Good guys vs. bad guys. It’s one of those universal themes that boys have played for years. And now, thanks to a pair of games for the Nintendo DS, they can do it while pretending to be robots. The games are the Transformers games, Autobots and Decepticons. Autobots are the good guys, and Decepticons are the bad guys. And like most bad guys, the Decepticons want to take over the universe and destroy anyone who isn’t a Decepticon.
If you look up the Transformers storyline on Wikipedia, this is what it has to say:
Transformers are fictional alien robots and the titular characters of a popular Hasbro toy line and its spin-offs. They come from the planet Cybertron and are divided into the heroic Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, and the evil Decepticons, led by Megatron. They are able to “transform”, rearranging their bodies into a common and innocuous form, such as a car, aircraft, or animal, which is reflected by the taglines “More Than Meets the Eye” and “Robots in Disguise”. Beyond that, they can displace mass, combine or apply synthetic flesh.
The storyline starts out much like what Wikipedia says, only spins off of what the movie released this year is about. Megatron crash landed on Earth a long time ago while searching for the Allspark. The Decepticons are looking for the Allspark because it is the source of life in the Cybertron universe. Back on the planet Cybertron, they almost had the Allspark, but the “cowardly” Autobots sent it flying into space rather than letting the Decepticons capture it. Unfortunately for the planet Earth, the Allspark ship landed somewhere in Antartica, along with Megatron. So now, as a Decepticon rookie, you’ve been sent to Earth to try to find the Allspark before the Autobots.
My oldest son has played through about a quarter of the game’s storyline at this point, so we really can’t reveal much of it to you. What we can tell you is that the dialogue is enjoyable to read and sometimes witty in a dry humor sort of way. It feels like something a comic book writer would write, with the selfish Decepticons fighting among themselves almost as much as they fight the Autobots. What I like about the game is that the dialogue is both written and spoken. This lets the game be one that my younger son, who is only 6 and reads very little, can still play. I sometimes have to help him with reading what the mission is after the storyline has been spoken, but not very often.
Usually, it is very obvious what you have to do in a particular mission, either from the storyline you just heard or by the mission markers. Mission markers appear on the radar on the lower half of the DS screen. This is also where you will touch in order to change from a robot into a vehicle, touch to see your mission objective and see where nearby enemies are. The game makes good use of the lower screen, but you don’t want to be watching it all the time. Most of the action takes place in the upper screen. This is where you see your character and his enemies, as well as any objects that you need to find in the level. The most difficult part about the game is getting used to what controls do what while you are playing. They are different depending on if you are in vehicle mode, combat mode or ranged mode. I’ve pretty well stuck to using the combat mode and vehicle mode commands, as I don’t see much difference in ranged mode.
One of the coolest parts about the game has got to be the multiplayer part of it, though. I don’t know of any other game that uses the WiFi ability on the DS in the way that the Transformers game does. Each day you can participate in the Allspark Wars. These wars are a series of daily contests for the possession of the fragments of the Allspark. It has been broken into seven pieces. When you log in to the Allspark Wars, you get a new mission that you’ll then play while offline. You’re also given a counter at that same time for how long that mission is going on and thus how long you have to try to get a high score. If you’re wondering how your side is doing each day, you can also check the status by going to http://ds.transformersgame.com/. You can play the challenge offline as many times as you like before the clock runs down. When you have what you think is your best score on that mission, you log back in to the Allspark Wars, and it submits your score automatically. When the battle is over each day, results are tallied, and one team recovers that day’s fragment. Once one team wins all seven pieces, that side wins the war, and a new one begins. You get WiFi tokens for playing, with these tokens you unlock new items in the single player game. The first time you log in, you’ll get a status report on what happened the previous day and who currently holds what pieces, just so you’re up–to-date. Frequent players also can create a profile online, join a clan and track their stats through the Web site. The one thing to note here is that your profile for the WiFi is linked to the DS that you’re playing on. In order to track your stats long term like this, you need to always play on the same DS.
Personally, I haven’t played as a Decepticon. My son always wants to play the Decepticon, and I’m starting to suspect there’s a reason why. The Decepticons turn me into something suitable for recycling pretty quickly when I go into multiplayer mode, be it in the WiFi mission of the day or by playing against my son on his DS when he’s the Decepticon. I suspect that he’s right when he says the Decepticons are “more powerful” than the Autobots. But it could just be that I’m a bad player.
The controls are simple enough to remember but not easy to master. The hardest part for me is that the L and R buttons on the back of the DS are what are used to turn the camera around while you’re firing. If you are in combat mode and you use the arrows to turn, you don’t turn, you strafe. This is great for trying to dodge enemy fire, but when the enemy is intelligent, like my son is, he knows how to sneak around behind me and attack, causing me to have to turn the camera while still fighting. Clever kid, I have to admit, and it isn’t really a fault of the game’s design that the controls are this way. But it does get to be frustrating after a while to keep being destroyed by a 12-year old!
Obviously the game has got violence in it, but it is all very science-fiction-based violence. You never see another human, at least I haven’t. And the Transformers either shoot lasers, or punch their enemies to destroy them. If you’re a fan of the Transformers’ universe, especially the movie, then the level of violence in the game won’t bother you. The storyline for the Decepticon game is put in such a way that you aren’t extremely evil and selfish, just out to control the world sort of evil. They see the Autobots as the bad guys, because the Autobots are what is keeping them from controlling the Allspark and thus the creation of new life. It isn’t quite all a matter of point of view, but the point of view of the Decepticons has given me a chance to talk to my son about differences between “good” and “bad” guys. Yep, that’s right, teaching moral values through video games. Who’d have thought?
My husband and son saw the Transformers movie, and according to my son, they did a great job of bringing the story to life on the DS game. My younger son, the 6-year old, likes playing the game because he gets to transform into a car and drive around. I had some problems controlling my character in car mode, and there were a few camera oddities while playing this way that made it even harder, but he didn’t seem to mind. The main reason to use vehicle mode so far seems to be to get around fast enough to complete some missions, so while you do need to use this mode sometimes, it isn’t one you’ll play in most of the time. And as you play, you do unlock different vehicles that have different abilities. I’m sure that people who are better players than I am who can make use of these vehicles in a way I don’t. Probably my older son, now that I think about it. He also has found some places in the game where it is better to be in vehicle mode, like when fighting a specific enemy, but I haven’t gotten that far in the game to see it for myself.
My sons both love the game. And I’ve enjoyed playing it with them. The WiFi feature alone would be enough to keep them playing a bit every day because they feel like a part of an ongoing battle. I have to say that this was a very clever way to get people of all ages involved in the game. Transformers: Decepticons is well worth it as a DS game if you’re at all interested in the Transformers’ universe, and besides, sometimes being able to play the bad guy is just fun.
I’ve played computer games since college, addicted first to story type games like Might and Magic. I have 3 children who also love computer games. My oldest son is a typical kid who loves the challenge of pressing the right combination of buttons and levers on a joystick in just the right way to make something happens, and frequently gets frustrated with mom’s slow fingers. ;) We use computers for both education and entertainment, and sometimes even bribery for good behavior.
The “glory days” of computer gaming for me were when games like Spectre Supreme, Pirate’s Gold, the Might and Magic series, the original Prince of Persia… those sorts of games were coming out on a regular basis. Back then I owned a Macintosh and was a die hard Mac fan. I was one of the first in my area to buy an iMac and on it learned the joy of playing games on the internet like daily crossword puzzle and “mind bender” type puzzles. My first online RPG was given to me for Christmas the year EQ was released, and I was hooked from day one. I played EQ for about a year. I started playing DaoC during late alpha testing, and was hooked on it.. well, to be honest I still am. I’ve tried pretty much every MMORPG I can get my hands on, from big names like EQ, to more obscure ones such as Underlight. I’ve been writing for IMGS since the first DaoC guide, and find I love the challenge of learning a game and presenting what I’ve learned (and sometimes my opinions), to other players.
I’m not a very strong player as far as learning PvE or quick reaction times, so I tend to stay away from games where I’m pitted against someone else in a way that requires physical (rather than mental) response. I still enjoy story and puzzle games, and in a way that’s how I still approach online games. I would much rather spend hours working through a quest than 5 minutes in combat against another player. I still get lost in simulation type games, obsessing over them until I’ve gotten them beaten. And I like being able to sit down at the computer when I’ve got less than half an hour and playing through a few levels of a puzzle game. I tend not to like first-person shooter type games, or anything with person to person violence, so I steer away from them unless they are fantasy based settings. All in all, I enjoy computer gaming so much that my life feels incomplete somehow when my computer is down.
