"You said they'd reciprocate!"

Decepticons

Mission 1: SOCCENT Military Base

"Time for a delicious, cool... what? Pepsi?!"

Blackout started things off by shooting down an MH-53; confusingly, this happened in Qatar right near the military base, rather than in Afghanistan as might reasonably be expected. At Starscream's command, he then proceeded to the local puny human military base to wreck it because that's just how Starscream rolls.

"Damn it Scorponok, that is NOT my Powerlinx plug!"

Sadly, his plan to wreck stuff up all day was foiled by some human communication vehicles, and rather than destroy them himself he deployed Scorponok, as the slower, less powerful Decepticon would be much better equipped to deal with the situation. Blackout busied himself destroying some communication arrays in the meantime, hoping to steal their vending machines mainframes and grab some soda data.

Scorponok, having succeeded in destroying the communications trucks, returned to Blackout, whereupon Starscream revealed he had in fact failed to do that and some human reinforcements were on the way to make Blackout's life miserable. Blackout instead made their lives miserable, and the end of level screen helpfully explained the entire level had been pointless.

No, really.

Mission 2: The Hunt For Sam Witwicky

Barricade's protoform landed near a local donut store, and he promptly copied the nearby Saleen S281 (a police car near a donut store, see what they did there?) and got in contact with Starscream. Starscream informed him he was there to find Sam Witwicky, for some reason forgetting he was only supposed to know Sam's eBay username at this point. By finding Sam, Barricade would be able to get hold of a pair of glasses he owned that held the key to the end of the game. You're better off forgetting about this conversation entirely, it'll prevent later sanity loss.

This is what is technically known as a bad idea.

Starscream's plan to find Sam's location entailed Barricade driving to a more or less random part of town, where he was set upon by Autobot Drones, then driving to a different random part of town where he was set upon by Autobot Drones again. This incredibly important objective fulfilled, Barricade promptly teleported to a location he couldn't possibly get to during the actual mission, and was told to head to the power plant in order to find an irritating little abomination. Upon arrival, Barricade found himself faced with humans armed with rocket launchers, so immediately did the most sane and sensible thing and hid behind a line of propane tanks, which for some reason actually worked. Finding himself dealing with a magic Sector Seven SUV which could somehow hide itself inside buildings, Barricade was forced to tear down all the nearby buildings in his search for Frenzy as the small Decepticon's energy decreased, which, presumably, meant the humans were torturing (?!) him. In an SUV. In a building.

After repeating this several times and watching the SUV at one point burst out of a non-existent building next to the local police station, Barricade cornered Frenzy's captors at the local shopping mall, destroying the entire building and letting the cutscene gloss over how the hell Frenzy got out from under hundreds of tons of collapsed masonry. From this he determined that a human named Sam was in possession of a "pair of ocular lenses." Which both he and Starscream knew at the start of the level. Argh.

This is what you'll be doing for approximately 90% of the time you're in Tranquility, so get used to it.

Bumblebee then showed up heading for the police station, forcing Barricade to brave his abysmal driving controls in order to stop the Autobot. The heroic Bumblebee then resorted to using a ridiculous shockwave attack that destroyed a huge area of town every time he did it. Unperturbed by this inexplicable display of Autobot villainy, Barricade vanquished Bumblebee, then chased him down to the local Bay Demolition site, where he was ambushed by Swindle drones and Dropkick drones that were blue in the cinematic, despite being red. Despite having no reason to stay there and every reason not to, Barricade defeated all of them.

This led him back to the Police Station, which had impishly decided to reassemble itself since being destroyed in the second mission, as police stations are noted to do from time to time. Here he cornered Sam, but failed to walk the required two steps straight forward before Bumblebee smacked into his legs, picked up Sam and Mikaela and drove off. And then drove back or something, since the mission started with him in robot mode three hundred yards directly in front of Barricade.

Barricade fought with Bumblebee. Then Bumblebee drove off, Barricade followed, and they did it again. This happened several times, with Barricade at one point somehow ambushing Bumblebee despite the Autobot getting there before he did. After entirely too many identical fight sequences, Bumblebee lay defeated, Barricade recovered the glasses, and Sam, Bumblebee and Mikaela were surrounded by Sector Seven vehicles. It is again a good idea to forget that the Autobots no longer have the glasses and so have no idea where the All Spark is, as the game will forget this shortly.

Mission 3: A Gathering Force

Starscream was next to take the reins, attacking a secret human airbase where Bonecrusher and Brawl had decided to hide out in a somewhat ill-advised manner. After discovering that he couldn't understand what the hell Frenzy was saying either, Starscream realised his radar was jammed by the local human communications equipment. A quick bout of destroying things later, this problem was solved, allowing him to locate Bonecrusher.

"Brawl! You're a tank! Use your tank parts!"
"I can't, I'm shy."
"What?!"

"None shall stand in my way!"
"Your talking privileges are hereby revoked, Bonecrusher."

Bonecrusher had stealthily hidden himself in the middle of a road surrounded by turrets firing weird electrical stuff at him, and proceeded to take a route through the airbase which cunningly didn't avoid any of the handful of checkpoints containing such turrets. Starscream, rather than reprimanding him for this idiocy, destroyed the checkpoints and escorted him onto the runway, then proceeded to a point near the runway for his next mission...Only to find himself standing next to Bonecrusher on the runway again. This somehow led to a mission to destroy drone aircraft, which upon careful inspection (which consisted of shooting down the aircraft, falling to the ground, picking it up and then throwing it away) had actually been made using technology based on Megatron's vehicle mode. Realizing this, Starscream no doubt viewed destroying these vehicles as useful practice.

Following on from this (somehow), Bonecrusher and Brawl moved out... Right into human gun batteries firing weird electricity. Since they had somehow forgotten what all their weapons were for, Starscream was once again called upon to do everything himself, flying back and forth using his strange rocket launcher to save his rather apathetic comrades from self-imposed doom. Since neither appeared to do anything in the game after this mission, you have to wonder why he bothered at all, really.

This was followed by an extended cutscene in which Starscream and Blackout arrived at the Hoover Dam and started trashing it, releasing Frank Welker's voice which declared they should probably stop screwing around and get to Mission City where the next mission was.

Mission 4: City of the Machines

Autobot forces arrived in Mission City despite having no idea of where the All Spark was (and Sam had it despite being arrested by Sector Seven), so, wary of stepping in any more plot holes, Megatron sent his Decepticons ahead of him. Except Starscream (who would not participate except at the very last battle in a cutscene), Brawl and Bonecrusher, who seemed to have gotten lost along the way.

"I didn't touch anything!"

Barricade found a redshirt protecting Sam and Mikaela, and found, moreover, that he lacked a stupid attack that made him invincible, making him easy prey. However, he reckoned without the Autobot unleashing the most horrifying weapon in his arsenal, the dreaded checkpoint race!

Megatron prepares to unleash his impression of someone else.

Somehow surmounting this horror, Barricade defeated Jazz again, leaving him dying at the foot of the large monument the race may or may not have ended somewhere near but probably didn't. Since Scorponok can't drill under roads and drilling is more or less his only ability, he was a clear logical choice to take over from the undamaged Barricade, and so did this, scuttling to Central Park (slowly) to kill a group of silly robotic crickets who were causing chaos, violence and confusion. Because that would interfere with the Decepticons' plans of causing chaos, violence and confusion. This somehow led him to Sam, who was about to hand over the All Spark when Ironhide rather uncharitably kicked Scorponok into the monument (which the dead Jazz had vanished from in the interval). Blackout was understandably angered by this mistreatment of his adorable pet evil robot, and vowed to give Ironhide the honor of dying by his blade.

This is what is technically known as BULL. S***

Ironhide pulled out everything he had: every drone type except Mixmaster and Dreadwing showed up to ruin Blackout's day, and Ironhide himself used the dastardly tactics of being invincible for most of the battle, unleashing a never-ending torrent of rockets which Blackout could do nothing about whenever he approached Ironhide too closely, ordering his troops to get stuck on the scenery behind him so they'd be impossible to reach, and making sure every energy-bearing human helicopter crash-landed on the roof of a building where Blackout couldn't get to it. Despite this, Blackout finally defeated him, allowing Megatron to return from whatever the hell he was doing all this time and commence the final battle. The penultimate final battle, as it turned out.

This consisted of Megatron trying to coax Optimus Prime out of hiding by destroying things at random, which would make the brave Autobot leader not appear in person as was expected, but made some drones appear, Megatron destroying them at random, and then this cycle repeating, with Megatron being forced to move to sectors of the city which had not been previously destroyed by his reign of terror and destroying those buildings in what seemed to last forever. 80 (!) drones later, Megatron finally got fed up with this and climbed the tallest building in the city, whereupon the programmers realised they'd driven the player character to suicide and hurriedly ended the level.

Mission 5: Day of the Machines

Having been affected by the same Apathy Radiation from the All Spark that kept Megatron from doing anything in the previous mission, Peter Cullen's voice finally got off his tin backside to have a final, final final confrontation with Frank Welker's voice, just like the good old days. Logically, Optimus had decided the best way to confront the Decepticon leader was to wait for on top of the tallest building in Mission City.

Back on the ground, the battle began. This largely consisted of Optimus fighting Megatron for a while, then running away while Megatron fought some drones, then hiding while Megatron flew around in circles and a not-even-slightly-explained timer counted down, while Megatron tried desperately to quickly find the Allspark while dodging the buildings which had been coated with an unknown substance that made him automatically revert to robot mode. After an alarmingly large number of repetitions of this, Optimus finally keeled over out of sheer frustration, allowing Megatron to absorb the All Spark. This inexplicably failed to kill him, mostly because the writers wrote this scene in five minutes before heading off to lunch.

Megatron decided that the Lincoln Memorial would make a fine throne (again) as Brawl (who had been absent previously), Starscream and Barricade joined together to watch the eradication of the human race. Oddly, Blackout and Bonecrusher were not with them. Feeling tired after such a long battle, Megatron sent his Decepticons to finish the planet, since he never wanted to play again felt like saving his strength for his glorious return to Cybertron. Barricade felt like doing more work (in preparation for his amazing role in the final battle of the actual movie) and promptly got up while the others watched.

Mission 6: Cybertron

It was now time for Megatron's boring triumphant return to Cybertron, which apparently consisted of fighting a bunch of Autobot drones in a big arena while the plot hid in a corner and pretended it wasn't there. Fans can hope that future game designers will have a more G1 inspired look for Cybertron, as this level doesn't even resemble the opening cinematic or the scenes from the movie. Maybe next time.

Autobots

Mission 1: The Suburbs

A mysterious meteor crashed down to earth, ending up in Bay Demolitions. This meteor scanned a yellow Camaro, and was contacted by his leader, who told him to find an artifact, but warned him to beware Decepticon drones. The car, Bumblebee, zoomed off to a construction site and defeated some of the drones, Scrappers. But Bumblebee didn't think they would call reinforcements, so a bunch of meteors fell destroying major parts of the town Bee was fighting in, including more Scrappers, and a few Dropkicks. But Bumblebee surmounted this and defeated them all.

Logic, etc. etc.

Suddenly he saw Swindles just blatantly walking down the street looking for Sam Witwicky. Bumblebee smashed them, only to be notified another two Swindles and a Dropkick were headed for Bobby Bolivia's car shop. He stopped them and was purchased by Sam Witwicky. Somehow, no one noticed any of this happening. The next day while Sam and Mikaela were at school, Barricade attacked Sam, but Bumblebee stopped him while racing from one place to another, defending Sam. When Barricade was defeated, Bumblebee had to destroy radio towers that were hacked by the Cons preventing the Autobots from landing and clear the landing site. This involved a highly ingenious and scientific (and secretive) plan of blowing the heck out of everything. However, it seemed the Autobots had realized the highly explosive site they had chosen was not a good landing zone, so in the cinematic they all landed elsewhere, making the entire first level a complete and utter waste of time.

Mission 2: More Than Meets the Eye

After a very brief (and somewhat contradictory) explanation of what was going on, Sector Seven found the Autobots, mostly due to the whole "towers-blowing-up-along-with-the-gas-plant" plan last level. In his new alt mode, Bumblebee took the really annoying human-shaped cardboard cutouts Sam and Mikaela Banes to safety, while Jazz distracted S7. Showing total disregard for human life and pedestrian traffic jams, Jazz drove like a mad-bot, zipping from destination to destination, distracting S7 by destroying gas stations and oil tankers all across the city. The casualties were not calculated. Eventually Jazz is driving around in alt-mode and is caught by the S7 cars (somehow) because plot reasons.

After getting rid of the S7 cars that have Jazz surrounded in bot mode (He can clearly step over the cars.) by ramming into them, after Optimus clearly said not to harm the humans, Ironhide tells Jazz to get the heck outta there.

Suddenly, multiple drones attacked. (I hear both sides shop at Drones R'Us.) Jazz was damaged/held captive and Ironhide had to rescue him. Then Jazz thanked his comrade and drove away, only to be attacked two more times, and was crippled by a Mixmaster drone.

Bumblebee was suddenly captured by a horrible human invention called the "net". A S7 helicopter paraded him around the city while Optimus desperately tried to follow in vehicle mode. The Helicopter was even cheeky enough to have the dastardly ability of going over buildings and barricades that shoot you. Getting close enough, Optimus jumped and caught Bumblebee. Just as Optimus Prime was about to rescue his comrade however, a meteor knocked him off the dreaded net. Sadly, the net itself was made with material giving it plot protection, so it wasn't destroyed.

The meteor revealed itself to be the Decepticon Shockwave. Shockwave immediately assumed his artillery cannon mode and began to destroy the city, for absolutely no real reason. Realizing that the city would soon be reduced to rubble if he could not stop the Decepticon, Optimus Prime ripped novelty storefronts off the roofs of buildings and threw them at the Decepticon, thus coining the iconic phrase "I had to destroy the city in order to save it". Eventually, Shockwave was sufficiently damaged and transformed into his monstrous robot mode. They fought... and then Shockwave transformed and flew away, getting back to destroying the city. Optimus followed, damaged him some more... and then Shockwave flew away again. Eventually Optimus killed him. After Optimus learns the location of the AllSpark from Sam's dropped glasses (because reasons), he rolls out with the rest of his crew.

Mission 3: Bumblebee in Hoover Dam

Micheal Bay endorses this message

In Hoover Dam, Bumblebee was being held in a forcefield box, when it suddenly disappeared because of the Allsparks' energy pulsating for no real reason. Note that "for no real reason" is a recurring theme with this game's "plot". While exploring, Bumblebee discovered the Allspark hidden behind a ridiculous laser grid. Commanded by Prime to shut off this annoyance, Bumblebee broke open one of the command center doors. But before he could continue, he had to stop some security robots from sounding an alarm. Apparently, an alien lifeform escaping his cage does not set off an alarm, but someone breaking down one of three doors to a computer room does. Bumblebee killed three waves of these and entered the command center. After destroyed a console, it was revealed that only SOME of the ridiculous laser grid had been turned off. Now he had to destroy the cooling fans giving the grid "power" (for some reason). Little did Bumblebee know that destroying these fans would cause massive explosions, which he had to frantically run away from. Finally, he was instructed by Prime to destroy some generators. FINALLY Gaining access to the AllSpark, Bumblebee shrunk it down while fighting off multiple regenerating Energon drones and Megatron.

You heard that right, they put the Allspark with Megatron. No wonder Sector Seven was shut down after the movie ended.

Mission 4: The Last Stand

Finally the war was coming to an end in Mission City. After the allspark activated some energon drones, Bumblebee gets taken out by these annoyances getting himself stuck in a building. HOW. Ironhide had to rescue Bumblebee from 100 of those pesky drones.

Walk up to him slowly with your gun out, because that ALWAYS works.

After that stupid mission, Starscream starts desecrating buildings for no real reason at all, and Jazz takes action to stop Starscream. Calling Jazz a coward yet being one himself, Starscream took to the skies to rain hell from above on Jazz, which Jazz could not avoid unless he was in another street, because Starscream attacks in VERY Linear attack patterns. But after getting the scrap beaten out of him, he summoned a Dreadwing to help him out. After getting the scrap beat out of him again, Starscream calls for backup, and Blackout joins the party firing as many missiles possible at Jazz. Jazz beats the scrap out of Blackout and Starscream summons YET ANOTHER DREADWING to fight Jazz. Then, both Blackout AND Starscream took to try and beat the scrap out of Jazz. Somehow overwhelming the immense amount of strafing runs and missiles fired at him, and having to kill two cons at once, Jazz kills Starscream and Blackout.

Suddenly, Brawl shows up, beats the hell outta Jazz, and killed the small Autobot. However, Ironhide got really pissed at Brawl for killing his little buddy and lieutenant, and started to fight Brawl. But Brawl did not go down easily. Brawl had immense amounts of health, and summoned as many drones possible. Every drone except for Mixmasters and Dreadwings showed up to make Ironhide's life worse. Along with that, Brawl took to the dastardly tactic of running away to a different location and firing tank shells at you while you fought the drones. Seriously. Calling Brawl out for being a coward and not fighting several times, Ironhide took revenge by killing Brawl and all of his drones.

Finally, Bumblebee confronted Barricade in one last confrontation. Having to brave the horrible driving controls, and running around the city trying to protect his human friends, Bumblebee beats the scrap out of Barricade multiple times. But using the same tactics as last time made Barricade an easy target, and he died easily. Conveniently enough, Megatron chose this moment to appear and effortlessly flicked Bumblebee aside. Before he could get to Sam and Mikaela, though, Optimus Prime showed up, conveniently enough.

Mission 5: The Ultimate Doom

Megatron and Optimus Prime threw down in the Mission City park. After a long and repetitive final showdown consisting of Megatron using every single drone and underlings attack (except Brawl and Blackout), Optimus killed Megatron and turned towards Sam, forgetting the one rule about defeated bad guys: they always have the energy to come back for one final attack. Sure enough, as Sam was handing the cube to Optimus, Megatron turned out to be not quite dead and lept towards the heroes. Grabbing Megatron's flail, Optimus pulled the Decepticon towards him and shoved the cube into his chest, killing him.

That's one heck of a lot of killing.

Afterward, Optimus gave a speech about stuff while Bumblebee, Ironhide and Ratchet listened (Since the fighting was over, Ratchet had come out of hiding, just in time to get animated for another cinematic).

Mission 6: Cybertron

But the fighting wasn't over. Returning to Cybertron, Optimus needed to take out the remaining trash. The final Autobot mission consists of fighting various drones, including Shockwave, although this time he doesn't transform and is basically just a normal drone with more health. Finally, after the plot comes out from the rock it was hiding behind during all this battling, victory comes at last!

Bonus Features

Unlocking

Bonus features are separated in three sections: Movie clips (mostly commercials for the 2007 movie and intro sequences from the Unicron Trilogy cartoons), character skins and an image gallery. These are unlocked by doing any of the following:

• Collecting 15 glowing yellow cubes (100 hidden per level). Technically some levels do contain only 95 cubes, but when playing the level 'A Gathering Force', the player is automatically awarded 5 cubes.

Note: One does not need to collect 15 cubes in a single level to unlock a bonus feature; the game counts total cubes found, and once 15 are collected, a bonus feature is unlocked. This explains why there are 100 cubes in each level, even though bonus features are only unlocked every 15 cubes.

• Collecting a hidden Autobot or Decepticon faction symbol, with five hidden on each level.
• Completing a mission.
• Completing a sub-mission.
• Completing a skill, including: Heroic (for Autobots), Evil (for Decepticons), Protect (for Autobots), Destruction (for Decepticons), Speed (when in land vehicle mode), Throw, Jump (when in land vehicle mode) and Slide (when in land vehicle mode).

Character skins

• Several toy-inspired "skins" can be unlocked, including Generation 1 Jazz, Robo-Vision Optimus Prime (minus flames) and Generation 1 Starscream (minus the resculpted head).
• Similarly, one can unlock Generation 1 Optimus Prime and Megatron, replacing their movie counterparts with new 3D models as opposed to simple skin recolors. Optimus Prime converts into his original truck mode, but fires from his fists rather than using his trademark ion blaster. Megatron cannot transform into his gun mode, but instead starts flying in robot mode when the "transform" button is pressed.

Cut and unused content

An unused exterior map for Hoover Dam, because the small crowded interior where Bumblebee runs around fighting drones is somehow much more appealing.

The Cutting Room Floor page for the game reveals some interesting leftover content datamined from the internal files. Among these are:

• A variant of the Payload drone crudely textured with a shoddily compressed Pepsi livery, most likely cut early in development.
• A strange retexture of Bumblebee in the classic Camaro form that replaces most of his distinctive yellow with a muddy dark red, oddly titled as "Evilbumblebee" in the game files. We have no idea how it got there or what its purpose was, though it does sound heavily exploitable for a creepypasta if anyone's interested in writing one.
• Two orchestral tracks, "mx_city_barricade_1" and "mx_city_skorponok_1", were cut from the final Mission City chapters. Both are still available in full as .wav files.
• An entire level set in the exterior of Hoover Dam was to be featured in both campaigns, internally named HOOVEREXT for the Autobots and HOOVERDAM for the Decepticons. It was first discovered through surviving text strings assigned to a nonexistent level with the aforementioned name, describing a Decepticon attack culminating in a fight against Bonecrusher for the Autobots and the resurrection of Megatron for the Decepticons, corresponding with the order of events shown in the film. This was further corroborated by some pre-release videos, like an interview with Frank Welker and Peter Cullen and a behind the scenes documentary, where footage of an earlier beta build of the game shows what clearly is an exterior map of Hoover Dam that isn't featured anywhere in the actual retail release. For a while, these appeared to be the only surviving remains of Hooverext, leading the small but dedicated modding community for the game to speculate that whatever was left of the map would never get to see the light of day - that is, until TT Games founder Jon Burton streamed a look at two prototype builds featuring the fabled level on his GameHut YouTube channel. This reinvigorated the interest of modders, which until now had primarily worked on the PC version of the game, and lead to the idea of instead datamining the console releases. Finally, only a couple of weeks later, the entire playable level was surprisingly discovered lurking in the Wii version all along!
  • The final retail version includes the dam in a pre-rendered cutscene at the end of Mission 3 on both campaigns. This uses the once playable map as a basis, similarly to how most other FMVs in the game were rendered using pre-existing maps as background.
  • On a complimentary note, both the Playstation Portable and Nintendo DS versions of the game feature levels set in the exterior of Hoover Dam, making the removal of this one an interesting oddity.
  • Some of the music tracks in the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen videogame have their in-game files labelled with the prefix "mx_hoover_ext", suggesting that they might have been directly re-purposed from this extinct level.
• As seen in the aforementioned GameHut livestream, other levels also suffered substantial alterations between their early builds and the final retail version. Whereas some locations like Tranquility and Mission City remain pretty much identical in alphas dating back as far as November 2006, others like the interior of Hoover Dam and the bonus Cybertron levels were entirely redesigned from the ground up. The former featured a tighter, somewhat more movie-accurate layout and aesthetic that ended up being discarded in favor of the wider industrial area seen in the final game, whereas the latter was a surprisingly massive map directly based on artwork from the brief flashback sequence in the film.

Release

Versions

One of these things is not like the others...

• PlayStation 2
  • The PS2 version is the highest-reviewed, despite limitations on draw distance, physics and damage persistence. In this version, Blackout, Starscream and Barricade start missions 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Decepticon campaign in their altmodes, while for some reason the PS3 version has them start as robots. Reviews noted it suffers from fewer frame rate issues than other versions.
• Nintendo Wii
  • The Wii version is very similar to the PS2 version, with the addition of motion-sensor gimmicks that reviewers were resoundingly unimpressed by.
• Xbox 360
  • The 360 version featured improved graphics, more persistent environmental damage, and more physics objects, including ridiculous clouds of rubble that eject themselves from buildings if you so much as look at them funny. The latter is generally annoying, since they get in the way when driving.
  • The 360 version, as might be expected, also features Achievements, though calling them that is somewhat of an exaggeration. There's one for pressing the "transform" button once. This version suffers less from frame rate issues and has better lighting then the PS3 version.
  • It was also available in a limited "Cybertron Edition" that featured exclusive packaging art, a "Making Of" DVD, codes that unlock the Cybertron level and issue 1 of the Transformers movie prequel comic by Simon Furman, Don Figueroa and Josh Burcham. It was exclusive to Gamestop/EB stores.
  • For 500 Microsoft points, players can download an add-on that unlocks everything in the game. While this does not disable Achievements like the cheat codes do, a message that reads "This item has been unlocked by a downloadable content pack" appears below any bonus features that have not been earned through gameplay.
• PlayStation 3
  • The PS3, like the 360 version, featured the same improved graphics, environmental damage, and extra physics objects. The same flaws, however, still apply to how the environmental damage and physics objects interact with the player. Oops.
  • The PS3 version suffers from more frame rate issues than the 360 version, typical of lazy porting. For some reason, this includes frame rate issues in the FMV cinematics when the console itself isn't doing anything.
  • SixAxis motion control is also added for Decepticons with aircraft altmodes (Blackout, Starscream and Megatron). It's disabled by default.
• PC DVD-ROM
  • The PC version is exactly like the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. It, however, does not feature the same exclusive flaws or bonuses of either console version. The physics are still crazy, though.
  • This version also supports mods, meaning you can edit the characters, levels, and sounds. Yes, that also means you can add a custom soundtrack, such as... I dunno, the music from the movie?

Reception

The game's Metacritic scores hover around fifty-five percent. It was criticised for poor driving controls, blocky graphics, repetitive missions and dull combat; the only thing generally praised was the random destruction. So the Decepticons won.

Technical errors and oddities

• Transformer Protoforms have to scan their altmodes after landing as per the movie; however, drones have an Earth vehicle altmode the instant they land; presumably, so does Shockwave, since Tranquility is a little light on purple Apaches or purple howitzers.
• In the second mission of the Autobot campaign, Swindle drones are walking down the street to Sam's house. WHY they even bother to have altmodes is not clear.
• The residents of Tranquility are apparently capable of rebuilding a power station's gas tank farm within less than an hour, then rebuilding the entire tank farm and three of the chimneys again within less than six.
• Autobots still have the "Destruction" unlock gauge appear, but it crosses out faction symbols rather than having them appear. If it's filled, a large red X goes to the left side of the screen instead of a faction symbol; however, whether by accident or design, this doesn't actually do anything, and the Autobots are free to be as destructive as the Decepticons. It doesn't help that this gauge is filled by causing damage to any scenery and has to be maxed out multiple times while destroying, for example, the clamps that hold the All Spark.
• The final Autobot mission in Hoover Dam's depiction of the defrosting Megatron is all kinds of screwy:
  • Before the mission is triggered, he's shown covered in a layer of ice.
  • In the pre-mission cutscene, there's suddenly not a hint of ice on him at all. When Bumblebee walks near him, his head turns to look at the Autobot, despite the fact he's supposed to be frozen and immobile.
  • As the mission starts, he's encased in ice again, save his left arm which is shifted to the left (his left) of the section of ice that should be around it, which is just kind of hanging there.
  • When the cutscene plays during the mission, Megatron breaks the ice surrounding his left arm, and there's clearly none on his face.
  • When gameplay resumes, there's ice on his face again.
  • In the end of mission cutscene, he's suddenly defrosted right down to his hips.
  • Argh.
• The PS2 version sometimes features a bizarre error; in the opening cinematic to Barricade's first mission in Mission City, after Jazz's door slams there is no further post-recording sound work. This means Barricade's voice is completely unaltered. He sounds like Sideshow Bob. The Wii, PS3, and Xbox360 versions have the effects added correctly.
• In the final mission of Chapter 3 for the Decepticons, it's just this side of entirely possible to be too good at it. If the final set of gun turrets facing Bonecrusher is destroyed too fast, he'll reach the last checkpoint before Brawl does and transform. Unfortunately, the turrets' ability to actually take damage is pretexted on Brawl transforming, so all you can do is stand around waiting for Bonecrusher to drop dead. Bonecrusher hates poor bug testing.
• After the last mission of Chapter 3, a cutscene will trigger of Blackout and Starscream trashing Hoover Dam, Blackout tosses a gas tank at three defending Autobots who seem to be red Swindles... Which is the color of the Decepticon Swindle drones, not their Autobot variants.
• In Decepticon Chapter 4, mission 2's intro cinematic has Scorponok firing from a Gatling gun in his tail. This weapon doesn't exist (although he can use it for melee attacks).
• Because the end of mission "mission complete" screens follow straight on from the game play, some very strange things can happen in them. A good example is the above mission; if Scorponok ends the mission firing at the ground in front of the statue at one end of the park, the "mission complete" screen will show his own bullets hitting him. (The same thing can happen anywhere in the game.)
• Before the final battle in the Autobot campaign, spark drones are just lying around on the street waiting to be brought to life by the All Spark.
• Other cars are like cardboard. Jazz can ram into a truck, and it will go flying in the air. However, Bumblebee, who should be much heavier doesn't knock them over with such ease. The same can be said about drones and Bot alt-modes. Ironhide, Jazz, or any other character in game can ram into any alt-mode and send them flying. Although you yourself will fly too.
• Guns are absolutely useless in this game. Any drone beyond a Swindle drone will shield themselves from your gunfire, and anything that can be shot at can be destroyed five times faster if you punch it, throw something at it or whack it with a random piece of debris.
  • This makes playing as Ironhide a little more difficult, as Ironhide has a 50% chance to replace the last melee hit with a cannon shot.
    • Doesn't make it better that when a projectile hits a barrier or shield, it will reflect and Can deal damage to you! Great.
• Starscream sounds a lot like Grover.
• Scorponok is the only playable character that can't jump, climb or pick up debris. This means that there are several Decepticon insignias and glowing yellow cubes that are unattainable when playing as him.
• In the opening cinematic for Blackout, the entire army personnel fires at him, without any consequence whatsoever. However, when playing as any character in Tranquility or Mission City, police officers with standard pistols can damage you.
• In Chapter 2 for Autobots in mission 2 a cutscene has a Dropkick and Swindle drone tossing Jazz next to a house. As they are about to finish him off, Ironhide attacks the two drones by slamming into them in vehicle mode. When he transforms the drones just magically disappear.
• For Chapter 4 for Autobots, Chapter 2 has Jazz beat the hell out of two Dreadwings, Blackout, and Starscream. But in Chapter 2 mission 2, he has to ask Ironhide to assist him in defeating weak scrap drones.
• In the final level of Chapter 4 right before reaching the tallest building in Mission City, Megatron speaks in Starscream's voice. Maybe they switched bodies.
• Since Generation 1 Optimus Prime is a skin of Optimus Prime, many would think Generation 1 Megatron would be a skin of Megatron. Instead, he has Optimus Prime's moves and guns and even features a blue Autobot shield instead of a red Decepticon one, making him more like Optimus Prime who can fly. Weird.
• There are many size errors revolving around Bonecrusher and Brawl. During Sinister Saviour and Warpath, they are shown to be about the same height as Starscream (31 ft), while during the opening cutscene of Fireworks, Bonecrusher is half his size and during For The Fallen Brawl is the same height as Ironhide (22 ft).
• Optmus Prime has color issues between his truck and robot modes, such as the cab's roof: In robot mode it's red, while in vehicle mode it's blue with red flames. Robo-vision Optimus's truck mode's front half is red and back half is blue, but the back half (Sleeper and back fenders) forms his back and part of his arms, which are red, while the front fenders form his ankles, which are blue.
• During half the cutscenes, Ironhide looks like his highly realistic PS3/XboX360/PC counterpart. During the other half, he looks like his low resolution Wii/PS2 counterpart.
• Speaking of cutscene oddities, Blackout is sand colored during the SOCCENT cutscenes, but during gameplay he is light gray.
• Even more so, in the initial cutscene of Plight of the Bumblebee, as Barricade scans the humans, Mikaela is misspelled as "Mikela".

Notes

• The Autobots really like transforming into robots. Optimus likes it so much, he jumps thirty feet into the air every time he does it.
• Rather than do the sane thing and pan away, we get to watch a robot-mode protoform Bumblebee grow kibble after scanning the Camaro. This looks roughly twice as ridiculous as what you're currently imagining.
• Punching your enemies in the face repeatedly is "heroic" when Autobots do it, but "evil" when Decepticons do it. Sounds like a double standard!
• Blackout is toy accurate in the game, in that his main rotor is his melee weapon, rather than his tail rotor as in the movie.
• Tranquility features a large number of Generation 1 references, with adverts for "Hound's Hotdogs," "Seaspray's Fish and Chips," a local mall called "Metroplex" and a fast food restaurant named "Chip Chase's". As a more recent reference, there is also a building site belonging to "Bay Demolition". There is also a place called Frank & Peter's cafe.
• One Autobot isn't explicitly killed in the Decepticon campaign: Ratchet. Three Decepticons aren't killed in the Autobot campaign: Bonecrusher, Scorponok and Frenzy. The only character who dies in both campaigns is, unsurprisingly enough, Jazz. Even when every other bit of movie canon is thrown out the window, he still can't make it out alive.
• Bumblebee uses some kind of axe when he fights with a three-punch combo.
• Ratchet, Bonecrusher, Brawl, and Frenzy aren't playable.
• Throwing vehicles at buildings barely puts a dent in the structure. Instead of making a hole or even damaging it at all, cars and trucks thrown at buildings bounce off the building and often hit you instead.
• G1 Megatron flies rather than turning into a gun.
• If you stand in front of a building, you automatically start climbing it. If you idle while doing this as Blackout or Optimus, they will scratch their butt.
• In Mission City, there's a giant guitar on a building. If you grab it as Bumblebee or Barricade, it looks like they're playing it.

Differences between the Game and Movie

The Quarterspark.

• All plotlines relating to humans have been removed; the game has nothing involving GI Joes (replaced by a communication truck), agents (replaced by guests Landmine and Stockade), or comic relief (replaced by the cutscenes). Even Sam himself has barely any role beyond "holder of the MacGuffins."
• Video game Bumblebee breaks free inside Hoover Dam and has to deactivate a silly laser grid to get to the All Spark. Sam turns up at the end of the mission just in time to leave.
• The game's All Spark is tiny, only four or five times taller than Bumblebee as opposed to the movie's city block-sized cube. It's housed in the same room as Megatron (great idea, guys!) who's shoved into a little alcove rather than freestanding in his own room.
• Barricade is present at the Mission City battle. Same for Scorponok, in the Decepticon Campaign.
• In the Autobot campaign, Brawl kills Jazz after Jazz kills Blackout and beats the hell out of Starscream. In the Decepticon campaign, Barricade kills Jazz. Either way, Megatron doesn't.
• Frenzy has red eyes!
• Autobot Campaign: Bumblebee kills Barricade in Mission City. In the movie, Barricade's fate is was uncertain.
• Autobot Campaign: Optimus, rather than Sam, kills Megatron with the All Spark.
• Decepticon Campaign: Shoving the All Spark cube into his own chest does not kill Megatron, apparently.
• Decepticon Campaign: Evil wins!

External links

• Official website for Transformers: The Game