Sentinel Online. Now loading All Things Transformers.
Hello and welcome to... All Things Transformers,
I'm your host, Steve Megatron, and joining me
on this adventure into the Transformers fandom
is TFG1 Mike. We got 55 episodes to go, folks,
to 500. The countdown to 500. That's right. It's
going to be a Velocitron 500. No, no. Oh, come
on. We don't need the Velocitrons here. Oh, come
on. No, you're... No. We'll dupe it out in the
comments section. Uh -huh. If you can find the
comments section. I know where it's at. Yeah,
sure you do. No, I do. Uh -huh. I've been messing
with the comments section. Uh -huh. Yep. So.
Yep, yep, yep. But we are here. So as we enter
this new episode of All Things Transformers,
we're going to be discussing. the Transformers
video games and our favorites among them. Yes.
What were some of the things, some of the themes
you kind of noticed throughout the different
game options? I noticed that there were a lot
of repetition when it came to the Bavers. Yeah.
I mean, most of the live -action film games,
they're trying to do a game version of the film.
It's a game adaptation of the film kind of sort
of thing. That's what the adaptations have always
been for. You see... The original Spider -Man
game from 2002 they tried to adapt from the 2002
movie, etc., etc., etc. The Batman 89 NES game
kind of thing. Not NES. Not 89. But you get my
point. Where the Transformers video games, to
me, come into being interesting is things that
I didn't even know existed, like Mystery of Convoy.
had no i like honestly transformers video games
and me didn't really start up until honestly
probably now that i'm looking down this list
where it really started was in this is so sad
because i hate this generation of transformers
because it's not my generation and that is what
it is First Transformers video game I ever played.
2004 PS2 Transformers Armada. I hated that fucking
game. I was like, really? This isn't Optimus
Prime. This isn't like because it had been so
long since I had done anything with the Transformers.
And I'm like, this is just weird to me. I mean,
the game itself is OK, but like it wasn't. It
wasn't generation one. It wasn't beast wars.
It wasn't beast machines. Obviously we didn't
even know what the hell animated was. Cause this
was three years, four years before animated.
But like when I found that game, I was like,
what the hell is that? Like literally 2004 was
at a time where I thought transformers, it was
nothing like it was gone. Interesting. Yeah.
So, Just kind of a brief rundown of Transformers
games. There's been a lot of iterations over
the years. Yep. Some in better capacity than
others. Majority of them are G1 inspired. Yep.
Thankfully. But they started around the Commodore
64 and the Nintendo Famicom. Yep. And then it
skipped a while and we got Beast Wars in the
90s and then it skipped again. And then we started
getting things with like the PS2 or, you know,
more or less. Then the then all of the Activision
stuff with the live action films and animated
and Transformers Armada and War for Cybertron
and. The list goes on and on. Although the newer
stuff seems to have a worse track record of getting
released than anything in the past. What do you
mean? Well, I mean, we've had more cancellations
of Transformers stuff. Yeah, that's true. In
recent times, but I think it's also because,
like, one, they're trying to shoehorn these into
being online only. Mm hmm. And I think that they
would do better if they were single player. Yeah,
that's the thing. They have to be. Yeah. Like
because Beast Wars was the first online Transformers
game. Mm hmm. It had a multiplayer. You could
play a four person deathmatch online on the on
the Microsoft Gaming Zone. Mm hmm. Which when
I wasn't playing that, I was playing chess against
people online and like kicking their butt. But
no, I mean, that was the first rendition. And
then the next one that I could recall was one
of the War for Cybertron games. They had like
a kind of a free for all deathmatch thing online,
too. And then they've had a few other ones since
then. I mean, outside of the mobile games. Yeah.
So since we're getting into it, what are your
favorite personal games on here? And then we
can kind of rotate back and forth. And I mean,
obviously, my list is much larger. Yeah, Steve's
list is Steve has played way more of these games
than I have, folks, because as gaming has progressed
over the last, I'm just going to say 40 years.
Because. 85 to 25 or if you take last year 84
to 24 when i was five years old in 1985 and i
wanted a nintendo i didn't get a nintendo i ended
up with a sega genesis and because of this cerebral
palsy i play video games one -handed on console
same thing with with pc So I'm going back, like
when I play Grand Theft Auto four or whatever,
I go back and forth between the mouse and the
keyboard. That's the way I've always done it
because I can't use my right hand to do anything
else with stuff. So I needed a controller that
could fit in my hand because the way I hold the
controller is I cradle it in the palm of my hand.
I use my thumb for like. Take the NES controller,
the A, B buttons. I use my thumb for those. Or
if you take the Super Nintendo controller, A,
B, X, Y, same thing. I use my index and middle
finger for the D -pad. So I'm basically cradling
this thing in my hand and using my fingers that
way. So as video games has progressed over the
last 40 years and the controllers have gotten
to be like these. rocks of Gibraltar -sized things,
I can't use them anymore on consoles. So I've
pretty much gotten out of the console gaming
thing, regardless of price or any of that kind
of stuff as far as the cost of an actual game
console today. It's just the controllers for
me are just too dang... I just can't do it. But
back then... when it was more simple i didn't
even know there were transformer i wasn't even
looking at transformers games i was more into
the turtles games the tmnt games back in the
in the mid 80s and stuff like that i didn't even
know there were transformers game like when beast
wars came out i no idea had absolutely no idea
what in the hell it was i I've told this story
before. I know you know this because I know I've
told this to you because you looked at me shocked
when I said this. I thought Reboot was the new
Transformers and I thought Beast Wars was something
totally, completely different. I didn't know
what in the hell was going on in 1996 when I
was 16 years old because I didn't know what the
hell those cartoons were until I finally... We
had War Planets and Reboot and Beast Wars and
Action Man, G .I. Joe Extreme. Yeah, I finally
figured it out. But for me, the Transformers
games, I like the ones that I have played, and
I've only played a few of them. I only have three
on my list. You have like 10 or 12, maybe. My
list is basically, I played a little bit of War
for Cybertron. I didn't play it too much. I think
I played like the first part of the campaign
on War for Cybertron. I liked the game. For me,
it's more about like watch, like video games
to me now for me are, it's kind of like watching
a TV show. Like I'll watch a playthrough of somebody
playing a video game these days, more so than
me actually needing the experience of playing
the game myself. Kind of a thing. And sometimes
I'll watch playthroughs where people actually
do commentary on it. And sometimes I'll watch
no commentaries. But the one thing I was absolutely
like, I can't believe they did this. I really
can't. And I know a lot of people don't like
Angry Birds. i'm fairly certain steve is one
of those people that just doesn't care it's i
mean no i don't hate it right right but i mean
i don't care yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly but
like yeah so i remember when the news stories
popped up about this you just rolled your eyes
and i'm like no dude this is gonna be awesome
this is gonna be exciting because not only is
this gonna be cool You have the Angry Birds characters
and the Transformers characters mixed together.
You got Vince DeCola and Kenny Meredith doing
the soundtrack to Transformers Angry Birds. That's
amazing. They very much G1'd it up. It was very
cool. It was very fun. It was silly as all hell.
And it was just, again, it was one of those things
where you could... I like to shut my brain off
because my brain is damaged, and sometimes I
would rather shut it off than have to use it
because I use it too much anyway. So Angry Birds
Transformers was one of those games where it
showed me the objective that I had to achieve,
and I'm like, okay, fine. Press screen, press
screen, however you had to do it on your mobile
phone, whatever it was. Just do the thing, do
the thing, do the thing, and Bob's your uncle.
There you go. Level's complete. You win. You
win. Kind of a thing. So, yeah. And then, like
I said, my last game on my list that I've actually
played was Transformers Armada. And Armada just
isn't my... It's not my generation. I just couldn't
get into that game. What about you? What's on
your list, sir? Well, my list is much larger.
obviously obviously um so mine kind of begins
in a weird place around around the i mean the
first game i ever played was beast wars i still
have the disc i have the iso file i can play
it on the computer if i wanted to i don't want
to um and then we have You know, the fact that
I played it on MSN Gaming Zone, hopped up on,
you know, two liters of Coke at, you know, very
little sleep and. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, that
was the first Transformers game I ever played.
One, it was Beast Wars 2. I really enjoyed it.
The only thing I mean. The main thing I didn't
like is. The graphics kind of sucked. The voice
acting was not there. Right. We had. A lot of
weird stuff in the game that I mean, I just come
fresh off of watching Beast Wars. There was a
lot of crap not in it. And. I mean, you had the
microchip thing you had. The only way you could
get the flyers was. If you. If you manage to
lose a character, basically die in the level,
then you get to have like Airazor or Inferno.
Yeah, to revive. The characters or. Waspinator,
Terrasaur, I don't know, but I pretty much played
with Primal or Cheetor or Megatron. You could
play as like Tarantulas, Scorponok, Megatron,
Rhinox, Cheetor, and Primal. And then they had
these really weird levels. There was another
level that you would open a stasis pod and rat
trap would come out like you got rat trap. Yeah.
And then you could play from both maximal and
Predacon sides. They had rescue missions. They
had these bosses, the Skrillex or Skricks that
had nothing to do with Beast Wars. And I don't
know. I mean, you could get Blackarachnia. You
could kill Dinobot. You could... There was just
all kinds of stuff you could do. I never beat
the game back in the day. Still to this day.
Haven't beaten it. But it wasn't a very good
game. It was just one that I enjoyed because
it was Beast Wars. Right, yeah. But it was very...
haphazard like I've actually gone through it
in the last year I tried to play it and I beat
through sections that I'd never gotten to when
I was younger just because I've played more games
and I understand it better now but yeah I mean
it meant a lot to me because of what it was but
I played it on a keyboard and mouse like there
wasn't I didn't have a gamepad yeah and There's.
There's cheat codes for it. They didn't really
work because I tried it. But yeah. I I liked
the website they had built for it, which was
on like Beast Wars dot com or Beast Wars Transformers
or whatever. They had. The graphics on the website.
And on the case were far better than the graphics
in the game. But yeah. Then I started playing
emulators and ROMs and like games that weren't
here. And I was downloading anything Transformers.
Yeah. And I came across the Famicom game Transformers
Mystery of Convoy. Yes. And you're basically
Ultra Magnus fighting against the Decepticons
and the Seekers and different bots. I mean, it
kind of followed Headmasters, but you got hit,
you died. It was kind of like the old way of
doing stuff. They released it on the virtual
console in 2008 in Japan, but not here. I never
got past the first level, or maybe the second.
I think I got to the second level and then I
never made it past. It was very hard to play.
That sucks. It was very hard to play, but I enjoyed
it for what it was. It was fun just because it
was odd, but I think I put up with it because
it was a Transformers game. Right. So, again,
I liked it, but it wasn't one I enjoyed. It's
just kind of one I played. Yeah. And then I'd
get frustrated and then rage quit. Yep. Then
there was Beast Wars Transmetals. I remember
seeing the trailer for that because I like the
Transmetal 1 Beast Wars characters. But yeah,
what was that like? So this was one I hadn't
played until probably five years ago. Because
I didn't own a game console when this was out.
I didn't own a place. I've never owned a PlayStation
or a Nintendo 64. OK. I owned a PS2. I owned
a Super Nintendo. I owned a GameCube. I owned
a Wii. I owned a Sega Genesis, an Xbox 360 and
an Xbox One. Outside of that, I've owned like
Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Advance. And then that's
it. Like I haven't owned any other game console.
And so when this came out, I was like, there's
got to be a way to emulate it. And. I found a
PlayStation emulator, and it did work, but you
had to have a special disk drive to read it in
the computer. And this was back before people
figured out how to rip them off the disk. Then
I learned of a website that archives everything,
so to speak, and I found the ISO file, downloaded
it, and played it. Because, I mean, again, they're
never going to re -release this, so I didn't
really feel bad, per se. If they were to... you
know, remaster it with better graphics. I would
buy it in heartbeat, but they won't. But this
one actually more closely followed Beast Wars.
Look at that. Look at that. They had the Axalon.
They had, you know, the Predacons. They had the
voice actors. Nice. And then you have. you know,
the dark side, you have the, them flaunting the
golden disc. You have, you know, just all of
that. It felt very much like it was from season
two. Yeah. Of beast wars and all the actors kind
of, uh, Tigertron and was not voiced by the original
actor. I blew. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Rhinox was actually
played by, uh, Alec Willows. Okay. Tarantulas.
Yep. And then Ian James Corlett played Quickstrike.
And Blackarachnia was voiced by somebody else.
And then Ravage voiced by somebody else who also
voiced Tigatron. And then they had Windrazor
instead of Airrazor, which was like the Transmetal
Airrazor, more or less. Interesting. So yeah,
they had Quickstrike, and they had Rampage, and
they had Tarantulas. They didn't have Inferno.
Basically, if they weren't Transmetal... Right,
yeah, yeah. They weren't there. They had Waspinator.
But Waspinator wasn't Transmetal. He had a toy.
Oh, okay. And that same thing with Rhinox. So
anyways, yeah, they had secret levels. It was
very much... you know, shoot them up one on one
3D arena fighting game. Yeah. And you would just
kind of battle them until they went into stasis
lock. Megatron had a like transmetal version
of himself that. Also became like kind of a golden
dragon purple dinosaur. Like literally. That's
what it turned into. The sad thing is all I can
think of is, oh, I love you. Shut up. I'm not
done. But, yeah, I mean, I wish I'd had more
time to play it. Yeah. Because I have, again,
I've played it, but I have not to the level I
would have liked. But the graphics make it difficult
to control. Like, it's very... choppy almost
almost worse than the first beast wars game oh
that's not good yeah it's it's not good um but
yeah that's why i say like i i wanted to enjoy
it yeah but and other than that it was enjoyable
but i i i wish they would have done more with
it i wish they'd honestly revisit beast wars
but in in this capacity but in today's age it'd
probably get screwed up like kingdom um but yeah
and then we get to transformers armada which
was dubbed transformers just on the the ps2 like
it didn't have armada on it just says transformers
and it's got armada prime came out in 2004 i
had a ps2 shortly thereafter and uh Yeah, you
get to play as three of the Autobots traveling
around the Earth retrieving minicons. And they
had the voice actors in it, and it was great.
You get to play as Prime, Hotshot, and Red Alert.
And each had their benefits. But the game was
very difficult to play. Like, but in a good way.
It was actually very intuitive, a lot of fun.
Like, you could hang glide, you could... transform
and just barrel through stuff. You get to fight
Starscream, Cyclonus, Tidal Wave. There was all
kinds of awesomeness to it. And then you get
to fight Megatron towards the end. He was actually
pretty hard. Megatron was hard. Starscream kind
of was because he was hard to hit. And then The
very end of the game, you fight Unicron. Of course.
But you're Optimus Prime. Yeah. With a jetpack
flying to defeat Unicron. And you had to, while
he's shooting Cybertron with his mouth cannon,
you fly down his throat and shoot him in the
mouth. Like, shoot him in the back of the throat,
and then you fly out of his mouth. And you had
to do it. Well, if that isn't suggestive, folks.
Yeah, whatever. But yeah. But yeah, they had
Gary Chalk and they had David Kaye. And then
everybody else was kind of, as far as I know,
a different voice actor. But again, I don't know.
I didn't pay that close of attention to Armada
to know if they actually played the character.
in the other show, but I don't believe any of
them did. Uh, now a few of them have played in
other transformers material, uh, later down the
line, but, uh, but yeah, it was, it was, it was
a lot of fun to play. I enjoyed it graphically.
I enjoyed it just being able to move and the
music was good. Um, There was there was a lot
of different Transformers themes by different
groups. One of them was like Dropbox. Nice. And.
Yeah, I I felt like to date to that point in
time, that was the best Transformers game. Not
to be. Removed from it, like say what you will
of Armada, but. I enjoyed it for the transformers
game. It was cool. And it would be years before
we got another good one. Yeah. It would be exactly
eight years before we got another good one. Yeah.
No, not eight years. 2004 was, was our model.
So it would be six years. math is not mathing
tonight it was six years yeah that's what i said
yeah but uh then the next one i had on my list
was the transformers the game and revenge of
the fallen and i'm just again i'm listing games
that i played yeah um and then i'll get like
as i'm mentioning them i'll mention you know
the fact that whether i had them as my you know
enjoyed armada i enjoyed beast wars i enjoyed
The rest of them so far. Other than that, I have
not. But I'll get into some more that I have
later. But Transformers, the game. I didn't enjoy
this game. It was just it was difficult to maneuver
and kind of control. And I hated like graphically.
It was one. I hated the graphics of the Bayverse.
I just I did. I never did get to the point where
I never got past the first or second level. Just
because I hated it. I liked the fact that you
could grab onto the buildings and climb up them.
But the Decepticons, I felt like I was just spinning
my wheels and there was no direction while I
was playing the game. To me, it was just miserable
to play. I think I rented it. I didn't buy it.
I rented it because at that time, you know, Blockbuster
was a thing still. Yeah. And Mary worked there
for Blockbuster. And so I rented games and I
would play them and I just play the crap out
of them until we had to return them. She got
like seven days or something. And yeah, I played
this and I absolutely hated it. I remember this
game. I remember when it came out. I'm like,
oh, gosh, I like the idea of having like. A game
where you can play both sides. I think that's
super cool. You got Autobot levels and Decepticon
levels. Yeah. That is very cool. And they had,
you know, Peter Cullen playing Prime, Mark Ryan
playing Ironhide, Fred Tatasciore playing Ratchet,
Welker played Megatron, Daniel Ross played Starscream,
Keith David played Barricade. David Soboloff
played Brawl and then you had Shia LaBeouf and
Megan Fox as the humans but yeah it was kind
of cool that they brought in Daniel Ross as Starscream
and Walker as Megatron yeah that was cool which
was the draw for this like I did like it for
both of those because like this was at the time
like Daniel Ross like this was like huge because
he was on Transfandom uh at the time and i think
like the all spark and stuff and like i knew
him from that but i also knew him from the fan
dub community for a couple of years by that point
and uh in dark glass he plays like star scream
or not star scream uh waspinator and ratchet
rat trap um which i still have yet to release
which shouldn't be that hard considering what
i had to do earlier this year um as far as like
audio dramas but yeah this is like his big breakout
Transformers role and then we got like the Revenge
of the Fallen thereafter which came out for PS3
and Xbox 360 which I played it on the Xbox 360
because I had that around that time but I don't
remember enough about this game to make any kind
of Like they did have Peter Cullen back. They
had Frank Walker back. They brought Charlie Adler
in as Starscream this time. They had Neil Kaplan
as Long Haul, Fred Tatasciore as Grinder, John
DiMaggio sideways. Then they had G1 Megatron,
G1 Starscream, and G1 Sunstorm, like skins that
you could unlock. Right. And so they had Walker
playing Megatron, of course, and Charlie Adler
playing Starscream and Sunstorm. uh james arnold
taylor played the fallen fred tattershores demolisher
then you had peter cullen as g1 and movie prime
mark ryan is bumblebee jess harnell ironhide
um you know and then kind of the list goes on
and on there but i don't remember much about
this game i remember that the big draw was that
you could get the skins yeah i think that's what
this one was it was like skins for everybody
Because the way that this game's story evolves
is it evolves over 15 chapters versus the first
movie game where it's like the first half of
the game is the Autobots missions. The second
half of the game is the Decepticons side of the
fight. Whereas this is just like first mission
is Optimus' mission. Second mission is Ironhide
versus Demolisher. Third mission is the pursuit
over Shanghai. sideways goes to ground on chapter
four. You know, you have all the, it's more of
a, here's a storytelling video game where it's
like a chapter book kind of thing. Whereas the
first game was more of at least the way I see
how they, how they laid out the story of here's
the Autobot side of the fight. Here's the Decepticon
side of the fight. Like I said earlier, and this
is not that this is more like, here's an entire
story. wrapped up into one for you with this
revenge of the fallen game yeah i never played
that one i've seen people play it looks cool
i mean i remember playing it i just i didn't
get into it yeah like didn't really enjoy it
i mean this was came out in 2009 and i remember
playing this as well but again didn't really
enjoy it now The next two games, actually the
next three that I talk about, I did highly enjoy.
And these were. I had them on the Xbox 360. All
three of them. I have them all on PC now. And
I've beat them all again. This is the war for
Cybertron. by high moon studios and uh only two
of these are high moon um but this is certainly
a line continuity whatever that means for the
you know timeline because they they didn't know
they still don't know uh but um but yeah i remember
playing this and the for the first time and yeah
you were you were getting all of their cybertronian
uh bodies but this was this was one of the coolest
games ever yeah and uh it's it's funny because
the uh the tf wiki uh under the uh image of optimus
prime it says prime auditions for unreal tournament
there were no survivors no that's right and that's
i mean that's how i felt like i really did like
this game and it was done by activision yeah
um but it was slick. Like it was really well
done. The story was awesome. The voice acting
was great. This, the, uh, graphically and then
like aesthetically how it played was really fun.
Um, you know, it was the tail end of the, the
great war on Cybertron type of thing. Yep. You
know, before the transformers come to earth and
you know, Megatron is battling and trying to,
use the power source of the dark energon and
you get you get a little bit of back and forth
like the the the first chapter you get brawl
barricade or megatron as options and then you
get to play as starscream thundercracker skywarp
for the second mission and then you destroy iacon
as either megatron sound wave or breakdown and
your last boss is zeta prime there for that part
And then you kind of finish out these last two
chapters as the Decepticons of Megatron's sound
wave breakdown for the next two. And you fight
Omega Supreme. And then again, Omega Supreme.
Like one's vehicle mode, one's robot. And then
it switches to the Autobot campaign. And you
start out as Optimus, Bumblebee, or Ratchet.
And then it goes to... Optimus Sideswipe or Bumblebee.
And you fight Starscream, Soundwave, and then
you fight some kind of corrupted worm. That's
like Prime, Ironhide, or Warpath. And again,
these were all fun. It didn't matter who you
chose. I mean, I typically chose Prime if he
was an option. Or Megatron if he was an option.
But if they weren't, I went for my next favorite
character of whatever it was. And then you could
fight Trypticon. as silver bolt air raid or jet
fire and in that i kind of rotated because in
the fan dubs i played i played air raid uh in
the fan dub and then jet fire is just fun in
general and so silver bolt so i i kind of rotate
between the three when i play that mission um
and then you get the the final mission in the
game there and it's prime bubble beer ironhide
against trypticon and uh And then it finishes
out this game and then kind of continues in Fall
of Cybertron. And the casting for these were
all great. I mean, you had Fred Tatasciore's
Ratchet and Megatron. You had Steve Bloom as
Barricade. You had Prime as Peter Cullen. Fred
Tatasciore played a lot of characters. He also
played Omega Supreme in Trypticon. Dee Bloom
was the narrator. Felt like watching Toonami.
Yep. Which was great. And yeah, I mean, you had
a lot of great characters or a lot of actors
that were great in this and then downloadable
content characters and it was just fun overall.
This is one of my favorites. However, I almost
prefer the sequel better. Fall of Cybertron?
Yes. It's like they took what was in the first
game and they ramped it up. And it's a direct
sequel, obviously, and it came out two years
later and I bought this one new. It continued.
You had the deterioration. Then you get the side
story focusing on the Dinobots. you begin the
story with prime defeating the, you know, conceding
defeat to the Decepticons. And then, you know,
Grimlock is captured. And, um, this one, it was
a little bit more difficult because they forced
you to use a select character. Yeah. You didn't
get a choice. Like you, the first mission was
bumblebee. Yep. And You're kind of starting the
end of the game at the beginning with Bumblebee,
and then you go on to the next part, which is
defending the Ark, and you have Prime, and you're
unlocking Metroplex and activating him, which
is awesome, because you see this little itty
-bitty Optimus Prime the size of an ant, and
then Metroplex is like, yup. And then later you
get you get Cliffjumper who's helping Jazz and
then the next level you get Jazz and then you
get Vortex, which for the Decepticons, I hated
playing as any of the individual parts of the
Combaticons. I hated playing those, which is
funny that I'm like, I like this game better.
Because they had a lot of stuff where you had
to be methodical in how you played the characters
of like Cliffjumper, Jazz. Vortex, Swindle. I
enjoyed Bruticus because you get to destroy stuff
on the Ark. Right. And then you play Soundwave
at least until he revives the smashed Megatron
from the previous game. And they're just randomly
rebuilding him in his shop. He has a body already
there. There's just a tin can head laying around
somewhere and they plug it in. then they get
a cannon and you know infuse it with dark energon
and uh megatron's back and more powerful uh and
then you do another confrontation as megatron
fighting through all different kinds of forces
uh starscream of course betrays and uh you play
as a decepticon trooper and then starscream who
kills the Decepticon trooper as he's invisible.
Right. And then you inadvertently tease Grimlock
and become Grimlock for the game. And then you
play as Grimlock and Swoop and honestly it was
cool trying to play his character and transform.
Grimlock could only transform, though, if you
filled up his anger meter. Yep. Which was interesting,
but I loved the character playing him. And then
you get to play, they did a sequential storyline
progression where you start out as Soundwave
infiltrating the Ark, then you're Jetfire trying
to blow away the connection between the Nemesis
and the Ark, which the Nemesis is a transformed
Trypticon. For failing Megatron, he is like the
lifeless shell. Right. And then he plays Verticus,
destroying part of the Ark, and then Jazz taking
down Verticus, and then Optimus fighting Megatron,
and then kind of back and forth. Until, you know,
finally the ship crashes and they fall through
the portal and game over. And I was dying. I
was like, no, not another, you know. two years
and then they're like yeah we're not making anymore
yeah that was the bad thing about high moon is
they kind of went under it was like damn no more
they didn't really go under it was kind of like
a hasbro decision to be like yeah okay yeah okay
high moon themselves did not go under but the
transformers games from high moon basically like
you just said hasbro kind of stopped the um whatever
Stupid Hasbro. So what's funny is the PC version
was kind of a redeveloped. They were a development
company founded in 2010 by video game industry
veterans. This company helped develop Guitar
Hero, Van Halen, Madagascar, Escape. to africa
like tiger woods the godfather game uh they ported
fall of cybertron to the pc and improved upon
it by featuring higher quality graphics higher
resolution textures it can run at 1080p and 60
frames per second But some of the graphical settings
were lacking and the controls couldn't be reset
because it's a port. But I play with a gamepad
when I play it. I don't know. This was by far
one of my favorite games. And then we got almost
like, it was like three years later, Transformers
Devastation. Yes, Devastation was good. Which
was straight up G1. Yep. It's funny because they
say it's billed as a tie -in to Combiner Wars,
but I don't see it. It can't be. It just can't
be. I think that was their way of trying to legitimize
selling this. I think, maybe. Because there's
no way. There's no way. But you did get Vince
DeCola music in this. Mm hmm. Yeah. Kenny Meredith.
Absolutely awesome. Yeah. So this one was was
fun. Again, this is another Activision. Activision
kind of did all these games from the movie onward.
Well, actually from Armada onward. But you get
to play as different Autobots and Decepticons
throughout this game. Or at least no, I think
it's just Autobots. I can't remember. I have
beat the game once, but it was when I was on
console. But on the PC, like I'm like, I don't
remember how to play this. I play it out of enjoyment
and then I totally bomb and forget where I'm
supposed to go. But. Yeah, I enjoyed it because
you got the cel -shaded kind of coolness. You
got the G1 aesthetic. Yep. You got to upgrade
your characters, which was cool. Yep. Got Greg
Berger back as Grimlock. Greg Berger's back.
Michael Bell is back. Dan Gil was in. Peter Cullen.
Frank Welker. That's pretty much everybody. Yeah,
that's pretty much everybody that's back. Steve
Bloom is in it. Hello? Yeah, that's kind of it
there. They added some other characters into
it, but they didn't really talk per se. Then
they had Nova Prime Awaken in the game. But I
don't think that went anywhere. It's one of those
kind of weird situations. Because we had Teletraan
1 and then Teletraan Alpha as well. But yeah,
I don't know. It was fun for what it was and
while it lasted. Um, but yeah, I, I, I liked
a lot of aspects of it. It was very fast paced
and fun to do, uh, the, the actions and destroy
stuff and kind of upgrades weapons. Like I would
upgrade pretty much everything by massacring
things and giving fusion power, fusion cannon
power to whomever like Grimlock had this nice
energy sword. And Prime had the Energy Axe that
I upgraded massively. And his Ion Blaster I upgraded
massively. Nice. But, yeah, I mean, what's sad
about this and Activision's expiration of their
licensing agreement with Hasbro after this game
in 2017 at the end of the year. This. Again,
this was the final Transformers game by Activision.
All of the Transformers games were delisted from
digital platforms. Yeah. Which means that Captain
Jack Sparrow has to come to play. Yeah. Yep.
So. So, yeah, that. That takes me through the.
Activision stuff. There's some other games that
we're getting into mobile territory or handheld
territory. One of the games that I haven't played
that came out tail end of last year that I'd
like to check out is Transformers Galactic Trials.
Yeah, that's the new one. Yeah, and what's funny
is John Bailey plays Megatron in Soundwave. and
shockwave i mean it's a mobile game so i mean
go figure but uh but i still think that's cool
because again like i knew him from fan dubbing
days back in the day um and uh yeah he does all
kinds of all kinds of work but uh he's kind of
the de facto optimus prime for hasbro when peter
cullen's unavailable due to scheduling or budget
reasons yep But no, I mean, he's pretty much
played Shockwave or Optimus Prime or Soundwave
a good 50 % of the time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,
John's awesome. And he mostly is in the mostly
in the video game stuff, but he's done like Combiner
Wars and something in Animated. um well at least
at botcon uh but yeah he's played he's played
in various games but um yeah i i'd like to check
this game out just to see what it's like i know
it's kind of a all -star racing and it almost
looks like it takes place in uh the earth spark
kind of aesthetic or maybe not earth spark but
the uh What's the previous show? Not RID. Cyberverse.
Cyberverse, yeah. It almost kind of looks like
that to me. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, that looks
like it could be fun. Here's the, I'm on the
Galactic Trials page on TFWiki. Here's the synopsis
of the game for those that don't know. Nemesis
Prime steals the artifacts of the Primes, hoping
to claim the power for his own as he prepares
to exit Cybertron's orbit. However, his ship
is shot down by the planet's defenses and its
contents spilled out into space, scattering the
artifacts across the cosmos. While Nemesis retreats
to recover his strength, the Autobots and Decepticons
begin competing to reclaim the relics for themselves
before the other faction, with their campaign
coming to be known on Cybertron as the Galactic
Trials. Playable characters include Autobots
and Decepticons, Optimus Prime, voiced by Bill
Rogers, whoever that person is. Bumblebee, John...
Zeejus? No clue. Wheeljack, Jordan Reynolds,
Alita One, Leah Knauer. RC is done by Don M.
Bennett. Yeah, Don M. Bennett. I said that right.
Like you mentioned, John Bailey is doing Megatron,
Soundwave, and Laserbeam. Because Laserbeak is
under Soundwave, Shockwave. Flame War is done
by Don M. Bennett. Nightbird is done by Leonari.
Nemesis Prime is done by Jordan Reynolds. And
the non -playable character is the narrator,
who is Bill Millsap. I think I saw the trailer
for this, and I was like, huh, interesting. It
looks cool. Who knows? Yeah. Again, this is going
to be one of those ones I check out at my leisure
in the future. I know they sell it on Steam,
which would be how I'd have to get it nowadays.
I mean, it's on the Switch, PlayStation 4 and
5, Xbox One, the Xbox Series X, S, or X slash
S, and then the PC. I'm interested to check it
out, so I'll probably watch some videos on it
before I pull the trigger, wait for it to go
on sale, and then I'll pull the trigger because
I never buy anything when it's brand new. Yeah,
you never want to buy brand new, folks. Oh, no.
No. Then you get the DLC for free. But... So,
anyways, the other thing that I've got is from
the Game Boy Color. And this was released only
in Japan. 1999. This was one of the emulator
ones I played. Okay. It's a stupid long title,
but they're like chibi Transformers. Yep. Dual
fight Transformers, Beast Wars, Beast Warriors,
strongest decisive battle. I just call it Beast
Wars, Beast Warriors, or just Beast Warriors.
It basically you get combatants from Beast Wars,
Beast Wars 2 and Beast Wars Neo. Majority of
them are the leaders like you get. I mean, just
forgetting the plot completely because this is
all over the place. But the plot is technically
the planet Gaia, Leo Convoys, Maximals and Galvatron's
Predacons detect an abnormal form of angle. Engelmas
energy investigating the source they find themselves
in a mysterious ruin in another dimension as
do the time displaced Optimus Primal and Cheetor
who arrive while pursuing Megatron Galvatron
discovers a strange energon quartz in the ruin
and attempts to abscond with it and finds it
protected by a barrier An ethereal voice proclaims
the courts can only be claimed by one who proves
themselves the strongest, promising great power
to whoever possesses it. With the challenge issued,
the Maximals and Predacons prepare for battle,
each one seeking to claim the courts for their
own. And in this you get, it says after Megatron,
who is always the final enemy, even if you're
playing as him, is defeated in the chamber of
the courts. The Beast Warrior who has proven
themselves the strongest obtains the Quartz and
is given the choice of what to do with its power.
Leo Convoy is the maximal one from Beast Wars
2. He seals it away forever. Galvatron absorbs
it and grows mad with power and destroys its
own base. Scuba, who's the octopus or the squid,
he uses the Quartz's power to repair the environmental
damage caused by the Predacon's megastorm, which
is basically G2 Megatron, glows to himself that
with the power of the Quartz, he will finally
overcome Galvatron, only for his brother to steal
the Quartz right from under his nose. Cheetor,
having the Quartz to become the most powerful
of all Maximals, he's promoted to Supreme Commander.
However, he can't handle the responsibility required
for the post, and he runs away after only three
days. um gildart which is a rhinoceros character
uh decides not to use the courts right away believing
there's still a long line uh before the war ends
and keeps it around as a trump card and then
primal uses it to defeat the predacons once and
for all megatron takes the courts and sets out
to defeat his eternal nemesis optimus primal
uh star upper is a uh A weird character almost
looks like a. Like a. Wallaby or something like
I'm not exactly sure, but he wants to become
strong under his own power, doesn't use it for
anything. Artemis doesn't realize that this is
like the humanoid one that turns into like the
bunny or whatever. Finds it pretty and takes
it home to decorate. So it's kind of dumb. but,
but yeah, um, it was an entertaining game. Uh,
you could play as like other characters, like
they had a star scream, uh, in it. And, um, they
had, uh, a DJ who was basically cicada con from
the tri predacus toy. Um, it occurred, which
is again, another of the tri predacus, uh, characters.
And then they had, Starscream who was he was
like the hell screamer BB character and the other
Beast Wars Beast Wars 2 continuity and then you
had a couple other characters but overall I enjoyed
it because it was just a goofy like side scrolling
beat him up almost like a street fighter yeah
You could transform and you could shoot them.
It was entertaining in its own right, but it
had a very short lifespan. Cool. So that one,
I genuinely enjoyed that just because it was
just something fun to play for, you know, oh,
I've got 15, 20 minutes to kill. Let's play this.
And then there was Transformers Legends. I mostly
liked it because the artwork that came out of
it, but it was a multiplayer card based battle
game that came out for mobile. Yep. And yeah,
I mean. Kind of all I liked it for was was the
artwork like it was kind of like it was one of
those games I just didn't really care. Yeah.
And it didn't last very long. They shut it down
two years after kicking things off with it. Yeah.
It seems like they do that a lot, though. I feel
like this is a mistake to make online games for
Transformers. They need to just have offline.
Because even War for Cybertron, Fallout Cybertron
had an online component. it did did anybody use
it i don't remember anyone talking about it but
that was because i was like i just want to see
how it works yeah the war for cybertron one kind
of sucked and then the fall of cybertron one
was better um now i could be mistaken like it
may have been the same game and i just i'm misremembering
it but um but yeah it was just kind of meh yeah
the only and then i played forged to fight which
had like the universe collision, you know, G1,
Bayformer, Beast War, you know, all of them were
running together. It wasn't very good, but it
wasn't bad either. It came out in 2017. It was
on Android and iOS. The game originally shut
down in 2023. And then a new version of the game
was announced and relaunched exclusively for
Netflix subscribers. Like four months later.
And then the new version removed all in -app
purchases and ads, as well as characters from
the live -action film series, while adding new
characters not present in the original release.
So I forgot about that, so I might actually have
to try and play that again, but I don't remember
really enjoying it. Yeah. It was it was interesting
and I wanted like the beast characters, but ultimately
like I didn't I didn't love it. Yeah, this is
this game was weird. Very weird. Yeah. But yeah,
it was kind of a mixture of everything. And then
I mean, I have Eternal War on there. on my list
is like a want to play but there's not like enough
there's no information really on it is that the
newest newest one yeah yeah it's supposed to
be the newest one that's it's out in like a beta
but it's on the other side of the world it's
not here but it interests me enough that when
it does come here i want to check it out um i
have played earth wars since it came out in 2016
right And it's passed through multiple studios.
It was like with a couple of different studios
to begin with, and then it's changed and changed
again, I guess, in 2025 to another studio. And
yeah, it's still going since 2016. I think it's
the longest running online Transformers game.
But it covers different generations. You get
your G1s, you get your Unicron Trilogy, your
Beast Era, your Shattered Glass, your G .I. Joe,
your Transformers Prime. Nice. I've gotten quite
a bit with it. What I don't love about it is
it's very microtransactional. Yep. So it makes
it almost impossible to play, but they've got
a huge lineup of characters. I mean, you've got
every rendition. You've got Optimus Primal. You
got Optimal Optimus. You got Transmetals, Transmetal
2s, Transmetal Chips that you can add to people.
You get Minicons, Mini Cassettes, like Rattrap
is kind of one of those minis. You get Combiners.
You get the Titans. You get... You know, all
different kind of combat characters that are
in it. It's it was a lot of fun. I just I got
tired of the microtransactional thing. Yeah,
that can be tiring after a while. So I just ultimately
stopped playing. But. And it takes forever to
build a base. Like forever. especially trying
to defend it and build it up so like that was
the other thing that I just kind of was like
I don't care anymore like I dumped a little bit
of money into it originally when it came out
because I was like I want this character and
I want this one and then when I got him I was
like why did I do that it kind of sucks so but
I did enjoy this one for the longest time so
this is like kind of the last one that I had
is my you know enjoyed Because I did enjoy it
for a time. I don't enjoy it anymore. More so
because I just stopped playing it. And I think
it just got kind of bland. But it is the longest
living video game in the history of the Transformers
brand. So I got to give it kudos for that. It
does work. It does seem to. keep people involved
so but yeah that's that's kind of my lineup of
the transformers games like i i wish we could
get some updates of some old ones but or pc access
to them yeah i would love for someone like that's
why i love the war and fall for cybertron games
is that even though they were dark and gritty
games they were G1 accurate to the point of,
hey, this is kind of like the G1 cartoon, but
in video game form. Even though the story wasn't
a G1 episode kind of thing, it was very G1 feeling.
I would love to see that. I wish they would have
worked more with High Moon Studios because those
people that worked on those games were amazing.
Can you imagine a High Moon Studios Beast Wars
or Beast Machine game? That would be awesome.
That would be great. I don't know what studio
nowadays Hasbro would work with to make a game
like that. And yeah, you have many different
markets for gaming now where it's like arcade
or mobile or console or this or that. And yes,
console and PC can basically be interchangeable
now because you can have the game on all of it.
But man, I would... hell for a transformers game
series where basically transformers generations
you start at g1 you release a fully faithful
game to g1 it doesn't have to be retelling the
g1 story but the designs have to be fully g1
and then you go to beast wars beast machines
animated whatever else you want to do but it
could just be a series you know it could be transformers
generations and you just do all the all the franchises
within that one thing and have really awesome
looking show accurate, whatever toy, well, what
are you going to say? You know, but I don't think
they're going to do that. I don't know what they're
going to do because as much as Chris Cox says,
I'm a gamer. I want, I want the games. I want
this. No more toys. We got to get the kids focused
on the games and the whatever. Cause he's got
whatever background in gaming. I don't know,
man. But what we have to this point in Transformers
games, some of it is absolutely amazing, awesome,
and fun. And we're going to continue to look
for more fun in Transformers gaming. Yeah, and
I hope that, with time anyway, we get kind of
the whole... gamut of options of of some good
stuff in the vein of what high moon was putting
out it would be nice just saying just saying
yeah oh absolutely it would be amazing that's
why i said you know something similar to that
design or something similar to basically take
look at the g1 cartoon or look at beast wars
And make it video game style and kind of thing.
I don't know, dude. Yeah, but no. It's always
so fun looking at this part of the Transformers
brand because. I don't like every Transformers
fan I've talked to in the last 17 years or 16
years or however the hell long it's been since
we've been doing this. Not a lot of them talk
about the video games with us. We barely bring
up the video games. Oh, no. Yeah, we really don't.
I mean, it's a niche area of the fandom. And
I'm sure there are. I'm not saying there aren't
Transformers gamers out there. I'm sure there
absolutely are. Like I said, when that Angry
Birds game came out, I went nuts for it because
it was Transformers, Angry Birds and whatever.
But it's one of those things where. I think if
Hasbro did do something really, really well done
to the point of getting every part of the fandom
in on it, it would be awesome. And it would bring
a lot of us together and it would get a lot of
us talking. But I don't know what they're going
to do. Well, you would think with his gaming
background or interest that he would get like
another high moon. Something. There's a, oh,
is it Hazel Light? Okay, so there's a studio.
I think it's called Hazel Light. I could be wrong.
They're doing very interesting things with games,
but they're doing unique and original games.
They did the It Takes Two game. They did the
Split Fiction game. Split Fiction is about these
two authors or these two writers who are trying
to write for this game company or something.
I forget what the whole thing is. But the point
of it is he's the corporate guy, the supposed
villain of the game, has this machine that's
stealing everybody's ideas kind of thing, and
the machine's getting overloaded and whatever
else. And part of the game, I've never seen this
in gaming. It's a split screen, but it crosses
over in one of the end levels as you're playing
the game. So the two characters basically envelope
each other in the environment. It's so friggin'
cool. I don't think Hazel Light is going to do
anything with Transformers. I think they're going
to do their own thing and keep making their own
specific games, but we need a studio like them.
To do something with the transform. We need Hasbro
to have something like that in their pocket to
do something with a Transformers game. I don't
know. I agree with you. I would love to see.
Kind of revisiting to the to the franchise. Yeah,
it'd be fun. Like in having good games like not.
And I'm saying this objectively. I want kind
of like the third person running around the map.
Yeah. Yeah, because that's when we had the fun
stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I don't mind first. Like,
OK, so here's what you need to do, folks. Basically,
you take the mechanics of Metal Gear, Metal Gear
Solid. And apply it to Transformers. So like
you're saying, third -person walk -around type
stuff, but at one point or another, you can have
a first -person view from a certain button press
or whatever kind of thing. That would be cool.
I don't know. We need something in the video
game thing for Transformers, folks, and something
that isn't always microtransactional because
that gets old after a while. Yep, yep, yep. So
I think that wraps this episode up. Yeah, pretty
much. The games that are out there, the games
that we've played, for the most part, we've had
fun with them. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So there are games
we would go back and play. So, you know. There
is that. Absolutely. So thank you, everyone,
as always, for listening to all things Transformers.
I've been your host, Steve Megatron with TFG1
Mike. You can, of course, interact with us on
the following ways. You can comment on the website,
geekcastradio .com. You can send us a message
on the social medias. You can either tag myself
on the Twitters at SCP21 or yourself, sir. I
am at TF2 and Mike, and before I forget, we do
have feedback. Yes, we do. I forgot we had that,
so really briefly. This is from DLL Lorenzo,
and he says, Just wanted to say thanks to all
things Transformers team. I've been listening
over the last few months and really enjoy the
content. I'm not an avid collector of the Transformers
figures, and I may get one or two depending on
the, how does that say, rule of cool. So it's...
Awesome listening to your advice on figures and
models. I listened to one where it was overloaded
in the toys and the specific codes in which which
lost me. Currently a regular player on Transformers
Earth Wars. There you go. Video games, folks.
See, Earth Wars is addicting. Like I didn't play
it for the longest time. Yeah, you did. I remember
you were playing it a few times when we started
a couple of the news episodes. I'm like. Stop
playing the game. Put the game down. Yeah, I
was doing that or playing Star Trek Online. Uh
-huh. Coming up to a year and painting up these
Transformers miniatures for a take on a Transformers
tabletop game that he's doing. And then he says,
4 ,000 episodes and going. You should be proud.
And here's one listener in the UK who enjoys
the shows. Thank you so much, D .L. Lorenzo.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for writing
in. It's always great to get feedback. Thanks
for listening. We're glad that we can provide
you some awesomeness in the world of Transformers.
Maybe this gave you some inspiration for some
older Transformers games to visit. Absolutely,
absolutely. So, as always, until next time, transform
and transcend.