At a preview event in Europe yesterday, Transformers: The Game was presented to an underwhelmed crowed of journos, as the giant-robot action failed to meet high expectations set by the movie. Giant robots, guns, rockets, explosions - it's perfect videogame fodder.

We were shown a city-based level that demonstrated destructible scenery by having robots smashing through buildings. We were also shown the combat system as two robots squared up to each other.

But the physics engine lacked impact during combat and failed to portray the extreme force you would imagine a punch from a 30-foot robot to have.

Two robots stood in front of each other, throwing punches that seemed to have no physical effect until one eventually slowly fell to the floor.

Although the game's still in development, it also lacked the detail and polish we've come to expect from next-gen games. The environment looked bland and there was a distinct lack of people and traffic. Fingers crossed this will change though.

As another sandbox-type game, it has a long way to go before it approaches the quality of Microsoft's Crackdown. Look out for a full preview soon.

March 14, 2007