Transformers 3d Battle-Card Game

Overall score:

Constructible Strategy Games are an interesting concept; they combine many elements of miniature games with Collectible Card Games with a, usually, simple punch-out and assemble construction method. The games are relatively cheap and take up very little shelf space, while most miniature-based games are notoriously expensive and take up lots of space. On top of that, CSGs tend to be fairly fun (even Raceday was pretty fun, though it never got a fair shake from the gaming community). So it comes as no surprise that Wizards of the Coast has decided to jump on the bandwagon, however, to this date only Wizkids’ Pirates line has done well in the CSG niche, and unfortunately Transformers 3d Battle-Card Game won’t be doing anything to extend the appeal of CSGs to gamers or non-gamers.

The first obstacle for Transformers is that it's based on a movie, which statistically gives it a very high probablity of sucking. This rule originated with video games based on movies, but it applies to every type of game--with the exception of some Star Wars games (and a handful of others), games based on movies tend to fail. This is either because the games themselves are horrible (the Lord of the Rings collectible minis game) or the core gaming market thinks they’re a joke and won’t buy them (the Queen's Gambit board game), or the non-gamers they are designed to attract don’t even know the games exist (Wizards' Star Wars CCG).

The Transformers game, based of the movie soon to be out, is the type that falls into all three categories. Its rules are stupid, and so simple a 5-year old would be bored with them; the figures look dumb when in robot mode (though the vehicles aren’t bad, on par with Raceday and Pirates); and the wording of the rules (however simple they are) is often confusing or lacking so that trying to actually figure out certain things is a chore. Worst of all, you don’t even need the figures to play—all you need is the stats card since the figures are just eye candy and are not even required to play.

The gameplay is an odd combination of “Guess what number I’m thinking of” and Hit Points. Each figure has a stats card that lists its total hit points, point value, base damage and three different attacks by color. To attack you merely chooses a color that corresponds to an attack, and if your opponent guesses the color you choose then your attack was successful. You then subtract the damage done from the robot’s Hit Points, and when you get to zero (on both tracks--one for vehicle form, and one for robot form) your robot dies. The twist to this is you can usually only transform when doing one specific attack for each robot, but the success of the attack doesn’t matter you just have to choose to use that attack. Of course your opponent is probably going to know when you’re going to transform when you get low on life so they’ll never choose that color, but if used often enough you could get some use out of it.

There really isn’t any movement to speak of, though there are ranges—short and long—and you move your transformer (or, let's be honest, the stat card itself) between ranges based off what the attack says. If you have a short ranged attack you automatically move adjacent, and if the attack says move to long range then you move apart. The only real game mechanic here is that some attacks get a bonus from long range (but may not move you to long range) so you have to anticipate your opponents attacks and move to a range that denies that bonus.

Which begs the question as to why then? Why have this be a figure/miniature based game if the miniatures don't matter in the actual gameplay? Fellfrosch, our ever vigilant, lazy, editor brought up a few good points when we were discussing this, comparing it to a game that actually uses the constructible minis aspect--Pirates of the Spanish Main:

1. The pirate ships look really cool, whereas the robots look flat and silly.
2. The pirate ships are actually used in the game (they move, they shoot, they check range and line of sight, etc.) whereas the robots don't even matter.
3. The constructible aspect of the pirate game is integral to play, because you remove masts to show damage and reduce combat effectiveness, whereas the constructible aspect of the robots is just as meaningless as the minis themselves, and they take too long to transform to bother doing it in-game. You can represent everything (range, transforming, etc.) just by moving and flipping the stat card.

It seems as you play this game that its only reason for existing is to justify Wizard’s recently awarded patent for Constructible Strategy Games. Despite the fact that Wizkids has already been using the constructible idea for three years, Wizards of the Coast apparently invented it (but has never used it before now) and has rushed out this simplistic, half-baked game to solidify their position, despite the fact that the constructible aspect is completely peripheral. This gives us not only a bad game, but a bad taste in our mouths.

In the end this is a bad use of everything: bad use of the Transformer license, a bad use of the CSG concept, and a bad waste of everyone’s time. This is literally the kind of game you could find on the back of a cereal box, and at that price (and for that audience) it might work. On the plus side, the vehicle form of the Transformers would work quite well as destructible objects in Heroclix--but that's virtually the only good thing that could be said about it.

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Written by Spriggan on June 13th, 2007