Reviewed: June 24, 2009
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Activision

Developer
Luxoflux

Released: June 23, 2009
Genre: Action
Players: 1

7
7
7
7
7.3

Supported Features:

Luxoflux has taken over the franchise and they are pretty much asking that you forget the TT Games version ever existed. The dedicated team of designers not only know and love their Transformers the also listen to the fans, and for the past two years they’ve been scouring the message boards and taking notes on what the fans want from a Transformers game. Revenge of the Fallen is going to give those fans what they want.

This latest game takes the franchise for a new spin with an exciting story campaign that touches on a few key moments from the film (which I just returned from seeing) without really spoiling the film – or vice versa. Battles that are over in moments in the film can take several minutes to finish and hours to perfect.

The game is divided into two campaigns, Autobots and Decepticons, each with their own progression of missions that take place around the world in zones. Each zone has 1-3 missions, usually a story mission required to advance the campaign and a few follow-up missions where you must repair damage or hunt down remaining enemies. You can spin the globe and pick a zone and a mission and replay previous missions to best your previous scores.

Revenge of the Fallen has more than 20 missions. Interestingly enough my average time for completing each was around 7 minutes but keep in mind the game mandates a challenging blend of speed and thoroughness. You must always keep an eye on the clock that dictates medals ranging from Bronze to Platinum, but you must also complete you primary and any optional secondary missions, which add to your Energon score used to boost your attributes between missions. Obviously, you’ll want to play missions several times in order to accomplish all the goals and get the best medal.

Between missions your team assembles in the high-tech war room where you can assign Energon to any of numerous attributes from health and turbo to weapon cool down and melee damage. Each attribute has three levels of ranking and it will take numerous mission replays to earn enough Energon to max out the entire set, but it is only by improving these attributes that you stand a chance of earning the highest medals in some missions. You really have to know the game and the capabilities of each Transformer to form your completion strategy.

One thing I loved about the war room was the seamless integration of mission feedback into the cutscenes. In the case of the Autobots, Optimus Prime would make comments on your speed, thoroughness, or attention to sparing collateral damage. These comments flowed quite naturally into the regular story dialogue but were totally relevant to your recent performance. In one mission where I failed to even earn a Bronze Optimus commented that watching me (in that last mission) was like watching paint dry. The other Transformers will offer their own feedback to these comments. It’s much like a post-game locker room conversation.

While certainly not as linear as the last game, you still have to follow the main storyline missions, which will in turn unlock optional secondary missions in each zone. The game will advance your path around the globe so don’t be surprised when the end credits role and you are only 50% complete with the campaign. A quick spin of the globe will reveal all new missions, but hopefully you have found them before then, since completing these secondary scenarios will give you much-needed Energon to get you through the tougher final levels.

This year Transformers gets the multiplayer system that fans demanded. You have the standard DM and Team DM but the main modes everyone will gravitate to are team-based where each character has been carefully balanced to complement their teammates as well as correspond with an anti-character on the opposing team. Optimus Prime will enhance the abilities of his teammates just by being within his commanding presence, or you might want to play a brawler, a sniper, or a healer who runs around repairing their damaged teammates.

There are some pretty original and interesting modes like One Shall Stand, where everyone on your team can respawn, at least as long as your leaders, Optimus and Megatron, are still alive. If a team leader falls you have 60 seconds to kill the opposing leader or you lose the match, and the person who killed the opposing leader gets to play as their leader in the next match. My first game I found myself as Megatron and it was pretty cool to have your entire team flock around you like bodyguards. But sooner or later they have to leave your side to go hunt down the opposing leader.

Control Points divides the players into teams where they battle to take control over various points around the city. It’s a tug-of-war style game mode where you can only take possession of a node if you already control the nodes leading up to that one. I am a huge fan of Battle for the Shards, where you race around the map collecting pieces of the AllSpark then returning them to your base CTF-style. The only hitch is that you cannot transform into a vehicle while carrying the shard.

Fans of the Autobots will have the chance to select: Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Breakaway, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Aerialbot and Protectobot. The final two are multiplayer exclusives. Those who embrace the dark side will find plenty of Decepticons like: Starscream, Sideways, Megatron, Long Haul, Grindor, and Seeker (another multiplayer-exclusive). Expect to see several characters in the game that won’t appear in the movie, both as multiplayer exclusives and as planned future DLC.

While the game certainly isn’t lacking in content or modes of play, I do have a few concerns with the controls. First off is the transform method of holding down the RT to stay in vehicle mode. This trigger is usually associated with firing, but in this game you must first hold down LT to enter firing mode. Even after about 15 hours of gameplay I still instinctively transform when I want to fire. There is also a problem with Breakaway and Starscream where your direction is reversed at the moment of transformation if you are standing still. This can be extremely disorienting as I found myself constantly bouncing off buildings and the transparent blue borders of the game world.

Of course the new control scheme also adds to the combat with a new advanced melee mode where you can hold down the attack or jump buttons while in vehicle mode then transform back while holding down those buttons to jump really high, ground pound, or perform an advanced melee attack. There is a new Overdrive feature that slowly builds up as you do well in combat and once triggered you are temporarily invulnerable and do massive damage – usually one shot kills on all but the largest of enemies.

Transformer fans all know that Autobots drive and Decepticons fly (for the most part) but this time around we have a few new additions to each side to balance things out. Even Optimus earns his wings by the end of the game. Thankfully, the flying is much easier to control than the driving in this game. Most levels are rather small with narrow roads and plenty of obstacles and given the breakneck speeds you drive at, the game is quite unwieldy when driving.

When it comes to presentation value, we have quality and we have mediocrity. The opening movie, menus, interface, and pre-mission cutscenes are some of the best. I love the interface and navigating the team power-ups, unlocks, and other screens is a snap. Once in the game I found the cities and other environments a bit plain. In many ways I enjoyed the levels of the first game more than this. Buildings were rather bland and nothing really stood out in architecture or textures. Even the Autobots and Decepticons seem to have been reduced in complexity and level of animation. There is certainly more action on the screen at any given time than the first game, so I guess sacrifices had to be made, but the whole thing just lacks the polish I was hoping for a sequel.

The music is fantastic as are the numerous sound effects for all the vehicles, weapons, and voices. It’s great when you are playing multiplayer and you can hear the thumping rotors of Grindor overhead or the telltale whine of Bumblebee’s Chevy engine whining down the road. The movie cast lends their talents to the game, although I use the word “talents” loosely when it comes to a horrible performance by Megan “where’s my acting coach” Fox and an annoyingly repetitive list of one liners from Shia (Sam) who keeps recycling Optimus quotes during the final battle.

There are a few technical glitches with the sound including some minor dropouts in moments of heavy activity where one or more sound layers would drop out. This happens in solo and multiplayer. There are also some significant level balancing issues in the war room conversations where some characters are barely audible and others are normal or even loud. It may or may not be worth noting that I had to crank this game up five additional notches on my amp to achieve the same volume level as any other Xbox 360 game in my library.

Revenge of the Fallen gives you plenty of reasons to keep playing beyond the story and multiplayer. There is a lengthy list of unlockables that you earn by performing certain feats during the game, but these are much more than just new skins or new robots. Buried on the game disc are numerous animated episodes from the Transformers series as well as artwork, posters, and videos. Plus, you have a nice assortment of challenging Achievements to earn spread across single and multiplayer modes. For diehard Transformer fans, expect 30-40 hours of solid gaming before you even consider moving on to something else. Casual and solo gamers can easily get 6-8 hour per campaign or 12-16 hours total.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is definitely a major step in the right direction. But at the end of the day I can only recommend this game to Transformer fans. The solo play is interesting for a bit, but quickly gets repetitive. A few missions really stand out – like the Naval fleet defense – my personal favorite, but after about 4-5 hours the game started to feel like work, grinding for Energon and rushing through missions to earn medals. Did I mention I despise games with timers? And while the multiplayer is much appreciated, again, only Transformer fans are going to find it interesting for more than an hour or two. There are much better and rewarding online games out there.

So my final score is based entirely on my personal experience with the game and the franchise. Fans will certainly enjoy all aspects of Revenge of the Fallen much more than I did, so take my review and the score with a grain of salt and adjust for your own love of the Transformer universe.