TRANSFORMERS: THE GAME is, as you probably guessed, based on the live-action Michael Bay-directed film of 2007. The film itself is based on an old 1980s cartoon series that featured two races of robots who had arrived on Earth after leaving their home planet, Cybertron; the races were the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons, and this game allows you to play as either race, with the former forcing you to defend Earth, and the latter destroying it.

The robots themselves have the unique ability to transform themselves into other shapes (mostly vehicles), and it was this that helped separate them from other robots when they first appeared in the 1980s. Being a former TransFormers fan I thought I'd check out this new game for the XBox 360. After all, getting to destroy robot foes and smash surroundings, sometimes being able to use your surroundings as weapons against your foes - not to mention transform from robot to vehicle and back - has got to be good, right?

But, what went wrong?

The first problem, which isn't a major hassle for me - because I accept that great graphics do not necessarily mean a great game - may well be a hassle for devoted next-gen fans. There really isn't anything in TRANSFORMERS: THE GAME that couldn't have been done on consoles prior to the 360. It's still quite satisfying watching your robot transform, and the indented footprints your robot leaves on the ground as it runs around are a nice touch.

Sounds are pretty good, with meaty explosions and metallic clanks as you shoot, blow up and do melee attacks against enemy robots or buildings etc. You also get nice robotic voices such as those of the leaders, with Optimus Prime (if you're with the Autobots) or Megatron (if you're with the Decepticons) giving you your orders as you play. Destinations are marked on your HUD, which is pretty easy to navigate, especially if you're used to games like CRACKDOWN.

Gameplay is, without a doubt, the biggest pain-in-the-neck about this whole experience. Constantly smacking robots around gets a bit dull after a while (and many of the missions involve this), and when it's not dull it's too intense! While you're trying to pick something up to lob at a bigger foe that requires different approaches to simply heading in there and smacking him one, you can often be surrounded by other robots and even some of the humans trying to destroy you, which can deplete your energy bar alarmingly quickly at times, leaving you in a blind panic as you try to get away from the action enough to locate a heart icon to pick up, or to destroy a minor baddie and hope that it drops a heart, as they sometimes do. Unfortunately on some occasions the restart points are very bad if you die, with some missions forcing you to restart the whole thing again. Very poor!

Another problem I've experienced when picking something up is that, if you are running to the object, you might kick or knock the object further back just before you were about to pick it up, meaning that your robot wastes time - and sometimes takes damage from human gunfire and robots - doing the picking-up motion only to be empty-handed when he stands up. A similar thing can happen if you're not quite standing in the right place when you press the Pick-Up button. Grr!

Oh, and while we're on the subject of being able to pick objects up to throw at foes, the target lock is pretty rubbish and only works if you remain facing roughly where your opponent is; the lock is lost if you deviate by too much over about 15 degrees either way, and it's very frustrating when you try and throw a tree or whatever at a robot and it misses because the lock didn't work properly.

While explosions are nice to look at, unfortunately sometimes the screen gets busy with lots of bits of fiery, exploding vehicles, buildings, robots etc, sometimes even making it hard to make out what's going on. Although your foes do appear on the HUD they are not always that easy to pinpoint in relation to your own position, as the icons are so big. Also, if you take a major knock you get flung backwards, and if this places you in an area surrounded by trees and/or buildings, for example, they can get in the way and completely obscure your view! There's no routine to make these items go translucent, unlike other games like CRACKDOWN.

Transforming into your robot's vehicle form is pretty cool, but some of the vehicle mechanics are rather hard to control, and if you're a car, such as Bumblebee or Jazz, these have a tendency to skid around the place - not good when you often have time limits in which to reach a certain destination! Also, you have to bear in mind that, while in vehicle form, you cannot put up your temporary shield to block attacks, but you can move faster.

A further complication when in car form is that the viewpoint could do with being a little bit higher, as the view ahead is sometimes largely obscured by your own robot due to the camera being too far behind it. Another annoying thing is that sometimes you can't even drive over or through very thin, flat objects that you logically should be able to - I even got stopped in my tracks by an antenna lying on the floor when I could plough through a great big coach and send it flying(!) - which is very frustrating.

But probably the biggest bugbear is the game's inconsistent difficulty level, seemingly alternating from 'not too bad, but a bit boring' to 'being really intense and giving you little chance in hell'! The thing is, many kids might show an interest in this if they loved the film, and they're being rewarded with a game that might consistently hand them their robot's remains on a plate with an evil cackle.

I really wanted to enjoy TRANSFORMERS: THE GAME; it shows some of the potential it could have had if it had been handled better, and elements of it are still quite fun, but instead left me feeling frustrated and looking elsewhere for my gaming kicks. Sorry, but if you value your sanity I'd think twice about getting this game.