Transformers Gaming Throwdown!

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.