The story of the series Transformers. First generation

How did you learn about such characters as Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron or Starscream? Most people are likely to answer that, of course, these are the heroes of famous animated series, films, comics, which can also be found at home in a huge number of people in the form of plastic toys.

But the universe Transformers has existed for almost 40 years. For such a long time, she was able to grow to the level of the world -famous brand, which includes not only the above media entertainment, but also a variety of video games, most of which are known only to avid fans. There were not as many of them as we would like, even considering that at a variety of times these toys were more popular among the target audience of different ages.

I would like to focus this "history of the series" precisely on video games (in view of the orientation of the site), but of course it is impossible not to include the general facts about this universe.

As you know, in September 1984 the first episode of the original animated series was released The Transformers. A huge number of children throughout America and Japan immediately fell in love with the series, and with admiration watched the confrontation of valiant autobots led by a brave leader Optimus Prime and evil desepticons led by an insidious tyrant Megatron.

This delight was strengthened by a large line of toys that went out for eight years, and even after that received many reprints. Naturally, the brand very quickly got a huge success, which forced Hasbro And Takara, Like any other company in such a situation, to engage in the production of more diverse products. Games were no exception to this rule.

Japanese company Takara In 1980 she introduced a ruler Diaclone. Even then, these were anthropomorphic robots who knew how to turn into various transport. Nowadays, you can trace how this series influenced Transformers, the designs of which were essentially taken from Diaclone.

In 1983, the company introduced a very similar series of toys – Micro Change, which was actually a subsection of another line – Microman. There were again transforming mechanoids, but smaller, about 8 centimeters tall.

At that time, the American company Hasbro I wanted to release it and Diaclone, And Micro Change in America and Europe, while rebranding under the new name – The Transformers. Behind the newborn series was a new concept that Hasbro Developed together with Marvel Comics. Thus, a brand license in Japan belonged Takara, And in other countries – Hasbro.

The Transformers, 1985 (Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum)

Already in 1985, the transformers acquired their first game-an action-said-scroll with an uncomplicated name The Transformers, developed by some Denton Designs and published Ocean Software, who at that time released quite a few games in licenses of various films. Its essence was simple: having chosen one of the five autobots, it is necessary to collect 4 cubes of the energy and bring them to a certain place on the map, so that the image of the emblem of their fractions is formed in parts. This could be done in a matter of minutes, and after that the game did not end, but focused. In fact, ‘Game Over ‘ came only after the death of all five characters. That is why the main goal was rather to score as many points as possible, because their counter (along with the time meter) was displayed on the screen.

Version for Commodore 64

Version for Commodore 64

Since the game was about transformers, of course, the characters could both go on their feet and travel in the shape of a car. Opponents (t.e. Decepticons) were presented here in the form of foot and flying goals, at which it was only possible to shoot. However, the player himself could also fly in order to move faster (just fly, not transforming into anything). However, in the version for C64, all the models moved somehow too quickly, although it added difficulties, it could also cause irritation if, for example, the player did not have time to react to the broken end of the platform and fell down. Anyway, it was possible to die here almost from anything: from falling, from a clash, even from the change of character not at a special station. These stations served to repair and choose a playable hero, which sometimes could play in the hands, but did not cancel the fact that the management here was terrible;Many players simply could not cope with him.

Obviously, such a game had value only as an advertisement for toys and an animated series. However, it was the most ordinary platformer of the time that was inferior in terms of quality of many other competitors.

In fact, almost everyone.

Even the developers in one interview said that of all their games they were least pleased with "Transformers", Because they were in a hopeless situation (under pressure either the publisher or the license owners themselves), and were forced to make this game.

The Battle to Save the Earth, 1986 (Commodore 64)

When we are talking about games for "Transformers", The publisher who immediately comes to mind is Activision. The company first contacted the franchise back in 1986, when it personally developed and published The Battle to Save the Earth. The game designer performed here David Crane, which, by the way, was one of the creators of Activision (In the same 1986, he left her and found it Absolute Entertainment).

Transformers are large mechanical creatures with a difficult transformation process, and the creator of the game wanted to display this in his creation. He wanted to show that these transformations require a lot of steps. However, the main difficulty was that physical carriers for C64 had very few memory, and it would be simply impossible to keep the rewarded sprites of each stage of transformation on them in advance. Therefore, together with the artist, they came up with a solution to this problem. It consisted in the fact that different mechanical elements were superimposed on each other in such a way that the illusion of rotation and various other movements of all sorts of gears, hinges, etc. D. Then David created a computer language (similar to PostScript) that painted each image element using small files with data. Thus, the animation of modification took much less space.

For playing with C64 it looks really amazing

The game went on sale in October 86, when the third season of the animated series was broadcast on TVs in full. Of all four games in this article, this one has the least attitude towards transformers. And no, the point is not that here it was possible to stumble upon a giant (albeit mechanized) dinosaur or to see an increase to huge size and a hippo walking through the water, which demolishes the oil pipeline. Just the main gameplay was the most ordinary shooting range with a set of glasses.

At the beginning of the game, a map opened with rolling-slots.co.uk all the locations to which it was necessary to send autobots from their composition. At some point, the Decepticons attacked one of the places, and his green badge began to blink in red. Then the mode of Tire was opened, in which an attacked location was depicted, and it was necessary to shoot flying opponents, for which glasses were given. But the villains themselves also received glasses when they mined energy resources. Here it is worth saying a few words about the plot.

We lower the entire background of the conflict;with each new restart Transformers He practically did not change. Specifically, the Earth’s energy resources are needed in this game, and that is why they have chosen objects such as the oil platform and the oil pipeline, nuclear power plant, tanker and spaceport as their goals. Nevertheless, the Autobots intercepted their plans, and now they must interfere with them.

No matter how the players try, the game always turned around the same script. The villains still realized the plan, but this did not mean a loss at all. The whole essence was in the scored glasses. If the player had more than the opponent, then he could celebrate his victory, and as a reward he also received a medal (which, depending on the result, had three different degrees).

There were 8 transformers at their disposal. It is funny that two of them were the same character – according to the plot of the canon (which the game, sort of, adhered) Hot genus became Rodimus Prime After receiving a leadership matrix. And here were both (more precisely, both versions of this Autobot). It is worth noting that the developer himself, according to him, added to the game exactly Optimus And Hot genus, but apparently the authors of the manual confused something.

The game went out into disks and cassettes formats. With the first, everything was in order, on its reverse side it even contained a relatively long introduction, telling about the background of transformers. This screensaver lasted so long that the game can rightfully be considered a leader in the number of speech in it in the entire history of C64. The introductory speech was taken as the basis from the first episode of the animated series. The record itself had to digitize and lower the number of bits and the sampling frequency. The creator of the game even pumped the parameters of the physical medium so that audio could be read by a computer and play.

However, the cassette version had one critical problem. At some point, the game simply painted, and thus was impassable under any conditions.

Mystery of Convoy, 1986 (Famicom)

On August 8, 1986, the premiere of a full -length cartoon took place in North America Transformers: The Movie. He came out after the second season of the animated series, and chronologically located just between him and the third season, released a little later. However, for the Japanese, the problem was that the picture was released in the country only after a few years, and therefore, at the time of the appearance of the third season on television, an unexpected surprise awaited them. For some reason, Optimus there was no;there was no even the slightest mention of him. And the leadership matrix wore a new prime – ROMUMUS, Before that, known as Hot genus (known only to those who saw a full -length film, because it was there that he appeared for the first time).

And in general, the first episode of the season immediately misled: the decepticons experienced a critical shortage of energy, many new characters appeared, most of the familiar faces disappeared, and it seemed that there was simply no connection with the previous events of the animated series here. But it was necessary to allow this riddle for the Japanese audience, and therefore December 5 of the same year "Transformers»Given their most difficult game – Mystery of Convoy. Looking ahead, it is worth noting that the game did not answer any questions, but caused a lot of discontent.

The developer was a certain ISCO, And the publisher – Takara. I was not in vain called her the most difficult franchise game. Even in the promotional river, the gameplay was shown with the included cheat codes (and indeed, they showed beta version, not the final build). These cheats fell so hard that even the naked look could be seen how the character simply ignored the clashes with opponents and their shots and calmly fled on. Unfortunately, in reality, everything turned out to be far from so simple. Maybe publishers tried to match the main slogan of transformers "More than Meets The Eye "? After all, it can be interpreted as "Not everything is so simple ", What is perfect for the game. Absolutely everything in her was far from so simple.

Publishers love to ravine about their games in promo rollers

Ultra Magnus I died from one hit or a collision with enemies.

It was difficult to dodge the bullets, rather, even due to the fact that in an attempt to avoid hit, one could stumble upon another shell.

Somewhere simply there was not enough space to jump.

Enemies in some magical way could fly through the textures directly towards the character.

Some of them could easily be confused with the background due to a small variety of colors.

In the form of a car, you could only shoot up.

The transformation process itself literally stopped the character for a second, which could give the opponents the opportunity to kill you.

Lord, even your shots sometimes passed through opponents because of small hitboxes.

And cherry on the cake: it was impossible to persist here.

Well, how do you like hardcore? Despite all these problems (and in such a aggregate these are precisely problems, and not just shortcomings), the game seemed more interesting than its 1985 genre predecessor. For example, pleasant bonuses sometimes fell out of enemies (such as additional protection or even a temporary opportunity to fly). The transformation mechanics here already had at least some practical application, when it was necessary to climb through the narrow spaces in which the robo-form was not placed. And to open the passage for Rodimus Prime, It was necessary to collect seven letters that make up his name, which were reserved for some opponents after death. By the way, this very second passage did not differ from the main one, except for the altered model of the character, which was simply repainted in the form of the robot.

At the end of each stage of the hero, the boss was waiting. It’s funny that half of them are flying spheres and … desepticons icons. Yes. Large flying desepticons icons. Nevertheless, here we could meet familiar villains: and a huge mechanical tyrannosaurus Tripticon, And even Megatron. But the battles with bosses, unfortunately, did not differ from each other. It was just necessary to shoot at a small light on the enemy’s body, while he either flew up and down and shot in response, or (in the case of emblems and spheres), he simply hung in the air. And after each victory over the boss, the screen flickered frantically in red and blue colors, which easily caused an epileptic seizure.

Returning to the name of the game, I must say that "Convoy" – this is a Japanese name Optimus Prime. However, in the game he, or rather his head, appears only a couple of times: at the very beginning, when three cubes fly out of it and fly into Ultra Magnus, And at the end of the seventh level, where, painted in gray colors, she … just hangs in the air. Another interesting fact is that on the packaging of the game, the English translation of the name was written with an error – “Mystery of comvoy".

And again – a game that leaves a feeling of confusion. First of all, of course, because of its hellish complexity. And this difficulty would be an order of magnitude lower, the toy could well be just a good platform of its time. However, most of those who played it had only negative memories.

The Headmasters, 1987 (Famicom Disk System)

When the broadcast of the third season of the animated series ended on television The Transformers, In the yard was February 1987. Japan, however, did not see the continuation on its screens – the fourth season consisting of only three episodes. And even after almost 10 years, these series were released in the format of “home video”, on the television screens of the country of the rising sun appeared their own continuation of the third season. They became an emerging animated series in the summer Transformers: The Headmasters. The game on the motives did not make myself wait long, and saw the light on August 28, 1987, and again performed the publisher Takara.

This game will be correctly compared with Mystery of Convoy, Because they are very similar both externally and in the gameplay plan, with the only difference in the fact that there was no platforming. The first thing that was striking is the difficulty. The game was much simpler, the opponents did not seem so dangerous, it was easy to dodge their shots, and even the game character did not die from one hit, but had health points. It was really nice and comfortable to pass it. In the case of the death of the player, it was possible to choose another autobot, and continue from the same moment. It was quite easy to cope with some “transport” levels if you choose a transformer with a car shape: it was enough just to go forward without stopping and spit shots.

There is nothing special to talk about the plot itself – it is simple to the impossibility. The Army of the Desepticons captured entire planets, and in addition to captured some of the Autobots. The player had to repulse the villains.

After starting and creating the profile, a small card with four planets appeared on the screen. Initially, only three of them were offered to choose from: Earth, Cyberron And Chaa. The passage of each had two stages. The first occurred on the surface of the earth in transport mode. Here it was necessary to just go/fly forward, shooting off the opponents, and at the end to destroy the mini-boss. Then the player was transferred to the next, underground segment. There, in the form of a robot, the player had to shoot at the emerging enemies, or beat them in hand -to -hand, until the decepticon badge fell out of one. It had to be selected to open the passage to the next room. Thus, the character passed many rooms, and in the end reached the boss. The battle with the boss was distinguished by the fact that you were limited in the number of shots that you could do at a time. The villain also had a health indicator displayed on top of the screen, and a couple of shelters were present in the room. To approach him close, however, it was impossible due to the invisible wall.

At the end of the stage of each planet, a short bonus level began, in which the characters flew in space and had to shoot at asteroids, knocking out reinforces for their statistics. However, in the case of a collision with these space objects, transformers received damage.

Having passed the three planets mentioned above, the last. But only a battle with the final boss took place on it, during which the player was given under the control Fortress Maximus. This is a huge titanium that is many times superior to ordinary transformers. He fought with a depticon giant Skorponok (Guess who he is transformed into). As soon as the villain was defeated, Katszen was played with the names of the main characters flying somewhere in the night sky.

Naturally, there was no way to transform here. But there were 5 playable characters, which, however, opened gradually. Only an Autobot is available at first Chromd, And his comrades (Hardhad, Hybro, Brainstorm And Rodimus Prime) you need to "collect" as you pass. In the stages for transport, they are carried by helicopters, which first need to be knocked down, and in foot levels they simply lie on the floor. It’s funny that the same sprite spread to all of them;They differed only in color.

Various reinforcements for three parameters of the main characters could fall from opponents: health, strength and speed. Everything is clear with health. Power glasses increased not only the power of the weapon, but also the speed and number of cartridges that could be simultaneously fired. Speed, obviously, made a character faster. For example, in car mode, this helped to quickly drive terrestrial traps before they work and cause damage.

It is worth paying attention to the design of opponents. Even Mystery of Convoy With his strange enemies, he smokes quietly on the sidelines. In this game, one could meet not only flying cassettes and miniature spaceships, but also strange rings, balls, jellyfish, and even spiders in one location. Some specific desepticons that were in the animated series for some reason also made ordinary opponents. Burdiaev here really was a whole pack.

Speaking about technical aspects, in the game, unlike his predecessor, there was an opportunity to persist. This could be done on a map with the choice of planets. And the game itself made autosasal after stripping both segments of each level.

Famicom Disk System I went out in 1986, 3 years after Famicom. She added several innovations for the console. One of them was an additional sound channel that the game used for a thematic song. It was a full-fledged MIDI version of the opening track from the animated series, playing during the title screen. Background music in each of the levels also uses this possibility.

The Headmasters Surely was able to become the highest quality game from this four. She had the least problems, but the most diversity. Unfortunately, for some reason, after it, the game about transformers did not receive further development for the coming years. Over the next 10 years, they were exactly zero, even both games for Famicom never appeared on Nes. In the period from 1988 to 1990, two more animated series and one separate episode were published, as well as the first series with some changes was re -broadcast, however, they, unfortunately, did not create a single video game adaptation. "Transformers»Completely missed the fourth generation of consoles. For Takara This would be an additional opportunity to earn a little, because in those years the war between the two fractions of mechanical creatures attracted the attention of countless children’s eyes, and the transformers themselves flashed not only from TV screens, but also on the shelves of their little fans. Perhaps the dubious reputation of these games no longer allowed developers and publishers to take risks.

The game was released in 1993 Transformers: Generation 2 on its own separate portable console with a liquid crystal display. It was developed by the company Tiger Electronics, And at that time she released the darkness of such games.

The only thing she can boast of is … well, a steep shell!

This, by the way, is a reprint released in July 2020.

However, with the beginning of the new decade, the animated series itself was subsided, and the next was born only in 1996, and introduced the audience to the complete rethinking of the transformers as such, having launched the epic about the battle of animals, but about this somehow another time.