The hype machine is running at full tilt for the upcoming July 4 release of the Transformers film, Michael Bay’s big action-movie reimagining of the classic giant-robot cartoon and toy franchises that many adult gamers came to love in their halcyon youth. It’s not surprising–given the affection many such fans hold for the property–that excitement for the movie is running high right now. (We personally witnessed applause for the latest Transformers trailer on a recent theatrical visit.) It’s also no surprise that Activision, along with developers Traveller’s Tales, Savage, and Vicarious Visions, are prepping licensed games that tie into the movie for every conceivable platform. We recently got to try out almost all of them, including versions on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, the Wii, the PSP, and one of the two games coming out for the DS.

Getting to play as a giant robot–one that can stomp on everything in sight, climb up building faces, or pick up and hurl city buses–seems like a concept that sells itself. We have to admit, we giddily hammered on the “transform” button, changing from robot to car and back to robot for a good couple of minutes before we moved on to the rest of the game. In the console versions of Transformers, you’ll actually get two single-player campaigns; one from the perspective of the heroic Autobots and the other casting you as the duplicitous Decepticons. The Autobot storyline will follow that of the film’s, which (from what we know so far) focuses on the struggle of the good guys to keep the mythical AllSpark, the device which gives the Transformers life, out of the hands of the bad guys. However, when you choose to play as the Decepticons, you’ll actually get an alternate version of the movie’s plot, which envisions a scenario where the bad guys prevail over the forces of good.

Expect familiar Transformers to show up, albeit with some extensive makeovers.

No matter which side you’re playing, Transformers proceeds in an open-world fashion, where you’ll move around a hub area picking up story missions from hotspots on the map. Or you’ll just wreak robot havoc on the poor populace, if you feel like it. You’ll also pick up energon cubes hidden throughout the environment, and each time you collect 20 cubes, you’ll unlock new optional side tasks. These include scavenger and survival missions that you can complete to then unlock some nifty bonus content (more on that later). If you want to take a break from all the story and side missions, the game will offer an achievement system of sorts, whereby you’ll be ranked on performing flashy actions, such as power sliding in car form or hurling an object particularly far. Once you max out your performance in one of these categories, you’ll see an award for it on your pause screen, and these awards will also contribute to unlocking bonus content. There will also be several unique hub areas in which you can get all destructive. We got to see one set in a medium-sized town that afforded lots of opportunities for breaking and exploding things.

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