Transformers (PS2) 9/5/2025 (Part 1)

PS2 shooter with more to it than meets the eye. The transformers have long been a mainstay in my upbringing, from the G1 cartoons to the Bay films, if it had a transformers badge on it then chances are my brother and I have seen it (or twice in my brothers case, the guy is a walking encyclopaedia of throw away transformers trivia). Needless to say that Armada was one of the cartoons we watched religiously when it was on so of course when a game of it came out we HAD to put the same amount of hours into it. At a time when licenced slop was at peak sloppiness you didn't expect too much but with this game they knocked it out of the park, the raw energon awesomeness of the transformers right through your heart with none of the gimmicks, oh wait the gimmicks are here with the minicons but they even made them cool which is something.

Its over. The Decepticons have won. Megatron is about to deliver the coup de grâce to Optimus Prime when he's suddenly interrupted by the minicon distress signal telling them they need picking up from their earth vacation. Good guy Megatron, always looking out for the little people, immediately makes plans to travel to earth and walks off, err ok so you're not going to take two seconds to finish off Optimus... I guess not, me thinks you may regret that decision. The Autobots realise that if Megatron gets his mitts on the minibot's powers then its gg so they go on their own mission to stop him and use the minicon slaves workers they find on the way themselves to make things easier.

This brings us to where much of the gameplay loop comes from, going around semi-open world levels finding the minicons and making use of their various abilities to progress the story by defeating the tricky bosses. Its very metroidvania in that some of the minicons give you new traversal abilities that allow you to reach previous out of reach places so you can collect them all and with how cool some of the powers you get from them are you're going to want to go out of your way to try them all out. Wavebeams, tornado shooters, flak cannons, sniper rifles, tractor beams, missile barrages and you can even turn invisible, there are many, many different skills and weapons to try so there should be something for everyone, sure there's a few repeats/obsolete ones but on the whole the ambition the devs put into making these weapons is impressive especially for the time, plus the colour coding of the minicons adds a strategic layer to loadout choices for the bonus shield to add another cog in this well crafted machine.

The levels themselves are tight when playing through the first times for the story and expansive when returning to collect left over goodies. You'll have a clear path to follow to get to the end of each with a good variety of obstacles to traverse, some environmental and some enemy wise (there are a striking number of enemy types), throughout the triple A locations of the Amazon, Alaska, Antarctica and more, they all look scarily fantastic still with some gorgeous vistas to view I just wish there were more of them as there's only 7 levels and two of them are semi reused, honestly the worst part of the game is this and how short it is but that's one of the best backhanded compliments you can get. The boss fights are a big highlight with your skills put to the metal by some vicious fights that pull no punches, they're brutal but in that satisfying way and getting power bombed from space is worth playing this game alone for.

"Good games are the right of all sentient beings" and Optimus backs it up with this tour de force of robotic excellence, sure there's a few niggles with the stumpy jumps and underused vehicle mode but taking the spectacle of the Transformers and transforming it into a functioning, fun game on the PS2 no less is a feat worthy of the Primes.