For the most part, you will just be hacking and slashing your way through endless repetitive enemies. This brings me to the next issue; you will fight the same tiresome enemies over and over again. You will have an occasional boss fight with a more well known Autobot or Decepticon, but unfortunately these are just as tiresome and boring as the rest of the fights.
The overall goal for each mission is to get as much Energon as possible in the shortest amount of time. Energon is mostly gained from defeating enemies, but there are also a fair share of side goals that will give some extra. The time it takes to clear a stage will ultimately grant you a medal (bronze, silver, gold or platinum). Each medal will give you a certain amount of campaign points, ranging from one to five. These campaign points will be used to unlock new missions. But so long as you maintain a silver ranking, you’ll have no problem racking up the points you need.
The online mode is the one redeeming factor of this game. There are five different game modes: Death-match, Team Death-match, Battle for the Shards (Capture the Flag), One Shall Stand, and Control Points. One Shall Stand requires the player to protect the leader and kill the opposing team’s leader. Control Points is just a variation of zones. Overall, the online aspects are quite fun and having to fight actual people makes the experience much more enjoyable. But there is a significant drawback that should have raised a red flag for the development team. Whoever plays as one of the flying transformers, such as Starscream, has a huge advantage over other players during Deathmatch.
The visuals are a low-end mixed bag. Though the characters looks pretty similar to their movie counterparts, the graphical quality is decent at best. The characters look good, but the environments are barren and plain looking. The sound for the game is also less than pleasing. All of the Transformers, as well as a few humans, are voiced by the original actors. The issue with the sound is that it’s just so repetitive. Also, when you’re playing the Autobot’s campaign, no matter which character you choose you will always be referred to as ‘the Autobot’. It just feels like they dropped the ball there.
Overall, this game just reinforces the community’s viewpoint that movie-based tie-ins are disappointing and a waste of money. There’s not much of a story, despite the fact that there’s two and a half hours worth of storyline in the movie to use, and what is there isn’t well written. And on top of that, there’s repetitive missions, sub-par graphics, and bad audio work. It’s just too redundant to be enjoyable, and even the multiplayer has a huge flaw that should have been rectified. Even die hard Transformer fans won’t find many redeeming qualities in this game, which makes it a rental at best.
PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score
Controls can be frustrating, especially when driving. Multiplayer is pretty fun, but has a significant flaw since characters with flight abilities have a big advantage. |
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