Our friend Kim, great fan of the Transformer franchise prepared a great article in a few part. We have the pleasure to present the first part here. Enjoy.
Transformers exists now for 36 years already and unfortunately one can’t say that all their games have been masterpieces. Why that is the case is something that I can only speculate about, but I would say that the creators did not always recognize the Franchise as a serious project.
In this article we will hence to have a look at pretty much all the games that were released between 1985 and 2021.
1985 was the release year for the first Transformers game, which had the simple title ‘Transformers’. During that time the game was available on the Sinclair Spectrum and the Commodore 64. The game itself was a platformer that featured extremely unordinary enemies, accompanied with the fact that the game was unfair towards the player. The publisher of the game was Ocean Software.
The second game was first released on the Commodore 64 and was something similar to a strategy game, in which one was able to look at moving introductory pictures where the Transformers transformed themselves. However, most of the game is played on a map on which the characters are represented with different numbers. Consequently, the game could not be considered to be the ideal game, however it was the better fit game considering the consoles that were used during that time. The game was released in 1986, carrying the title ‘The Battle to Save the Earth’ and was already back, then published by Activision.
The next game also released in 1986, however this time only on the newer generations of consoles, that being the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Nintendo Famicon. Back then the game was a Japan exclusive game with the title ‘Transformers Mystery of Convoy’. The game was produced by the company called ISCO and published by Convoy. The game itself presents itself as a something close to a Probotector clone, where you have only one health and are shot at from all different angles available. Just like in the first game, there are questionable enemies and even weirder boss fights that lead to a very unsatisfactory ending…In the game it was possible to transform, however that action led to the player becoming an even easier target for the enemies…Surprisingly the game was rereleased in 2015, still remaining a Japan exclusive, staying true to its roots. This time it was called ‘Transformers Mystery of Convoy returns’…
Next in line was a release in 1987 for the Nintendo Famicom Disk System called ‘Transformers: The Headmasters’ that was a bit easier and fairer towards the player. However, the game was nothing new, as it was an amalgamation of different game genres, and also had a bad soundtrack which led to the game not even being close to ideal for its time. The game was just like ‘Transformers Mystery of Convoy, a Japan exclusive release, with the only difference between the games being that this time one had more health points as in the previous game.
Next came ‘Transformers: Beast Wars’ that was released in the year 1997 on the PlayStation. A year later it also arrived on PC & Mac. This game was produced by Hasbro interactive, however despite that it was unfortunately close to being unplayable as it was once again very unfair towards its player. It was possible to play through the entire game, however which each action the game tried its best to put more obstacles in your way.
Following this there is another Japan exclusive game that got released on the Gameboy Color. The game was part of the ‘Transformers Beast Wars 2’ universe and its title was ‘Kettō Transformers Beast Wars: Best Senshi Saikyō Ketteisen’. The game is a Street Fighter 2 like clone and was released in the year 1999.
In the same year there was another Beat-em-up game that got released on the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64, this time under the name ‘Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetal’. Unfortunately, the game was nothing special, as the framerate was extremely low and the game did not run smoothly at all. Additionally, the game itself would seem to have never been programmed to its end…
2003 was the release of the ‘best’ ‘Transformers G1’ game that was available on the PlayStation 2. It was considered to be the best G1 Universe Game, however it is still only something for hardcore fans, as the controls are very difficult. Compared to the previous games, like ‘Transformers: Beast Wars’ the controls were better, but the game was still not running as smooth as the Transformers game released on the Atari. Here we then arrive at the more or less bad aspects of the game. One situation that was frustrating was when the enemy had you in the air and you could do nothing but wait for your character to land again, hoping that you would not receive too much damage. The game was therefore a Dynasty Warrior clone, produced by Winkysoft and published by Takara.
2004 was the time for a Transformers game that aimed to take the franchise out of its bad light that the previous games established over the years. The game was simply called ‘Transformers’, but fans also remember the game by the name ‘Transformers Armada Prelude to Energon’. Produced was the game by the Australian company Melbourne House and the publisher was Atari. The game was in the first place a 3d Person Shooter with a small part being also in 1st Person, allowed by a camera option that was part of the game. The game was not only nice to look at for its time but was also created with the Unreal 2 graphic engine. Not to forget that the soundtrack of the game was after ‘Halo’ also considered to be outstanding, as the music adapted to the situation in the game. This meant that if you are not in fights with Decepticons, the game would play calmer music, compared to the energetic music that played during the fighting scenes of the game. Additionally, Melbourne House inspired themselves on the AI from ‘Halo’, which meant that the Decepticons all behaved individually and adapted themselves to the fighting style of the player. Playable were 3 Characters: Optimus Prime, Red Alert and Hotshot.
To be continued
