Transformers has had a pretty great track record for video games. The War For Cybertron series always promises exciting gameplay with a good story and even the movie tie in titles have been very good. Naturally, the stand alone game for the Armada series was great since it mixed in the fun gameplay with some fun forest levels. Transformers Prime is no different and it is a very fun game, albeit a little short.

The plot certainly does start off like a classic episode. A Dark Energon spike has appeared so the Autobots arrive to see what’s happening. Megatron and Prime have their usual scuffle until the gang is separated. The Autobots will need to regroup to see just what is going on, but the Decepticons have their eyes on the kids. Meanwhile, an old Decepticon of legend has awakened and he wants to destroy the Matrix. Optimus Prime better watch his back!

The gameplay is a lot more combat centered than previous titles. Just about every Transformers game has the option to get in close and personal, but the emphasis is still on blasting your opponent away into oblivion. Blasting is really just a side option in this game although it’s very useful. I tend to use it quite often as the damage builds up pretty quickly. It’s also fun because it’s not the main option. It’s hard to describe, but you just feel the blasts more and it’s more fun to use than in the normal titles. As for the hand to hand combat, it’s what you would expect. You have two different ways to attack and you can string them together to unleash some solid combos. You can quickly enter an awakened mode that allows you to deal extra damage and unleash longer combos.

Naturally, changing into a vehicle is still an option and your blasters do even more damage in that mode. You can tell that the gameplay is not very balanced like in the TMNT game for Gamecube though. There are times when you know that the game wants you to use hand to hand to beat an opponent, but then you just switch to blasters and it still works. It takes a little longer to deal the same damage as a fist attack, but it’s almost equaled out since the enemies don’t fall down as often this way. I just loved blasting away and it’s especially useful when you’re outnumbered since the opponents can’t gang up on you. You can also make a barrier to block energy blasts and you can unleash slow power attacks that can break through a shield. I highly recommend using that only when it is mandatory.

Thunderwing is the new villain for the game and he’s not bad. He’s definitely pretty generic though and he doesn’t have a whole lot of character. He was pretty tough back in his day and he’s still proud of that, but you can’t say much more about him. His design is actually really good, but he’s pretty large so he doesn’t actually get to fight. He’ll just blast at you or try to hit you with his arm. It’s a simple matter to evade and keep on blasting him. His moves are just too limited so he never stood a chance. Still, he’s better than he could have been since he may have been generic, but he was still a tough villain who feared no being!

Speaking of which, the last 5 or so missions are basically just boss fights. Each Autobot gets to take on his/her rival. Starscream isn’t that tough, but he typically runs away a lot, which is true to form. Airachnid and Knockout are probably the easiest to defeat, but that’s probably because Arcee and Bumblebee are the most fun to play as. Spamming their energy attacks is always a lot of fun. Megatron is easily the most difficult opponent to defeat because of his constant air charges. Once he hits you, it’s tough to break out of his combo. I never actually lost a fight, but he did come very close on several occasions. The Decepticon leader is not to be underestimated!

The graphics look pretty good. The energy blasts stand out and they are actually pretty useful here. The character models are all good and the level designs are pretty fun as well. The color palette is a lot lighter than the War For Cybertron series so you could almost say that it looks better, but the latter is still more detailed. I just prefer some of the designs in this game.

Prime’s soundtrack is very good. It borrows the themes from the show and it works out pretty well. There are a lot of opera themes in the game and they help to set the mood for the Decepticons big plots. Once in a while the hero theme will play during a moment that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. That is really the only negative that I can think of in this area since the actual soundtrack is pretty great.

Transformers has always had a bit of a problem with the length of its titles. It is not a real problem depending on your minimum for how long a game should be though. My minimum is 10 levels and the game goes beyond that to 13. It’s just a little dicey since some levels can be completed in under 5 minutes and the longest one is still 10-12 minutes long. That means that you’re looking at about a 2 hour game although likely a lot less if we’re just counting gameplay. This hurts the replay value a bit, but the game still does give us more to do to make up for this.

A pretty big positive for the game is the addition of multiplayer mode to the franchise. That was definitely huge and it’s a lot of fun. The way that it is set up implies that they were thinking of adding a 4 player option, but it may have been scrapped. You can still battle it out with a friend and I believe that you are also able to team up. It’s great to finally have a local multiplayer experience like in the good ole days. you can also try to get S ranks on all of the stages and find the collectibles on each level. That shouldn’t be very hard, but you’ll probably need to play each level at least twice so that should certainly increase the play time for you. I managed to get S ranks on several levels on my initial run, but I still missed most of the collectibles.

Overall, Transformers Prime is a pretty good game. It’s definitely what you’d call a cash in/tie in, but it’s pretty fun. You’ll be done with it in no time so getting it at 50-60 dollars may not be the way to go, but the price has dipped considerably since then. Now, it’s definitely worth purchasing and you’ll have fun playing in multiplayer mode. The replay value is definitely good enough and the graphics/soundtrack are very good. It never drags on and that’s always a very important factor to consider in a game. I recommend getting this if you’re a Transformers fan or if you’re a Wii U owner who’s looking for a new game. This’ll help you hold out until the next Legend of Zelda game comes out or it can act as a little break from Super Smash Bros before you go back to challenge the online warriors.

Overall 7/10