Pros	Cons
Detailed backgrounds and characters	Sporadic frame rates or breaks
Multiple weapons and upgrades	Repetitive game-play
	Short game; beatable in half a day

The blockbuster robot-frenzy, better known as Transformers, released a a little less than two weeks ago, still has us awed by its eye-popping cinematics ands its equally bad eye-gauging plot line. The film has already grossed $261 million domestically and $1 billion world wild, making this a top-grossing blockbuster for 2011. With a smash hit in the box office, Paramount Studios sure doesn’t want to waste any opportunity to capitalize on movie-inspired memorabilia and games. Electronic Arts has helped them release a game called Transformers: Dark of The Moon, which closely follows the story from the movie. The game has its pros and cons, but does it deliver the same blockbuster entertainment that the movie does? Read more and found out!

Note: Pictures may contain movie spoilersOnce you start the game you’ll be hurdled into a brief and easy going tutorial, as Sentinel Prime, the former leader of the autobots. After that you’ll start the campaign as the big familiar red and blue truck, Optimus Prime. As Optimus Prime you start off with two guns and a special move that is able to destroy four enemies on screen. As the game progresses you’ll be able to purchase new weapons and upgrade the weapons you already possess by collecting the blue cubes, energon, that you’ll see frequently on the screen.

Later in the game you’ll have the chance to switch characters and play as Optimus’s yellow right hand man, Bumblebee. He sports many of the same weapons, except the two that you start off with. Bumblebee is a little more enjoyable to play, as his vehicle mode is a lot faster than Optimus’s – which it should be.

One of the first things you’ll notice when you play this game is its detailed backgrounds and characters. The game looks and feels like the environments the movie touts. The smooth transformations from robot mode to vehicle mode are done well allowing for more streamlined game play.

Do the impressive graphics mirror an impressive game play though? The game is basically a beat-up game where you fight every last opponent on the screen –reminiscent of Dynasty Warriors, but with guns and fists instead of arrows and swords. It becomes repetitive and often boring after half an hour or so, with the only change in having to protect your human friend, Sam, fighting boss battles, and running around in vehicle mode for a minute or two. Other challenges and game mechanics would have been an amusing addition – hell, more varied opponents would have been nice too.

Controlling Optimus and Bubblebee wasn’t too difficult – you can even go into the options menu and choose to turn on the auto targeting, making the game even easier. Sometimes though, we would want to do a rolling motion but instead transform into vehicle mode.

The most annoying thing about this game is that it often has breaks or lag between scene changes. When you move from one area to another the game may pause for a second or two before continuing. Another negative is how short the game is – you can beat this game in half a day. The movie was approximately three hours, so is this game. We’re not sure if we would want to play this game for three hours straight though.

If you’re a die-hard Transformers fan you might like this game for its excellent graphics, but other than that this game falls a little flat after an hour or so. With a good amount of weapons at your disposal, this isn’t the worst beat’em up, but for three dollars we might try something else.