Transformers The Game (console)

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Transformers The Game
If you're a mid- to late-00s kid and remember this game, then your childhood was honestly pretty average and unremarkable.
Developer	Traveller's Tales
Publisher	Activision
Platform	PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC DVD-ROM
Release date	June 19, 2007 (NA) June 20, 2007 (AU) July 20, 2007 (EU)
Ratings	ESRB: T PEGI: 12+

Transformers The Game is the video game adaptation of the 2007 Live-action movie. Developed by Traveller's Tales with cinematic cutscenes animated by Blur Studio for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii and PC via DVD-ROM, the game follows several of the movie's robotic characters through a loose approximation of the movie's plot. The game has two campaigns, one for each faction. It was the first game published by Activision after 21 years without publishing any Transformers title.

Several other versions of the title were released for other platforms.

Synopsis

Autobots

Level 1: The Suburbs

BONK!

A mysterious meteor crashed down to earth, ending up in Bay Demolition. 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.

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 Barricade's wild flailing about, while also 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.

Level 2: More Than Meets the Eye

Logic, etc. etc.

You... wouldn't happen to know where the Taco store is, would you?

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 turned tail, transformed into a helicopter, 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 somehow Shockwave got ahold of the glasses. Trust us, just roll with it.), he rolls out with the rest of his crew.

Level 3: Inside Hoover Dam

Micheal Bay endorses this message

In Hoover Dam, Bumblebee was being held in a ridiculous 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 he destroyed consoles at random, 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, which consisted of a search and destroy of climbing the... uh... buildings (?) inside of Hoover Dam and punching 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.

Level 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. 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, along with the horsecrap flamethrowers that somehow never ended despite you throwing every darn car at them, and having to fight 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. Sam and Mikaela ran for it, and hid in one of the buildings.

Level 5: The Ultimate Doom

After Megatron got to Sam Witwicky again Optimus came in to stop Megatron in a showdown for the ages. Not.

Megatron and Optimus Prime threw down in the Mission City park. After an extremely 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 leapt 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).

"You said they'd reciprocate!"

Decepticons

Level 1: SOCCENT Military Base

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

Blackout shot down an MH-53 and scanned it as his vehicle mode, he then proceeded to the SOCCENT Forward Operations Base in Qatar, and at Starscream's command, he destroys the entire base.

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

Some humans managed to release their communication vehicles, he deployed Scorponok to deal with the situation and succeeds. Meanwhile Blackout went to destroy the communication array, hoping to steal their mainframes and grab its data, since it has important information about the location of the AllSpark.

Scorponok then returned to Blackout, whereupon Starscream informed that some human reinforcements were on the way to prevent their escape, but Blackout managed to destroy them all. After that Starscream informed that there wasn't any concrete information on the data, but an human was in possesion of an artifact which its origin conicides with the information they adquired, Blackout and Scorponok then leave Qatar.

Level 2: The Hunt For Sam Witwicky

Barricade landed in Tranquility, and scanned the Saleen S281 police car nearby a donut store (because cops like donuts) and got in contact with Starscream. Starscream informed him he was there to find a pair of glasses which are the said artifact, and that Barricade must do it before the Autobots does.

This is what is technically known as a bad idea.

Starscream informed Barricade that they might not be the only transformers in the area, and ordered him to investigate. After driving to a part of town marked on the radar, he was set upon by Autobot Drones, after despatching them, he drove to another part of town where he was set upon by more of them. After destroying all the Drones in the area, Starscream told him to head to the power plant in order to find Frenzy, who found some very interesting information about their mission. Upon arrival, Barricade found himself faced with Sector Seven, who have captured Frenzy. Finding himself dealing with a Sector Seven SUV which could enter inside buildings, Barricade then teared down all the nearby buildings in his search for Frenzy. However turns out that he is actually trapped inside a Sector Seven SUV which its drivers used the explosions caused by the Decepticon destroying the building to its advantage, and got out of the building to escape and hide inside another one without causing damage (because they're Sector Seven, they know how to do that).

After repeating this several times, Barricade cornered Frenzy's captors at the local shopping mall, destroying the entire building in a way that killed everyone inside by destroying the SUV and setting Frenzy free. After picking him up, Frenzy passed all the information that he gathered to Barricade which then contact Starscream to tell everything Frenzy discovered. Frenzy discovered that a human named Sam Witwicky was in possession of the artifact which a pair of ocular lenses that reveals the location of Megatron.

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 go after and stop the Autobot in order to find Sam. This forced Bumblebee to use a shockwave attack that destroyed a huge area of town by accident every time he did it and always knocked Barricade out of the action zone with only a little time to recover. Still Barricade gets the upper hand against Bumblebee, then chased him down to the local Bay Demolition, only to be ambushed by Autobot Drones who were hiding there but Barricade defeated all of them.

Barricade collect information about Sam through the police databank in the Police Station. There he cornered Sam with Mikaela, but when he was about to attack them, Bumblebee interveined, picked them both up and drove off to safety and then drove back to engage him.

By using the same tactics from their last encounter, Barricade defeated with Bumblebee. Knowing what will happen if he keep fighting, Bumblebee drove off, Barricade followed, and they did it again. After repeating for some time, Bumblebee is killed, Barricade then threaten to harm then if Sam don't give him the glasses, Sam then gave the glasses to him and he got away, Sam and Mikaela are then surrounded by Sector Seven are under arrest.

Level 3: A Gathering Force

With the location of Megatron and the AllSpark now at hand, Starscream went to gather the remaining Decepticons. He aproached a secret human airbase in the search for Bonecrusher and Brawl, but upon arriving his radar jammed by the local human communications equipment. Frenzy, (who decided to speak in Cybertronian language to be very annoying) came in contact with Starscream to send their locations for him to destroy. After doing that, the 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 untill he was surrounded by turrets firing an paralyzing electrical energy at him. Starscream, rather than reprimanding him for this idiocy, destroyed turrets and escorted him onto the runway. Only to find themselves being surrounded by drone aircrafts, 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 biology. Realizing this, Starscream no doubt viewed destroying these vehicles as useful practice.

Following on from this, Brawl got the courage to move out, and Bonecrusher went to meet with him. Right into human tanks that fires the same electricity that paralyzed Bonecrusher earlier. Starscream then went to do everything himself again, flying back and forth using everything he has to destroy the tanks and save his rather apathetic comrades from self-imposed doom. With the base destroyed and all the Decepticons united, Starscream then ordered them all to make for the rendezvous point.

Starscream and Blackout arrived at the Hoover Dam and started to destroy it, some Autobot Drones who managed to secretly follow Sam and Mikaela's kinnapers to their base tried to defend it but to no avail, as in the end, Megatron was finally free. Starscream and Blackout then bowed before their lord, who then declared they have much to do.

Level 4: City of the Machines

Because of everything that happened in Hoover Dam, the Autobots managed to set the humans free and they got the cube, Megatron sent his Decepticons ahead of him. Except Starscream, Brawl and Bonecrusher, who would follow suite to Mission City. Barricade arrived there and informed Megatron that Sam went into hiding there with the AllSpark, Megatron asks him if he knows what will be at stake if he fails, but Barricade replies that he knows and it will be done.

"I didn't touch anything!"

Jazz was protecting Sam and Mikaela when Barricade appeared in front of him, Jazz ordered both of them to get out so that he and Barricade could fight. After taking too much damage, Jazz knowing that he will suffer Bumblebee's fate if he keep fighting, decided to run away.

Megatron prepares to unleash his impression of someone else.

Barricade still managed to catch-up to Jazz and damaged him so much that in the end he died, not before "Optimus, i tried". Megatron detected an huge energy signature coming from the city's park and ordered Scorponok to find out what was it, there they discovered the AllSpark is causing the machines to come to life. Scorponok then has to kill all the Energon drones in the area before more are created. After all of them are destroyed, Scorponok threaten them if they don't give the AllSpark to him. Sam was about to hand over the AllSpark when Ironhide interveined and ordered to go away while took care of the scorpion-esque Decepticon. Blackout was angered by this mistreatment of his pet, and vowed to give Ironhide the honor of dying by his blade.

This is what is technically known as CHEATING.

Ironhide pulled out everything he had: every Autobot Drone type except for Mixmaster and Dreadwing, 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, only being vulnerable after all the Drones in the area are destroyed. Despite this, Blackout finally killed him, Mikaela and Sam told Optimus what happened to them and so Optimus decided to hide them in a safe place himself.

Megatron finally arrived in the city, where he formulate a plan to put his hands in the AllSpark once and for all. This plan consisted of Megatron trying to coax Optimus out of hiding by destroying the city at random, after destroying a huge part of it, Megatron followed a beacon send by Prime, thinking he would fight him there, only to be ambushed by some Autobot Drones. This lead to Megatron destroying the drones and after destroying all of them, he goes to another random area, to destroy, only to be tricked again by the Drones. after destroying the second wave of Drones, Megatron got tired of this and decided to find him by his own. After destroying the city at random the third time, he finally found Optimus Prime at the top of the tallest building in the city, he then climbed it and when he reached the top, they both battled in a way that caused them to fall from the top of the building back to the streets.

Level 5: Day of the Machines

Back on the ground, the final battle began. This largely consisted of Megatron attacking Prime with every meele attack he can do, after sometime attacking, Optimus then running away while Megatron fought the Drones, after the Drones are destroyed, Megatron then flew around, trying to find Optimus who was with Sam to protect the AllSpark. After a very fast whil, Megatron found them and Sam escaped, allowing both of them to continue the battle. After repeating this for a long time, Optimus got exaust and Megatron hit him in the head using his whip-chain with all his strengh, killing him allowing Megatron to finally grab the cube, and then he absorb-it. Causing a fire wave that killed everyone in the area.

The life on Earth as we know is now gone, Megatron decided that the Lincoln Memorial would make a fine throne to reign in the world they achieved. All the Decepticons who were absent of the battle joined together to watch the eradication of the human race. After sitting in his new throne, Megatron sent his Decepticons to finish the planet, since they were done here. Barricade felt like suitable for the job and he obliged, and promptly got up while the others watched.

Characters

Playable	Non-Playable	Humans
Autobots Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) Bumblebee Ironhide (Mark Ryan) Jazz (Andrew Kishino) Decepticons Megatron (Frank Welker) Starscream (Daniel Ross) Barricade (Keith David) Blackout (Noah Nelson) Scorponok	Autobots Ratchet (Fred Tatasciore) Decepticons Frenzy Bonecrusher Brawl (David Sobolov) Shockwave Drones Dropkick Payload Scrapper Swindle Longarm Dreadwing Mixmaster Energon drone	Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox)

Drone Variants

Both sides of the Conflict have access to drones, and thus each side has random encounters that you will occasionally have to battle in small skirmishes. Each has their own AI and attack pattern, along with set weaknesses.

• Scrappers: The grunts of this game, but not necessarily the most common. Their AI is a relatively simple one in that they just shoot a missile at you, and than charge at you and try to melee you the rest of the way. They cannot shield themselves from gunfire which makes these guys easy in hordes.
• Swindles: The common mooks of this game, and the most frequently encountered not just in missions but in those small little out of story skirmishes. They frequently charge at you 1 missile at a time, and once in melee range they will try to punch you. They can shield themselves, but it's very uncommon, and they can easily be dispatched.
• Dropkicks: The "heavy lifters" of the common drone type, they're usually seen using Swindles as cannon fodder and firing missiles at you from a distance. They are also the only drones smart enough to throw stuff at you.
• Longarms: The most common of the "Throw stuff at them to make them stop" types, these guys walk up to you slowly while flailing around a giant and long wire cable with a hook attatched to it, knocking you as the poor player all around the place. Throwing cars is not advisable though unless you are Optimus Prime, seeing as when most characters throw cars it's thrown from above, so it will usually hit the top of the hitbox instead of hitting the Longarm drone.
• Payloads: These drones charge at you headfirst, but their reckless charge means you can jump around them. Once they start looking around aimlessly, throw something at them or punch them to knock them out of the AI state. They will go back into charging phase after you land a hit, so be sure to combo them before running away. They always come in pairs though, so be prepared for that.
• Dreadwings: Dreadwings are uncommon drones that when encountered will fly in and land in a ring of outwards expanding fire that will launch you away from them. They will then have the audacity to run at you nonstop, and spam their flamethrowers. And the flamethrowers have a deceptively large range, making it hard for you as the player to throw items at them. And once you land a decent combo on them, they fly away, regain about 5% of their health, and come back at you, forcing to repeat the same process until they are defeated.
• Mixmasters: The most uncommon type of drone encountered, these guys cannot be damaged by conventional means, and require it that you grab an object, throw it at them, knock them over, pick them up, and throw them at a random building or onto the floor. Their slow speed makes them relatively easy to fight though, as you can usually knock them down extremely easily, but they can easily kill an unprepared player as their missiles deal some massive damage.

Cybertron Levels

As a reward for the player for completing a Campaing, a "Bonus Level" set on Cybertron is unlocked for the player to play. Due to being available at the Level select in the Faction select, its possible that they're set in the story. Players play with Optimus Prime (In Autobot Campaign) and Megatron (In Decepticon Campaign), without the ability to transform and both of them have the same objective: Destroy 35 Drones to complete the Level. Unfortunately, Cybertron's look in both Levels doesn't resemble the G1 cartoon, not even the opening cinematic or the scenes from the movie. Something that was fixed From three to five years later.

Cybertron Level: Autobot

Upon returning to Cybertron, Optimus needed to take out the remaining evil force. Optimus Prime sees himself in an Arena looking place fighting wave after wave of over 35 drones, in the final wave he faces Shockwave, although this time he doesn't transform. After defeating him, all of the Decepticon forces are gone for good. Or are they really gone?

Cybertron Level: Decepticon

It was now time for Megatron's triumphant return to Cybertron, which apparently consisted of fighting 35 Autobot drones in a big arena. After scrapping over 35 drones, ranging from basic Scrappers to freaking PAYLOADS, the Autobots are now nothing but a memory.

Sub-Missions

Represented by large glowing boxes with the represented symbols of said Sub-mission, they provide challenges for those who wanted to pay energon cubes to play a "minigame" where the player must complete the objective before the time runs out. So if you want to unlock everything, or just take a break from what's happening in the Story mode? Well good news for you, every single time you beat a Sub-mission, a new mini game opens up, offering more Energon cubes in exchange for more energon cubes and maybe the occasional bonus content.

Types of Sub-missions:

• Hunt: Hunt down all the vehicles and destroy them. (You just chase down and destroy a bunch of cars within the time limit. It would be easier were it not for the driving.).
• Scavenger: Find all the cogs within the marked area. (They're not really well hidden, and the map shows them in little green blips, so it's pretty easy.).
• Sumo: Push all the opponents out of the ring. Careful you don't get knocked out! (It's WAY harder than it looks, mostly due in fact that Longarms just exist, and Mixmasters are the most common enemy types faced here. You heard that right, MIXMASTER DRONES.).
• Race: Race to the finish line. (Every checkpoint does lower the timer, but you lose time for transforming, which happens often because the buildings are coated with some weird magical substance that makes you transform the moment you touch it. And you have to race in order to reach the checkpoints in time. Are you mad? YOU WILL.).

Unlockables

The game includes a "Bonus Features" menu with several items to be unlocked. These unlockables can be obtained via any or all of the following methods:

• 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 Chapter.
• Completing a Sub-mission.
• Completing a Level.
• Completing a Cybertron Level.
• Completing a skill, including: Throw, Speed (when in land vehicle mode), Slide (when in land vehicle mode), Jump (when in land vehicle mode), Evil (for Decepticons), Heroic (for Autobots) and Destruction (for Decepticons).

The unlockable bonus features are separated in three sections:

• Bonus Movies: consisting of four commercials for the 2007 movie and the intro sequences of all three Unicron Trilogy cartoons.
• Bonus Gallery: an image gallery with 158 images in total. Featuring concept art, toy box art images, and covers of past Transformers comics by Marvel Comics, Dreamwave Productions, and IDW Publishing.
• G1 characters: five alternate character skins detailed below:

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 led 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 than 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.

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 but generally praised by the random destruction.

Technical errors and oddities

• You cannot destroy the top halves of buildings, but the bottom halves of the buildings are susceptible to all sorts of damage.
  • Alongside that, you can climb on thin air.
• 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.
• Alongside that, developers obviously have no sense of anything within the Mission City battle.
  • Regarding the Battle logistics for the Autobots...
    • Despite the fact that the Human military is allied with the autobots at this current moment in time, they'll still attack the autobots even though the decepticons are the ones causing all the damage to everything.
    • Despite the fact you can destroy the building Bumblebee is stuck in... he'll still be stuck in there somehow.
    • During the cutscene, Starscream uses his regular Jet-mode missiles, but in the actual game he uses some form of super-explosive missiles. Michael Bay must've had a say in that.
    • In that same mission, when Blackout joins in the cutscene, he fires his bot-mode missiles instead of the usual rapid fire missiles that he has in Helicopter mode.
    • When the game cuts back to the action, Blackout is firing his Rapid Fire missiles.
  • Regarding Time for the Autobots...
    • When Starscream starts desecrating buildings, the time is morning.
    • When Jazz confronts Starscream the sun is setting...
    • Midway through the fight, Starscream is "damaged" but it's now Noon.
    • At the end of the mission Brawl shows up and it's Sunset again.
    • When Ironhide confronts Brawl, it's sunset, but by the time Ironhide kills Brawl it's Noon again.
    • Bumblebee drives off to confront Barricade at Noon. He faces off against Barricade at Sunset.
    • Midway through the fight, Bumblebee knocks Barricade into a bus, and it's noon again. It stays this way for a while (Thankfully.)
    • Bumblebee defeats Barricade by Sunset. Than Megatron shows up, and Megatron and Optimus fight at Sunset. In the final mission, it's still noon.
    • It goes back to sunset when Optimus defeats Megatron.
  • Regarding the Decepticons...
    • Bonecrusher, Brawl, and Starscream are completely absent from the fight.
    • Jazz is seen transporting Sam and Mikaela, but Sam doens't have the Allspark. Barricade must really hate fleshlings.
    • When Barricade confronts Jazz it's Sunset.
    • When Barricade knocks down Jazz, it's Noon.
    • When Barricade kills Jazz... you should already know at this point.
    • 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.
• The Dreadwing AI doesn't properly turn off when activating a mission during Act 3, but thankfully the drone will despawn once you actually start the mission. Doesn't stop them from being pesky and persistent motherfragging pains in the aft.
  • Oh, and just to make Dreadwings even more annoying, someone didn't do a proper bug test, so the Spawn variable for Dreadwings is active AT ALL TIMES during Act 3. This means that a Dreadwing is able to spawn ANYWHERE, during ANY MISSION if you even so much as decide to land and walk around in robot mode. Oh yeah, you heard us right. Dreadwings can spawn during the BRAWL AND BONECRUSHER ESCORT MISSIONS. WHERE YOU ARE REQUIRED TO BE IN ROBOT MODE TO DESTROY THOSE WEIRD ELECTRICITY TURRETS. ARGH.
• 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).
• In a rather frustrating case of poor bug testing for all of the main consoles, any drone encountered in Mission City will cause you HOURS upon HOURS of Frustration. There are many spots and even frame perfect PIXELS on buildings that do not have collision hitboxes, which means if a drone is in free-fall (you throwing them, or slapping them with a heavy enough object during which their Hitboxes move at a rate that can allow their hitbox to warp past those of other larger hitboxes simply because that's what they were programmed to do) they WILL get stuck in the buildings if their collison hitboxes end up stuck behind those of the collision hitboxes of buildings. Which means you have to memorize which buildings in Mission city don't have those missing collision hitboxes, because if you don't you'll end up having to reset the entire level, all because a single Payload or Longarm got stuck behind a building. This coincidentally includes a MAJORITY of the buildings during the Ironhide fight in Mission Park, and all of the buildings in the far corner map where Megatron has to fight Payloads and Longarms. Many controllers have been lost. Let their noble cause be remembered.
• 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 and Decepticons really like transforming into robots. Optimus likes it so much, he jumps thirty feet into the air every time he does it.
• It's assumed that both sides of the conflict are cannibals, seeing as how killing a Cybertronian opponent somehow replenishes your health.
• Rather than do the sane thing and pan away, we get to watch a robot-mode protoform Bumblebee and Barricade grow kibble after scanning their respective car modes. 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, probably referencing one of his earlier concept designs.
• Jazz's special attack is a sword, which just like Bumblebee, it could also have been in his earlier concept designs.
• 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.
• Movie Megatron has the largest hitbox of any transformer in the game, which unfortunately makes it so that his hitbox extends outside his shield. Hmm... where have we seen that before
• 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.
• The final cutscene of the Decepticon Campaign Level 4 is identical to the final scene of the opening scene of the game. Just happening in daytime.
• Dreadwings are an absolute nightmare. Did we ever tell you how much we hate Dreadwings in this game?

Differences between the Game and Movie

The Quarterspark.

• All plotlines relating to humans have been removed; the game has nothing involving soldiers (replaced by communication trucks, hellicopters and tanks), agents (replaced by guests SUVS), 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. Whoever wanted to be like this could be asking for the end of the world!
• In the Autobot Campaign, Barricade is present at the Mission City battle. Same for Scorponok, in the Decepticon Campaign.
• Autobot Campaign: Brawl is killed by Ironhide after the former killed Jazz. In the movie, he is killed by Bumblebee.
• Autobot campaign: Brawl kills Jazz after the latter kills Blackout and Starscream. In the Decepticon campaign, its Barricade who kills him. Either way, Megatron doesn't.
• Autobot Campaing: Blackout is killed by Jazz. In the movie, he is killed by Lennox.
• Autobot Campaign: Starscream dies. In the movie, he Starscream doesn't die, in fact he never dies in the Live-action film series at all. At least until the battle of Chicago!
• Frenzy has red eyes!
• Autobot Campaign: Bumblebee kills Barricade in Mission City. In the movie, Barricade's fate is unknown.
• Autobot Campaign: Optimus, rather than Sam, kills Megatron with the AllSpark.
• 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