PS3 Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers, love them or hate them, but you can’t look around without seeing that the show has certainly had an impact on people’s lives, ie: mine. When I heard there was going to be a live action movie, I flipped. I started to hunt down and try to capture any leaks that were on the net, anything to see how close they we’re going to keep with tradition with G1. As time went on and more and more was exposed, I became weary over the direction the film company was trying to take the franchise, but without actually seeing the movie there was no way I could tell that this was going to be a bad route. Like any fan after watching the film, I was disappointed. It was nothing like my fuzzy memories as a kid waking up early Saturday mornings and watching Transformers, almost everything was changed. It took me a long while to get the bitter taste of the Transformers movie out of my mouth before I could see it as a re-imagining as it were.
I looked at it naked (not literally), without thinking of the Transformers I knew and loved, and found out that it was a really good movie. My hope was that they would make a sequel, all they needed to do was to work right from the the ending of the first movie and we would all be set for one hell of a thrill ride. As we all know now, that was a false hope, and the movie collapsed under it’s own weight of anticipation, delivering more then we were willing to eat. It was like having dinner with an Italian family, sure they make good food but as soon as you say you’re done after eating a big helping of meatballs, pasta, with fresh bread and fruit, you suddenly realize that they plate you just finished off had magically filled it’s self back up with even more than before. Not wanting to be disrespectful, you finished it off even if your stomach tell you NO! and is threatening it will emancipate you if you eat any more.
Like any franchise, they like to branch off into different mediums to try to get that extra buck that they would have missed otherwise, and one step is always a video game. I know, I know, games based off movies, are never any real fun, and same goes for movies based off of games. But, I decided to try Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for the PS3, even after the last time I played the first one Transformers: The Movie, my PS3 got fried and had to get a replacement from Sony. I knew what I was expecting from playing the first one, so I thought I had nothing to loose and popped in this one.
Having a real urge to do some destruction, I quickly selected the Decepticon side. Like both sides, you have to play through a tutorial which I feel is something that should have been something you could skip instead of having it be your first level. Having a forced tutorial in any game sort of tells me that they believe that I won’t be able to get the control scheme on my own, instead I have to be had lead, sorry but this insults my intelligence, Once you’re through that, that’s when the real fun begins. There may not be the destruction one might want, or even expect in the game, there is a fair amount of things that you can either, kick out of your way or even smash through as you drive. But could it hurt to allow me to actually destroy buildings? I’m a thirty foot robot, with strength and speed humans have never seen but I can’t bring down a building. The levels being nicely detailed suffer from having to be boxed in, which doesn’t make sense to use when you have games like GTA or The Hulk, where you get the entire city in which to roam around and do missions if one see’s fit. The controls have been re-vamped from the first game, which is nice to see them get rid of the six-axis support, which in the heat of battle can actually work against you, but where they improved in one area they failed in another. The idea of having the “fire” button being the same as the “transforming” button, made intense battle awkward. You have to hold down a button to “aim” then while pressing the “fire” button, you can shoot you target, but when the game doesn’t register you holding down the “aim” you transform instead, leaving you in a spot to get shot at. The major upside to this game has got to be, that it feels like how the Transformers movies should have. Make it about the robots, and nothing about people. The major down side to this game is the very repetitive game play that I last felt in the game Manhunt. Every level was the same thing, destroy this, save that.
Even with all the pluses and minuses in this game, the only saving grace that kept me playing was the ability to play as Transformers to kiss the crap out of other Transformers.
6.5 out of 10
Not a buy, but it can’t hurt to rent.
