It’s summer again, and that means one of a few things around here at Almighty HQ. First of all, I need to get a window shade for my car, because my car’s shift-knob is getting incredibly hot and making lunch trips somewhat painful. However, in a more relevant-to-our-situation occurrence, there’s about to be a slew of movies unleashed upon the American public, and that by extension means it’s movie-game season again. The latest offering in this year’s line of cinema-inspired games is Transformers: The Game. There are actually 4 distinct versions of this game, so let’s make it clear that this review is for the PSP version of this game.

Unlike its brethren, the PSP game is a linear adventure that allows you to play as both the Autobots and Decepticons alternately as you progress through the story. You can expect that the events and locations here will be found in the other versions of the game (and in the movie), but this one handles it very differently. You’ll essentially take turns fighting on different sides of the same battles. Protect the humans one minute and then destroy the military convoy the next...things like that. There are over 20 playable Transformers here, and you can expect the whole movie cast as well as some old fan favorites such as Hound.

The gameplay is pretty simple. It’s essentially a 3rd person shooter that gives you the ability to switch on the fly between robot mode and vehicle mode. Anyone who knows about Transformers can tell you that as the Autobots, you’ll be playing as mostly wheeled vehicles while as Decepticons you’ll take to the air. The driving model for cars isn’t necessarily the greatest, but it works fairly well – shooting while driving is definitely difficult, though. Flying, on the other hand, is extremely touchy. It can be fun, but it’s challenging to navigate the very narrow paths of these levels while properly maneuvering to get a target onscreen. The controls are overly complicated thanks to the PSP’s lack of buttons and sticks. Firing while flying proves to be even more of a challenge. If you want to, for example, fly upward and fire at the same time, you’ll have to press L and triangle to increase your altitude, then press down on the d-pad to lock-on to a target, then aim with the face buttons and finally press R to fire. Make sure you let go of L, though, as L+R transforms you between your two modes. Oh, and throw in one more press of the d-pad to change weapons, while you’re at it.

Fighting on the ground is equally entertaining (see: not very). You’ve got a bunch of weapons to choose from before each mission - that is as long as you’ve already beaten the mission and unlocked the weapons. No matter what you choose, they all seem to look the same. The basic equation of the weapon systems is as follows: grenade + missile + laser + gatling gun = arsenal. Find your opposition, lock onto them with the d-pad, press square to fire and hope that the targeting system is intelligent enough to actually hit your target (see: it isn’t). All an enemy has to do is move slowly and you’ll miss every time. If you’re a master at manipulating the overly sensitive analog stick, you might be able to lead your target enough to actually hit them, but probably not. Instead, you’ll find yourself frequently just going in close and mashing the square button for a melee attack until your foe is reduced to rubble. It’s not challenging at all, really. It’s harder in the higher levels, but this is still definitely a game aimed at the less experienced player.

The graphics and sound are OK for a portable game, but there are some serious issues as well. Fans will certainly be able to recognize all of their favorite ‘bots from shows and movies of old, but to anyone who’s not familiar with the series they all kind of run together – big metal dudes with wings and wheels. The framerate suffers seriously when there are as few as 2 robots onscreen, and the camera tends to freak out during melee combat. As far as the audio, it’s crisp and well done. All of the voice actors you’d expect are here, and the score is fantastic. All of it sounds great, especially over headphones. However, that said, there are some instances where sound effects simply don’t load (there WILL be silent explosions), and the effects are extremely repetitive.

There’s a multiplayer mode available here as well. Over the PSP’s wi-fi connection, you can battle with up to 3 other friends. You can use any of your unlocked characters in a number of fairly traditional game modes – deathmatch, CTF, and more. It’s fairly fun, but really only serves to be a dash of sweetener in this otherwise bitter game.

Only fans of the license should buy this game. It’s got almost everything you’d expect from a Transformers: The Movie game. It’s got robots, it’s got explosions, it’s got Peter Cullen. What it doesn’t have, unfortunately, is fun gameplay. If I made a list of all the movie games I've played in the last year, this one would definitely be near the bottom. If you’ve got other avenues to explore the Transformers: The Game experience, we’d recommend you take those instead of the PSP path.