Das Spiel hat aber nicht nur grafisch was drauf. Die IGN Redakteure sind hin und weg von dem Spiel:
August 25, 2003 - While Transformers fans will forever debate whether the old school Transformers is better or worse than Transformers Armada, Atari (formerly Infogrames) and its smoking hot development team from Australia, Melbourne House, have taken the high road. Or at least the most current road, with Transformers Armada: The Battle for Energon.
Due next year (in April 2004), Atari's newfangled Transformers game looks to genuinely beat the bad licensed game rap. In the past, every company in the business has in one game or another snagged a license and then just cranked out a game designed in a box. That box was usually full of crap. And sadly, gamers like you and I either bought those games, or at least reviewed them, and felt either cheated or snookered. Atari has handed Transformers Armada over to Melbourne House, the team responsible for very good games such as Le Mans 24 Hours, Grand Prix Challenge and the less than memorable Men in Black: Alien Escape, among others.
What's special about these guys is that A) their games always are bolstered by excellent technology (which translates into excellent graphics, smooth framerates, highly detailed models and environments) and, at least in the driving category, B) their racers have always been well designed, fast, and well thought out. What does that mean for Transformers Armada? From the early build we witnessed at Atari's latest Gamers Day, Melbourne house is sticking close to the Armada series, it shows great technology, high framerates and a game that is already fun to play -- eight months before it ships. All very, very good signs.
For anyone who's watched the new, revised animated cartoon, Transformers Armada: The Battle for Energon's story won't blow your socks off. But it's true to the series. It's basically the good guys (Autobots) versus the bad guys (Decepticons). The Decepticons, always in search of obtaining more evil power, have landed on Earth to recover a long-lost Transformers ship that crash landed millions of year ago. The year is The ship is filled with Mini-cons, devices that upgrade and super power the Autobots with tons (in this case, 40) of abilities. A group of kids have mistakenly find the long-lost ship, and upon entering it, activate the Mini-cons. The Decpticons quickly learn of the occurrence, and in turn, the Autobots do too, setting both in search of recovering all the Mini-cons before the other.
A little history on the Mini-cons: Both the Autobots and Decepticons tried to use them during the Great War millions of year ago. When the war grew out of control due to its terrific ferocity, both sides called a truce, deciding to send the Mini-cons away on a ship deep into space. Every single Mini-con was placed into a carrier and it was sent drifting into space for millions of years. Millions of years later, the Mini-cons have been awakened are on Earth.
Melbourne House's game already looks impressive. The game is running at a crisp 60 frames per second, and in the two levels we saw -- a jungle and a snowy terrain -- the level of reflections, chroming, metallic texturing and radiosity are all working on high and together they create a beautiful environment filled with movement, life and excellent effects. Andrew Carter, VP of product development at Atari, said the team's newly created Eco System, a volumetric renderer, enables the team to create tons of crisp textures and polygons and have them mathematically placed. The models look good, and each in their own way, the Autobots appear hulking, efficiently modeled and nearly perfect in their replication of the new show. The Mini-cons are small, miniature in fact, and once captured and selected, they shadow your autobot's every move.
The game is filled with excellent particle effects as well as believable smoke and explosions. Gamers will watch as the bots perform quick dashes, trails of velocity streaming off their backs. The Mini-cons enable players to see even more special effects. So, with the stealth Mini-bot attached, for instance, your Autobot turns invisible, showing him with the same effect as say, the Predator from the Arnie movie of the same name. It's clean and cool looking to say the least. The Transformers also transform instantly on the fly while moving, standing still, what have you. We saw Optimus Prime and Hotshot transform instantly on the run while aiming for an enemy, a special move that rams the enemy or a group of enemies into pieces.
Technically, Melbourne House's game will support wide screen and Dolby Pro Logic II, enabling great screen presence and clear, pure sound. Melbourne House is working with CG house Build Up, which created CG work for the Panzer Dragoon and Soul Calibur series in the past.
Shown from a third-person perspective, Transformers Armada enables players to switch to a first-person perspective while using the zoom camera, which intensifies three times, to pick off hordes of Decepticons from a long distance. The game is all about scouting out an area for the Mini-cons, searching out the Decepticons in the area, and using the utilizing the most appropriate Mini-con for the job. There are 40 Mini-cons in all, in addition to the default infinite ammo laser shots each Autobot has, and as you play you can store them, while attaching no more than four at a time.
Each Autobot has the ability to walk, run, jump, strafe, shoot, sprint, ram and transform, and depending on their character, they each own certain characteristics. For instance. Optimus is large, slow and powerful; while Hotshot is quick and nimble. Even in this early build, one can see the potential of the game. Your characters can hide and then lean out from behind trees to shoot and retreat. Some of the Mini-cons include the aforementioned Stealth ability, as well as the Slow-Mo camera, Heat Vision, Hover Glider and well, about 36 more.
Melbourne House looks to incorporate a number of level design ideas to create diversity and continued interest in the hardcore and casual gamer. For instance, the first areas are pretty straightforward slam-and-blam kinds of arenas. They're big forested levels, with no pop-up and tons of textures, but basically they put players in a search-and-rescue style operation, giving players the benefit of the doubt. As levels progress, more enemies will increase capturing Mini-cons, while other levels are designed to specifically make players use their transformed selves to pull off the big one.
After seeing all of the PS2 games at Atari's Gamers Day in Mexico, I have to admit the most technologically advanced game of the bunch, and the one with the most potential is Transformers Armada: The Battle for Erergon. It's already well crafted, built on powerful technology, and it looks like a whole lot of fun whether or not you're interested in Transformers. The fact is, it looks like a hell of a game, license or no. Which puts this jaded journalist at ease, at least for the moment -- and for the record, that's before I drank all those tequila shots.