All right guys, this is a fairly simple question that I need some advice on. At one of my local videogame stores, they have a used copy of the Armada based Transformers videogame for the PS2, about $18 in price. Is this game worth buying? I've read a pretty detailed review and it sounds like a good game, but it does have it's draw backs. First, you can't play as the Decepticons at all, so no flying around as Starscream. Second, with the playable characters being limited to Optimus Prime, Red Alert, and Hot Rod, there's only one character I would be interested in playing as. I have no clue who Red Alert is, and I'm just not into the idea of “Ridding The Rod”, so Prime is the only guy really worth playing as for me. However, the review did mention that the boss fights are some of the most memorable in gaming history, and there are endless hoards of enemies to smash into tiny pieces, and who doesn't love that stuff? If it's repetitive and button mashy, those aren't really drawbacks for me. I love button mashing, so that's actually a bonus for me. Plus, a kickass boss fight against Starscream is better than nothing, right?

So tell me fellas, should I buy this game or not?

Buy it, but be warned the game gets tough, I used to say "each level kicks my ass in a completely new fashion" and you'll get tired of the ragdoll physics real fast as you're blasted around, but it's over all agood game, better then the movie based game IMO.

Oh, it's a great game! It does get very tough and it has a lot of replay value to get the remaining minicons for example. It's well worth it and it's graphically a great game for the PS2.

Hand down the BEST TRansformers ever!

Not really a "Button Masher" as you won't be hand-to-hand unless you're within melee range.

"Can't play as the Decepticons" is NOT a legitamate point to hold against the game (and I star seing red with rage whenever that is made as a flaw). Neither is having only 3 characters, who represents the 3 basic characters of any game: Strong but slower (Optimus), Evenly balanced (Red Alert) and Fast but Weaker (Hot Shot).

Funny thing is, in almost any game that has the 3 character dyamic, the Fast but slower character is usually the girl. :P

rofl

Possibly the best part of Armada was that game. I'd get it, if I had a PS2 and saw it for that price.

Looks like we're not rid of the Rod yet.

You meant Riding the Rod. And honestly, at the time the name HotRod wasn't trademarked, so the little sports car became Hotshot. He's basically Bumblebee of the trilogy(Armada/Energon/Cybertron). "You. Are. Not. Hot. Rod!"

Red Alert is, basically, the trilogy's version of Ratchet. Tech type, fixes stuff. Personally I liked the G1 Red Alert(extremely paranoid Autobot).

I love this game. It's a lot of fun and might cause you have fond memories of Armada for once.

The boss fights are lots of fun! My favorite one is against Cyclonus. It starts out on top of a pyramid and he will undoubtedly grab you, spin you around, and send you flying about a mile out into the sky! You're just sailing helplessly and he's already transforming and coming after you. Just the most awesome thing ever.

Both times you fight Starscream are pretty tough, but I wouldn't rank them as anything terribly memorable in the game.

The intro to the Tidal Wave boss fight is incredible. The fight itself isn't that tough unless you have it set to maximum difficulty. Then things get really interesting.

Megatron is another great fight. The first time he did the atomic suplex on me, my face about hit the floor.

Unicron is a simple boss fight, sadly, but the first time you play it, it's easy to get disoriented and makes it slightly more difficult.

Anyway, for $18 I'd say it's well worth a purchase. :D

And in all honesty I never completed the game im at the bottom of the hill/mountain where Megatron is up top shooting down on me how do i even get up to him?

Well, if the game comes that highly recommended from this many people, and people who's opinions I trust and value at that, how can I pass it up?

I'm highly encouraged by your enthusiasm about the boss fights Mako. I LOVE good bossfights. The best ones are the fights that are challenging but not a total pain in the ass, and combine a little bit of strategy with lots of action. One of my favorite boss fights from the games I've played is the Ooggie Boogie fight in the first Kingdom Hearts game. It was so true to the movie, and used a lot of timing and strategy, making it an overall awesome battle.

Out of curiosity, can you choose who you play as for each mission, or are you stuck with whomever they give you?

I suppose it's not that devastating of a loss, but it would be great to fly around as a more "true" Starscream. I have the movie game, and I enjoy it a lot, but with the movie look and deep voice, Starscream just doesn't feel like Starscream in that game, even though he did reach unparalleled levels of badass in the movie itself. I wish he had a true G1 body as apposed to a simple repaint. Oh well.

Thanks for the advice everyone, I'm sure I'll love the game. If not, well, I'll blame all of you.

You're not restricted to one person throughout the entire game, you can switch. Hell, you can change guys within a mission. You can even try someone else if you lose a boss fight. Every save point acts as a 'warp" to the hub where you can change character and/or Minicon loadouts.

Just be CAREFUL!! The game has a "autosave" and saves after almost any and every little change.

Yeah, this was a great Transformer game. Fairly hard... one of the few games that I had to use cheats to make it to the end (HAD to see that last level!!)

But you can select character mid-level, and you can go back to levels repeatedly to find other crap that you may have missed (other minicons, extras, etc...)

Okay, here's what you do. That's not Megatron. Those are snipers just waiting for you to poke your head out. Best bet is to equip your sniper Minicon (I forget his name) and then do one of two things.

1. Scan the area carefully and try to pinpoint where the snipers are. They'll all be located on some rocky ledges above you.

2. Run out into the open until they target you with their laser sights, then run back behind a rock for cover. This is an easy way to get them to reveal their positions if you're having a bad time spotting them.

Then use your sniper ability on them and take them down!

Hope that helps. :D

The two fights against Starscream kind of fall into that category. Pain in the butt. The first time I ever beat him was due to a glitch. He flew right into a hangar bay and transformed to robot mode. He was so tall that he was stuck in the building and I just fired away until he dropped.
I do have some good strategies to use against him though and they all involve using Hotshot. Speed, speed, speed!! And sticky bombs. :D

Really? I've never heard anything really praise-worthy about the movie game. Something like you can't use your weapons on anyone, because everyone has force-fields. That, and a ton of beat the clock and collect all the junk missions. I'm interested in playing/buying it, but the bad reviews have kept me away. I'm torn between suffering through bad gameplay and playing as Barricade. What do I do!??!! Is it really that bad?

... I know I've complained about it as had others.

The movie game was too repetative and too pain in the ass time-missionistic. It was repleate with problems, though was still very worth the $19 I paid for it. It was nice to use the cheat codes and unlock everything then pick and choose what I wanted to do (after I got fed up with 'race the clock' missions)

I WILL say praise-wise that the graphics were really great, and that it was kind of fun to run around as bumblebee and throw things from rooftops.

I agree, a lot of the missions in the movie based game suck. The mission where you play as Barricade and have to chace down Jazz was a pain in the ass. I still have no idea how I managed to ctach up with him only seconds after he transformed and took off. One of the missions in the Starscream level was also a pain in the ass, where you had to destroy 10 enemy jets and then gather their debris within a short window of time. Also of note is that every enemy, other than the weakest, have shields, so anything from Cybertron has to be destroyed with melee attacks. And even the select few that don't have shields ca take weapon fire pretty well, so it's still more effective to run up and just hit them.

However, it is fun to go into a level and just blow stuff up. The animations of the transformations are also pretty damn awesome. Oh ywah, and the SOCENT Military Base level, is probably worth the price of the game alone. Damn that level is badass.

By the way guys, thanks for recommending the Armada game so highly. I finaly got to the store and bought it, and finished the first level. From what I can tell, it's going to be a great game! Beautiful in game and cutscene graphics, solid Battlefront like gameplay, endless exploration possibilites, and shooting enemies actualy works! I realy love just how much you can explore the levels, going way the hell away from the actual objective to find extras and Mini-cons. I also like the recon mode thing. I was able to take out an entire hord of enemies before they got in range of where I was! This was especialy impressive because shorlty before that I got killed by the very same hord. Thanks for the advice everyone!

I knew you'd like it!

*brace yourself for the crashed Starship level. That's the only one that pisses me off to this day*

Ah, I so wanna play the movie game. Sadly, can't seem to find it at the moment, or if I can, don't have the money. Personally, the only thing that sounds bad about it is the time-based missions, just because that brings back memories/nightmares of another time-based game, Superman 64 *shudders*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwylXJIkjf4

Why does it piss you off? I just reached the Starscream boss fight of that level. At first I followed the advie of a walkthrough, which told me to use Firefight as my main gun. I tried it, and didn't get very far using the walkthough's strategy the two times I attempted it. So, I switched to Aurora, and it was smooth sailing after that. Why? Because once you hit a target with Aurora, and hold down the L1 button, the shot will continue to go after that target the entire time, even if they are no longer in your line of sight, behind you, or around the corner. That way, I was able to shoot someone, and then hide behind a wall where they were too stoopid to follow me, and let Aurora take them down. I love Aurora.

I know you
I walked with you once upon a dream

:dinorolleyes

...Wrong Aurora.

Here's what I say: Buy the game and try it out.

If you hate it, at least you didn't waste much money on it.

That said, I'll give my own opinion: Save your money for a better game. I have a hard time understanding why people seem to cut this game so much slack. I found the controls and camera to be irritatingly unresponsive, and there's no lock-on feature to try and make up for this.

Boss fights tended to be typical "frantically try to hide behind stuff and sometimes peek out and shave a tiny sliver off the boss' health oops he hit you a second time now you're dead" we all knew and loved back in the NES days.

Heck, I found that even using cheat codes so I could use the "bullet time" mode continuously (although I called it "Vietnam flashback mode", since it reminded me of that from movies) and be invincible, it was still a chore to try and get a boss to just die already.

You're better off getting a used GameCube and the Metroid games: You still have a robotty-looking thing that transforms into a handy "vehicle" mode, but you also get a first-party Nintendo game with mountains of money and love poured into it that Atari just couldn't affort to put into their Transformers PS2 game.

All right, I just beat Starscream... in 1 attempt! My health didn't even start beeping until Screamer was down to his final set or two of blips. And you know why? Aurora. Best, gun, ever. Good power, energy depletes very slowly, energy regenerates very quickly, only takes two loadout slots, will continue to hurt an enemy even if he's not in line of sight or even on camera, and it can shoot around corners. It doesn't get better than that!

For further details, I played as Optimus Prime, and my Mini-con loadout was Aurora, Flashbang, Bulletproof, and Kickback. That group worked wonders.

I would go as far as to say that it was easy because the game is on the easiest difficulty setting, but based on how I did in the other boss fights, I don't think so. The first guy took me two or three tries, the first Starscream fight also took about three tries, Cyclonus took at LEAST a dozen tries (I'm not exadurating), and Tidal Wave took a good 6 or more I'd say. So how I beat Screamer on his second fight, I have no clue. I'm guessing it as the Mini-Cons.

Too late. All ready bought it, and have been kicking it's ass. I know what you mean about the boss fights. Two hits and you're dead while the other guy won't die no matter how many times, or how hard, you hit him. However, it's still a very fun game and I've all ready finished 6 of the 8 levels. It's not the best game I've ever played (that title goes to God of War), bt it is definitly fun and a more satisfying experience than the movie game, though I do like that one.

Thanks anyway for the advice though!

Heh... I beat Starscream thanks to the wonderful world of cheat codes...


Wait till you hit the Tidal Wave screens :cool:

The crashed starship level irritates me with all its platforming. I can't even count how many times I'd get really high, really close to the exit and then fall about 3 or 5 floors and have to climb all the way up everything again. Ooooh, I wanted to kill something!!! Except there was nothing in that level to blow up!!! Ooooooooooh!!!!! Neat trick with Aurora. I don't think I was aware of that.... huh. Now I have to try that out.

wait... are you talking about the crashed Tidal Wave?

*been a while.... trying to remember*

I think it's Tidal Wave that ends up being crashed face down. You do end up facing Starscream a SECOND time after that level.

I didn't have any problems with it...

No, the crashed ship is a starship. You defeat Tidal Wave two levels before the crashed starship level.

I think I fell once, and got lost, but made it back up and got out all right.

The4 Tidal Wave scene was great, but I think Megatron wins the award for best videogame entrance, second only to Sephiroth in the first Kingdomn Hearts. Oh yeah, I beat him last night as well. I got Corona in that level, and it to was able to shoot around corners, so when I figured out that if you shoot Megatron from the ramp that leads to the lava below, Megatron is at a disadvantage, as most of his attacks can't hit you from there, but you can hit him with Corona. Corona is just like Aurora, except a bit stronger, can target three enemies as aposed to two, and takes up twice as many loadout slots.

So, at this point I'm just looking for Minicons so I can go battle Unicron. I'm about 5 short of the minimum number. But once I get them, I'll go beat Unicron's ass!

I have everything in the first level, except for two mini-cons. There is one sitting on top of a hill with a very small amount of groundspace, so every time I try to fly to it, I either overshoot my goal or crash on the ground just before it levels out, and slide off the hill to be attacked by a pair of heavy units. The last minicon is on another hill just past the one I can't get to, and I think i need to jump from the hill I can't get to in order to grab it. Sheesh.

*L* I know the hill you're talking about. That's a tough one to land on. Usually I have to put up my shields and crash right into the ground or else I'll just fly right past it. Then I grab the Mini-con and jump right off. Don't even bother to fight the Heavy Units. :P

All right, I only have two mini-cons left and I can't figure how to get to at least one of them. In Deep Amazon, acording to Shephard, there is one inside the temple. now, next to the elevator and Antichamber warp gate there is an area that you use Highjump to get to. If you get up there and turn down the left hand tunnel, and turn on Shephard, it looks like you are actualy standing inside the mini-con. However, if you don't have shephard, you can't see the minicon at all, and thus can't get to him. I've searched that temple high and low, and can't find any tunnels anywhere that lead to that minicon, and only the one tunel ever comes close to it. I've even tried shooting the walls and blowing them up, and yet I just can't get to it. What do I have to do to get that damn mini-con?

As for the other one, it's in Pacific Island, on a really high ledge of the volcano. You can see it from a ledge that you get another mini-con from. However, the ledge is higher than the one you can see it from, so you can't really glide to it from that spot. Do I really have to fly all the way around the mountain from the warp gate to get to that mini-con, or is there a simpler way?

PS The Unicron fight was cool.