Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen [PS3]

And that brings me to the game's biggest problem, which is the presentation. Or should I say, complete and utter lack thereof. Outside of the intro movie and some very poor and unhelpful blueprint-esque mission flyovers, you'll never really see any cutscenes that show you what's going on or give any weight to the situations (as they were) at hand. After each mission, you just go back to your side's hangout and someone will explain what's going on. With the, ahem, robotic animations of the Transformers, there's hardly any support to the rather lame dialog to help tell you what's going on.

There's not even a significant ending movie. You finish the last mission, someone describes what's happening while standing around, you see one of those stupid 3D blueprint fly-bys and then it's over. Given that this game carries the Transformers license, it'll probably sell more than a few copies, so was it too much to ask for some decent cinematics? Again, whatever influence Michael Bay could have ever had on this game was completely lost. Even if we just got scenes from the movie that would be something. But nope, we just get to see the Transformers stand around, wave their arms while they talk and that's it.

I ran into a handful of bugs while working my way through the game. In one escort mission, I was supposed to help a convoy of three cargo trucks get to where they were going. Near the end of the level I realized that only one truck was with me. A second was way, way behind, and the third was only about half-way through the level and was just sitting there, not trying to drive around or anything. I just left it there, ran ahead and it magically caught up at some point.

In another mission playing as the Autobots, I was supposed to kill a few waves of Decepticons, go talk to Sam and then fight a boss. After failing the mission once (this was one of only two missions that I died on the entire game), I chose to replay it. After beating the first wave of Decepticons, the next location I was supposed to go to never popped up on the screen. I ran around the level for five minutes while trying to trigger the next set before finally giving up and restarting again.

Thirdly, I was in the middle of a multiplayer session at one point and the game froze on me, forcing me to turn off the system.

Now, speaking of multiplayer, this is easily the most redeeming thing about the game. It's not amazing, but it's much more fun to fight actual people than the computer and the handful of included modes are all generally pretty fun. You'll get straight-up Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch options, along with a variant of Capture the Flag where you need to capture all five pieces of the All-Spark. There's a mode called One Shall Stand where your goal is to take out the other team's leader, and a Control Points mode that's something along the lines of what you'll find in Unreal Tournament.

Again, while it's not amazing, the multiplayer actually has some redeeming qualities to it, especially when you and your teammates work together to take down the other side's leader and makes use of each of their special abilities correctly.

Closing Comments
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen comes up short in a number of categories, due in large part to its repetition, odd control layout, poor AI and almost total lack of presentation. Running around and just shooting stuff has its merits, though it does get old after a bit. At least the multiplayer offers up a pretty good time for when you tire of the short single-player game.

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