Huge mechanical armoured robots are a relatively common site in the gaming world as they offer the player an oppotunity to pilot a walking fortress of weaponary. This has been seen many times before in games such as the Armoured Core series. One of the biggest blockbusters of the year will see this concept return once again to the market with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Working with their new allies, the US Military, the Autobots are still battling it out with their arch enemies, the Decepticons in order to save the Earth. At the beginning of the game, you are given a simple choice, Autobot or Decepticon. These two campaign modes do tie in roughly with the film and both will give you ample gameplay value and time. They have enough variation in them to make it worthwhile playing through both. Story missions will take you around the world and before embarking on them, you will be given a briefing on your objectives and will also be able to upgrade your transformer with new weapons and other customisations. Whilst missions have some extent of diversity amongst them with objectives such as escort, defend ot destroy, a lot of them will have you doing the same sort of tasks again and again with only minor twists in the story.

 

As usual, each Transformer has their own battle techniques but fundamentally, they all have the same combat positions: Walk/Melee mode where you can move about in a humanoid form, Weapon mode for primary and secondary fore of your big guns and Vehicle mode which allows you to travel faster around the environments . Vehicles add diversity to the game and range from stunt cars to pickup trucks to helicopters and even jet planes.  Simple as it sounds, it will take a while to get used the controls as there are loads of complex button configurations to learn. This complexity is at its worst in Vehicle mode where the steering is stiff (especially in flying vehicles) and acceleration can be a bit jumpy therefore pulling off some of the advanced manoeuvres requires some degree of patience. Shifting from vehicle mode to robot mode while in the process of pulling of an attack manoeuvre requires a high level of skill as you will frequently end up facing the wrong way from your enemies leaving you vulnerable to attack.  Fortunately there is a detailed tutorial for even experienced gamers to practise the basics. 

Normally for each mission the choice of your Transformer is restricted but after completing a few challenges, you will be able to choose any Transformer for whatever mission you like allowing you to tackle the mission in a different way each time by playing to the strengths of you Transformer. This can turn the tide of battles as some Transformers are much more effective than others at different types of combat. While Transformers vary in range of weaponary, they each have their own unique ability such as stunning an opponent or setting out gun turrets. Fortunately, all that is required here is one tap of the triangle button so you will not need to resort to the problematic control configurations. In terms of AI, for such futuristic and siphisticated battle robots, it is somewhat lacking and enemy bots dno not do enough to make the feeling of combat fulfilling enough.

On a good HD display, all the transformers look great in their metal exoskeletons. Environments are also pretty sharp and have plenty of destructable features such as cars and other structures etc.  The transformers sound good on the whole, with only a couple having clunky robotic dialects . However, it is a shame the same cannot be said for their human counterparts.

The Mulitplayer mode is the final compent that flattens out the bumpy ride of the single player experience. As before, each Transformer has its unique primary, secondary and special ability. Online play consists of the conventional TDM and CTF styles of play but your using Transformers instead, giving a slightly different approach to a typical FPS. Once you have mastered the controls, the online play provides a good satisfying experience.

All in all, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen is a fast paced explosive experience that does reasonably well in sustaining the thrill of the movie. Although occasionaly boardering on tedious, it can be safely said that you will enjoy re-living the movie on your next-gen system.

+ Large variety of weapons and abilities.

+ Two  fulfilling campaigns.

+ Sharp and acute visials.

+ Solid multiplayer experience.

- Controls are over complicated.

- Occasional environmental glitch.

 7.1/10

By Ian Ratledge Posted Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 6:43 pm