Review | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

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//One shall rise; one shall fall
All in all, though not pushing any limits, the presentation is passable – and it’s fair to say that it doesn’t damage the enjoyment that comes from playing as a giant robot. That’s what Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen allows you to do: run, jump, drive and fly around a level destroying other giant robots. It’s a lot of fun, but a few problems mean it occasionally becomes a little tedious.

Firstly, the variety of the missions is narrow. Mostly you’re tasked with simply destroying other Transformers. Luckily, this is good fun – once you’ve mastered the controls, that is.

Controlling your Transformers is a little awkward. The tutorial does a good job of helping you along but, it takes a while to master – it took me the best part of the Autobots campaign to truly get to grips with. The mapping of the controls to the pad isn’t bad, but it’s markedly different from what we’re used to. The main confusion with them is the multiple results of a single button, depending on which “mode” your Transformer is in. There are three modes – walking, vehicle, and weapons mode. From walking mode, you press and hold the right trigger to go into vehicle mode; from there you can fire from your vehicle with X; release the right trigger and you transform back to walking mode and X now performs melee attacks; hold left trigger and you go into weapons mode; now right trigger fires your weapons… let the confusion commence.

And it is confusing initially – especially the vehicle controls, which are very restricting with speed – but after you master them you’ll find yourself effortlessly switching between modes and pulling off fantastic moves with your Transformer. In the end, the control method works, and off the top of my head I can’t come up with a better one to perform the moves on offer so well.

After mastering the controls you’ll likely want to give the multiplayer a go. Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen offers the standard affair of multiplayer game modes – deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag variants, the usual collection – but the experience is quite different to that of other games. There is a much bigger emphasis on teamwork and strategy in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, mainly due to the special abilities.

Each Transformer can pull off a special ability. Bumblebee can use an EMP and stun nearby enemies, whilst Ratchet can heal nearby allies. It’s important to take into consideration what your team members can do, because good use of these abilities gives you a potential advantage over your opponents. These abilities really add strategic value to an otherwise standard multiplayer experience, prolonging the playability and making it much more engaging.

Move tie-in or otherwise, an action game’s primary aim is to be fun, and despite the flaws of Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen it still remains an enjoyable game. There’s something intrinsically enjoyable about the concept. Narrative aside, presentation aside, fighting with giant robots is awesome, and with a solid multiplayer on offer and two campaigns, you’re sure to be entertained.

7/10

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