Transformers: Battlegrounds – game review. XCOM for kids.
Transformers have been with us for several decades, during which they received a whole lot of better or worse games. Which category does Transformers: Battlegrounds fall into? You will find out from today’s review.
The Outright Games team has been specializing for years in creating a variety of games based on bay licenses – both film and serial, thanks to which it has a lot of quite successful productions in its portfolio. These, however, will definitely not include Transformers: Battlegrounds, which at first glance shows that we are not dealing here with a top-flight project.
XCOM for kids
Coatsink Software’s work is based on the latest animated series from Hasbro, entitled Transformers: Cyberverse, which saw the light of day just a few months ago, at the turn of July and August this year. Due to the fact that Transformers: Battlegrounds is really an adaptation, you have nothing to count on for a thrilling and heartbreaking story – Alliskra is again under threat, and the Autobots protect the human world from Decepticons.
As the main friend of the Autobots on our planet, we have the opportunity to observe their actions and advise them, which translates in the game into the fact that we control our heroes like soldiers in the XCOM series or Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. As you can guess, the production I am reviewing is a tactical turn-based strategy game created mainly for kids, and this, in turn, has very serious consequences in its structure.
However, the Coatsink Software team did not have an idea how to solve this problem, so the whole thing is shallow to the limit. None of our characters can die, and even if they do die, they will respawn after 3 turns of absence. In addition, the whole system of covers looks rather poor, leaving very large spaces in too many places without any possibility of hiding, and even when such a barricade already exists, it practically does not protect us from being hit – at most, we will lose 1 life point less.
Am I playing on PlayStation 2?
The only thing that saves the gameplay of Transformers: Battlegrounds from catastrophic boredom is the skill system divided into power depending on the spent Action Points, and the addition in the form of special super powers charged over time. In addition, the fight is simply boring and not very effective in the world – the average kid representing the target age group will put this title back in the corner after the first 2-3 missions.
The worst thing about it is that the whole game is just awful ugly. Models of characters, elements of the environment and textures applied to them reminded me of the times of PlayStation 2 – indeed, Transformers: Battlegrounds is even uglier than the releases in Transformers: The Game released in 2007 on PS2. Of course, the blame could be blamed on the fact that the source material was created with simplified models and a very simple line, but despite everything, unlike the reviewed game, it is very nice. To be honest, at first I thought Roger had given me a port of some game from smartphones, but it turns out that consoles and PCs are the target platforms here.
Unfortunately, it is difficult for me to recommend this title to anyone – it blows with boredom, the plot modeled on the series does not add anything from itself, and graphically the whole project will scare even the most understanding players away – especially since Transformers: Battlegrounds costs as much as PLN 150.
