Ok had plenty of time to test it out heres my take on it.
The game is a mixture of a Driving/Shooter/Beat-em-up/Platform. The transformations are really smooth, really fun to transform back and forth from robot to car.
Car mode: Can take a bit to get used to, specially with such a close camera angle, you don't have the option to zoom out. As your driving you can press the LT for nitrus that will give you a long boost of speed as you hold it, you can use your machine guns with the RT and shoot what looks like grenade launchers with RB.
Robot mode: Feels a little slower, specially compared to driving, could use an option to sprint, but then again, you could always transform into a car. Virtually anything in the game you can pick up with the B button, trees, lightposts, signs, vehicles...etc. Jumping towards a building, will have your robot grip sides of the building and you can climb up and on top of them. The same 2 weapons are available in robot mode, machine guns and grenade launchers, same buttons, RT and RB. Only difference here is that you can block with LT and melee with X. There's really no combos, moves are limited to 3-4 hits.
The Levels: Are open ended to a point...you have a big area to explore and you have color indicators like Midnight Club Dub along with a radar to guide you to your next mission or side missions/mini games. There are items scattered throughout the levels, items that look like energon, Autobot/Decepticon logo icons, and side mission/mini games icons. There are 100 energon looking cubes per map, collecting these unlocks various bonuses like movie screenshots, comic covers, movie trailers and G1 skins. You can explore the level as much as you want and cause destruction, but once you start a mission, it gets harder with tons of enemies coming at you.
Enviroments/Enemies: Everything is virtually destructible and when you are fighting enemies and getting tossed into buildings, you really get a sense of destructions, building walls fall appart, buildings catch on fire, you can kick cars, shoot them, pick them up and throw them. The destruction alone is awesome to experience. The game features, transforming drones that attack you throughout the level as well as the cops and Sector 7 agents via car, tanks, helicopters...etc. Most of these are pretty easy, but can get challenging, when you have a screen full of them all aiming at you. I haven't experienced any slowdown at all, and I've had tons of explosions going on as well as a bunch of vehicles driving around.
Downsides: Collision detection, needs work, it won't really affect how you play that much, but it can be quite disturbing when your driving 80mph into a tree and come to a complete stop, you can't move around it unless you reverse or transform and move away. The camera is pretty good, but when you're in a tree surrounded area, you can lose sight of your hero/villan quick.
In Closing: If youre a hard core TF fan, definately pick this game up. If you are curious about the game, I'd say wait till it hits the $30 mark. Its not the best game out there, but its definately fun and satisfies my Transformers needs for now.
If you guys have any questions let me know.
He's gonna make the movie!!!!
