Reviews

'Transformers' isn't actually as bad as its reputation but it's still rather average. Cybertron looks rather bland and samey but the Autobots and Decepticons are well-drawn and recognisable and the transforming is excellent. Giving all the Autobots different abilities, strengths and weaknesses was also a good move.

At heart, though, this is just an explore-the-screens-and-find-the-objects game with some shooting thrown-in. It's not actually bad and is fun for a while but there are better games in this genre out there.

The problem with a Transformers game is that the two aspects of the robot (Vehicle / robot with big gun) are never going to come together. The purpose of the game is to explore and collect the pieces of treasure scattered around, but theres never any real reason to change into a vehicle. Its still reasonably fun as it is.

BUT

I'm going to upgrade it from 3 to 4 because driving as a vehicle off a platform from a great height is one of the most rewarding experiences of hari-kiri in a Spectrum game. It even beats jumping off the flagpole in JSW. Or the skull-marked door in Mercenary.

I forgotten all about this game. No wonder, it's really nothing special.
Shooting things and collecting stuff, that's mainly it.
It has it's ups though. Plays fairly well, there is a lot of shooting to do, if you like that sort of stuff, and the graphics are a bit on the small side but do their job nicely, although the way the cars go up and down always made me feel a bit dissatisfied.

by Denton Designs (Simon Butler)
The millionth TV or movie licence of the year for Ocean, and, although mediocre, it still wasn't one of the worst. After all there was Denton Designs behind it, specifically Simon Butler: people who knew what "quality" meant. Anyway, the game is rather dull, the gameplay is based on exploration of a samey metal environment made of platforms and ramps while you control one of the characters of the cartoon, cutely small and detailed sprites that can be recognized as Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and the rest of the gang, which you can choose. The animation is appreciable, and the main feature of the robots is mantained: you can actually transform yourself into a vehicle (and viceversa), and the process resembles very closely the original one - once you are moving on your wheels, you can go up the ramps, but, anyway, when you're a robot you can fly. So, while shooting and keeping at bay the baddies [recognizable too], you must look for some objects that look like buttons, and bring them where your Transformer logo should be, each "button" adding a fraction of it to the frame. Once it's complete, you won. Not very exciting.
2,5/5