- Publisher: Activision
- Developer: Luxoflux
- Also On: PS3
- ESRB Rating: “T” for Teen
- Genre: Action
- Pros: Tons of unlockables; decent gameplay; some battles are better than in the movie; Welker/Cullen are voice acting gods; multiplayer
- Cons: Presentation overall only so-so; gets pretty repetitive by the end; doesn’t follow the movie very well; no gratuitous shots of Megan Fox’s butt
One slight issue to start with is that the Revenge of the Fallen game doesn’t do a very good job of following the movie at all. The storyline is the same, sort of, but the characters and locations and everything else are all out of whack. Characters that weren’t even in the movie play major roles in the game, and other characters that were actually in the movie are nowhere to be found. For example, I would trade Autobot jet Breakaway for Sideswipe in a second. Likewise, what the heck is Sideways doing in this game? The only thing he was good at in the movie was sucking and dying. Also, arguably the best fight in the whole movie (Optimus Prime taking on an army of Decepticons in the forest) isn’t even in the game.
There are some definite positives here, too. You actually get to fight Devastator, which is pretty darn fun and far better than it was in the movie. Also, there are separate campaigns for the Decepticons and Autobots, so you get to see the story from both sides.
Perhaps the best part about the ROTF game is that there are a ton of unlockable goodies to open up including full episodes of the G1 cartoon, new character skins, and some nifty artwork.
Gameplay
There is some variety to the mission types – straightforward battles, escort, finding humans and carrying them to extraction points, etc. – but ultimately the missions are all about combat and by the end it gets sort of repetitive. The enemy A.I. is mostly braindead and you can count on them to follow the same patterns in combat, land on the same buildings, and pretty much just stand there and die as you shoot them. It is still fun, but it definitely drags by the end.
Revenge of the Fallen also offers some surprisingly good multiplayer fun. The maps and modes are standard third-perosn-shooter faire, but the transformation ability and the unique weapons and abilities of each of the characters make for some pretty darn fun deathmatch and team-based games. Playing humans is definitely more interesting than the A.I. and will extend the life and value of the game quite well if you get into it.
Graphics
One of the weaker aspects of ROTF is definitely the presentation. The characters are one of the few highlights here and the robot modes are pretty nice. The intricacies and detail of the actual transformations are completely lost, though, because they happen so darn fast. The environments you fight in are sort of bland, but at the very least don’t get in the way of the robot-on-robot action so you can’t complain too much. A bigger problem comes from the weak storytelling and general lack of cutscenes to actually tell you what the heck is going on.
Sound
The sound is a little better. The music is decent when you can hear it, but it is usually downed out by the sound effects from combat. The voice work is at the same time the best part about the game and the worst. Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprise their G1 roles as Optimus Prime and Megatron (and Soundwave for Welker) and are a definite highlight. The rest of the voice cast, including Shia “The Beef” LaBeouf and Megan Fox, all sound pretty flat and disinterested. Enemy robots also tend to spout the same catchphrases over and over again in combat.
Bottom Line
