Video games based on movies have never turned out that great; Spider-man, Superman, Matrix and so many more in the past have all been slaughtered in development. Transformers: The Game unfortunately falls in the same category. Video game companies are pushed to release a title in time for the premiere of the movie. While the new Transformers movie was quite good and very popular amongst fans, the game falls far too short of expectation amongst fans and ends up being an experience that just should be missed.

Gameplay is just not fun; while the game gives gamers the choice of playing on either side; the Autobots – good guys – are just flat out horrible to fight as. The Decepticons campaign – bad guys – is actually a decent adventure. Through the campaign, you will play as any of the 5 Autobots from the movie. In the Decepticons campaign you too can play as Megatron, Starscream, Barricade and the other 3 including Scorponok, the little mechanical scorpion who can hide himself under the sand of the desert. As the Autobots, you’ll be told to seek out and destroy the Decepticons and travel from one end of the level to another… rinse and repeat. Playing as the Decepticons is a bit different as they travel by air, but overall have the same style, go here and destroy that and repeat many times. It isn’t as entertaining as it sounds either. While destroying buildings is most enjoyable, the entire open world looks bland and uninspired.

On a positive note, since there are two sides to play as, there will be two different storylines to play through. The two stories come with a double edged blade -- the campaign is very short, four chapters for each side which take about half an hour each to complete. Moving through the game, you will be relocated to specific spots such as outdoor landscapes, city areas, and warehouses. Each has a wide amount of a freedom to move around in but many of the areas recycle the same types of objects when they can. This is an extremely short game with almost no replay value, the only reason you would go back and play it again is the small extra unlockables. There are cubes you can collect in the process of going from mission to mission; these will unlock extras from the menu such as trailers and behind-the-scenes videos. You also can unlock new paint jobs towards your Transformers and being these are the only models you will actually enjoy in the game, so there IS a bit of value in going back.

You will have two basic abilities with Autobots, race around and fight, while you protect and serve. Naturally, there isn’t much in the way of diverse combat and it will feel repetitive. You will find yourself just bashing one button to swing your robot’s arms and it will work great. The developers did try to spice it up by adding some enemies who will constantly block so you will have to throw an object at him to knock him down so you can deal damage on him, but this too will become repetitive. The Decepticons play more aggressively but are not all that different than the Autobots. You can pick up objects such as trees and automobiles but there are times where if you come close to it, you will accidentally knock it down before you can grab onto it. For some reason, any object you pick up can do extreme damage compared to the heavy weapons your Transformer has.

Targeting doesn’t feel as well developed at times as you will find the cursor moving away from your selected targets for no good reason, and even sometimes you wont be able to lock onto anyone despite the fact there are tons of enemies around. The camera compounds the issue immeasurably.