Transformers Beyond Reality Review

May 15, 2023

Transformers Beyond Reality was surprise dropped on PSVR2 last week. I played this back on the original PSVR, and was interested in giving it another chance with the updates they have pushed to the game. I have now played it again, but have the updates helped?

STORY

In the game you do you not take control of any of the Transformers, but are an unnamed human who has an exosuit. You are placed into a war between the Transformers and the Decepticons, the question is can you help the Transformers win the war?

GAMEPLAY

Transformers Beyond Reality can be best described as paint-by-numbers on the rails shooter, that puts your exosuit onto a moving platform that keeps you moving forward through the levels. Giving it a real arcade on the rails shooter feeling, over an experience made for home.

As you move through each of the six levels, you will be taking on Insection drones that will spawn along your path, and will end with a boss battle against one of the Decpticons. However, these feel no different that taking on the drones – only you will shooting at set targets on the Decepticon that take more damage. Which is a shame, as if you were one of the Transformers or even switched to one for the boss battles these could have used Virtual Reality and what the medium offers in a much better way. The Insection Drones offer a couple of variations on laser pods and the last couple of levels adding Seekers, which again makes the gameplay very rinse and repeat – as you are not really seeing variation in what you are shooting. Other than the fighting every now and then lasers will appear that you need to duck under to avoid.

Your exosuit comes with three options, but all this will do is switch up your secondary weapon to either a shield, mini-gun or sword. However, I found that the shield was best, as it was easy to deflect the incoming fire with the shield over the sword and the mini-gun really didn’t seem to offer much more than your standard pistol. Outside of these, you will get two special weapons that will charge over time in the form of a grenade launcher or beam rifle. Most of the time you will be using your standard pistol that is single fire, unless you collect an auto-fire power-up, but this does not last long – so expect your trigger finger and the trigger on the controller to get a solid workout.

When it comes to the power-up’s you will get the aforementioned auto-fire, charge boosts for your special weapon, health and the in-game currency. The in-game currency (Energon) is what you will use to upgrade your exosuit, be it your health, your main gun, your secondary and ultra attack – which I feel is the way the team wanted to add more length and meat to what is overall a game that lacks any real umph.

The game does try and add some fan-service in having a number of battles happening each stage between the Transformers and Decepticons, but this really just make you feel like are missing the true beauty of the what the game could have been. Also some of these battles are taking place when you are concentrating on the Insection Drones – meaning in some cases its hard to concentrate and take in these set pieces.

PRESENTATION

When playing it originally on the PSVR, I was shocked at how flat and blurry the visuals were, and was left feeling they should have waited for the next generation rather than release it so close to the end of the PSVR’s cycle. With the PSVR2 version it seems the improvement in visuals comes from softening the blur, but it still feels and looks like it could be running on the original PSVR and not a generational upgrade. The power of the PS5 has allowed them to add more world/level destruction when it happens on the set piece battles – but personally I would have preferred for this to be used in other ways.

Audio-wise it does feature voice acting from the actors who have voiced the more recent cartoons, to give some more fan-service. Outside of these they have chosen a generic rock soundtrack that would easily fit most on the rail shooters, and offers nothing special to the experience, but does the job.

COMFORT/CONTROLS

As you are moving along on a platform you are always attached to, this could cause some motion sickness for those who suffer with artificial movement. The game can be played seated and standing, but when trying it seated I did find it hard to dodge the few lasers that appear throughout the levels.

When it comes to controls, as you have no control over the movement, this has allowed them to put the pistol in your dominant hand, your secondary in your non-dominant hand and to switch to your special weapon by placing your dominant hand over your shoulder. With the only button being needed is the trigger on each controller.

One thing I have always been a massive fan of with the PSVR2 is the use of haptics, and unfortunately this game falls short in them as well. With the adaptive triggers not really adding much, the haptics in the controllers feeling the same when firing your pistol with the auto-fire upgrade to when firing the mini-gun. Then the headset haptics only activating when you are hit, and not when there is world damage or the Transformers and Decepticons fighting and moving around you – it just seems like they have not been used to their full potential all around.

LONGEVITY

A run through of all the levels on the default difficulty took just over an hour. I think the team have taken a shortened approach, as they expect you to go into go into the game on harder difficulties once you have upgraded your exosuit. The arcade mode is also there to give you an extra way to play the game, but it just offered very little engagement for me after the first attempt at this mode.

REVIEWED USING PLAYSTATION VR 2

For the purposes of transparency, this review was created using a review code provided by the company or their respective PR company. The use of a press code does not affect my judgement of the product.

REVIEW OVERVIEW

It is a shame when a license could offer so much to Virtual Reality, then they fail to take full advantage of what it could offer – and unfortunately Transformers Beyond Reality is a perfect example of this. The gameplay is not engaging enough to keep you entertained for even your first playthrough and really does not give you the feeling you want to play it again. With the games on the rails approach and the disappointment of you not being an actual Transformer, only being intensified by the set piece fights between the Transformers and Decpticons happening around you on the stage. I was left feeling this would a prefect experience for a VR arcade or in somewhere like theme park, where you want a short experience and those action set pieces wouldn’t seem wasted. For the price and what you are going to get out of the game, I really can not recommend this game – if it was half the price and you are a big fan of Transformers it might be worth it for the fan-service elements.