Did you know that Transformers will be 40 years old next year? Yep, the long running franchise that started life as a (blindingly successful) attempt to sell Japanese robot toys to American kids is almost as old as me. Being a fan of something for that long, especially when it’s never really taken a break, can be a bit weird, as one day you’ll suddenly realise that the bits that you remember being new-fangled upstarts are now old enough to vote and have kids and stuff. Y’know, if they were people and not cartoons and toys and whatnot.
Transformers Armada is one of those things. Released in 2002, the cartoon and accompanying toyline kicked off what has become known as the Unicron Trilogy, and is a bit of a mixed bag. The show was absolute bobbins, even before taking into account a lot of jank caused by production problems. Although there were some great toys, many were hampered by assorted gimmicks, resulting in limited articulation and transformation in order to allow for wee-woo noises, flashing lights and spring-loaded flaps.
There is one part of the Transformers Armada media blitz that was bloody great and still holds up today. Surprisingly (unless you remembered you’re reading this on a video game website) it’s the 2004 PlayStation 2 tie-in, simply titled Transformers. Developed by Melbourne House (possibly the first game developer my tiny brain was ever aware of, thanks to Way of the Exploding Fist) and published by Atari, Transformers is a (mostly) third-person shooter set across a series of sprawling, open levels. From your base/hub/glorified level select screen, you’ll pick one of three Autobots, who will almost certainly be Optimus Prime, and which of the unlocked levels you want to travel to. Once you’ve arrived via advanced Cybertronian teleportation trickery, your job is to navigate the level, fighting hordes of generic Decepticon grunts until you have a showdown with the named boss baddie at the end.
It’s classic video game action superbly executed. Optimus and chums have a solid heft to their movement, a satisfying inertia that conveys their size and weight, despite the scarcity of human-scale environments (and total lack of humans) for comparison. While you can just run in, guns blazing, enemies can soak up a lot of punishment and dish out a fair amount of their own. Instead, you may want to try a stealthy, sniper approach, switching into first person mode (which you can still freely move around in, it’s not just a zoom function) and trying for a few headshots before engaging fully.