Sometimes it’s a good idea to let somebody else give their perspective on something. The first Transformers game was by Traveller’s Tales and ending up being the gaming equivalent of a rusty old banger. For this globe-trotting sequel Activision have let Luxoflux have a stab at the Transformers license, which makes perfect sense considering that they developed the car-combat series Vigilante 8 and also the admittedly quite good Kung Fu Panda tie-in.
The good news is that it’s a better game than the first. Not greatly so, but there’s a definite improvement. Combat has a lot more depth with each robot having their own skill (helicopter Grindor can drop automated gun turrets; Bumblebee can emit an EMP blast to stun foes, etc) and each kill is scored depending on style. Missions objectives are generally more interesting – there’s a couple of escort and protect missions, a battle against the colossal Devastator and some against the clock checkpoint races. There are still a few too many mindless “go and find some Decepticons and bash ‘em up†missions though. Each mission has bonus objectives too, like having to kill 10 enemies in a certain way. Completing these will give you bonus points to upgrade weapons and the like and also unlock full cartoons from the 80s TV series.